On the morning of the second and final day in the Major Legue series of the Bibul in Tokyo between Chicago Ashbar and Los Angeles Dodger on March 19, snow dust fell on the Japanese capital – which is very rare for more than a year with cherry blossom.

But this did not praise more than a thousand people from lining up to shop in the MLB store, which is running 1100 square feet outside the Tokyo dome when it was opened that morning.

This is a reflection of the type of influence that Shohei Ohtani has on MLB works in Japan, which is only a growing impact since it signed a professional sporty record at that time for 10 years, and $ 700 million held with Dodgers in Dodgers in the National League MVP and Sellent MV.

Last year, the fanatics, who runs MLB goods in the world, witnessed a 170 % increase in MLB sales on an annual basis in Japan, according to Nuri Quwana, the administrative director of East Asia for fanatics. In the past five years, the goods related to O Athani constituted 57 % of all MLB sales in the MLB store in Japan and fanatics in Japan, while Dodgers Merchandise sales increased by more than 2000 % on an annual basis since he signed with the team, Kawana said.

Japan has a deep history of baseball, which is the most popular sport in the country for both spectators and participants. The MLB also had a long relationship with the country, returning to the BABE Ruth and Lou Gehrig players in Japan’s exhibition games in Japan to the deeper relationship between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball.

Noah Garden, MLB’s deputy delegate of business and media, said that Japan is the largest trade market in the league outside the United States and Canada, which is something they attribute to these long -term investments.

“This does not happen overnight,” Garden said. However, he added: “Then I got a talent in a lifetime.”

Garden said that when MLB looks around the world, “commercials are generally backward from Vandum with some ticks.”

In Japan, where MLB is “just scratching the surface,” Garden said, “The opportunities explode.”

The first match of the Tokyo series for this year was watched by 25 million viewers in Japan, according to MLB, where it scored a new record in the most viewed game in the country-the population of Japan is about 125 million. The average of the second match was more than 23 million viewers.

Although it is not compared to the accurate apples of apples, the average number of global viewers in the United States has reached 15.8 million viewers in the United States (and 12.1 million in Japan where games began in the morning).

MLB plans to feed the growing fans base in Japan with the content. The league has long had an office in the country, and recently expanded the original Japanese content and translation of the MLB application and MLB.com. It also adds a news message and a content center that follows the Japanese -born players. In addition to updating the MLB Gameday product, which provides tracking game and advanced statistics, to be in Japanese.

Garden said that an increasing audience changes the way the league thinks about holding the rights of the upcoming media, as both international and local deals end after the 2028 season. Garden said: “When the next group of deals end, you will find people looking for rights all over the world, especially banners.” “The amount of people participating in the game and watching the game at the international level, I think it has opened everyone’s eyes.”

For the Tokyo series, the games were located locally on NTV via air, as well as broadcast on Amazon Prime.

This is also transferred to care, as American companies see an opportunity to continue storming the Japanese market, while Japanese companies are able to do things with MLB locally, but also reach American consumers. In the past two years, MLB 14 has signed new sponsors in Japan, and the Tokyo series was the largest international sponsorship event in the league ever, which led to an increase of 240 % in revenue compared to the Seoul 2024 series that played in Seoul, South Korea.

“We benefit from all this kind of rapprochement at the same time,” Garden said.

Garden said the league expects the Tokyo series “the most successful international game we have done.”

The two matches between the cubs and the prevailing materials were immediate sales, as well as exhibition games held between MLB teams and local Japanese games. The demand was very high, and games were broadcast in about 150 movies in Japan.

MLB said that the Tokyo series recorded the best sales of goods for any MLB International event, as sales collected the 2024 London series by 320 %. Sales in the store in the Tokyo dome exceeded every week MLB All-Star, as more than half a million products were sold. It is not surprising, that the most popular element was a shirt from Ohtani with the Tokyo chain corrected.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred The New York Times was told It is expected that the Tokyo series will record records in all fields for a special event in the league, and can bring 35 million dollars. However, he said that the biggest goal is to develop the total league business there: “We believe that there are bonuses in B: billions.”

This growth will only continue as a pronounced, along with other Japanese -born players such as Rocky Sassaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the Cubs Sota Emmana and Sayyia Suzuki are still affecting MLB. But the challenge facing MLB and its partners in reaching this noble goal is to build the rest of the league players in Japan as well.

David Liner, head of trading cards for fanatical holdings, said that Topps is overseeing that Fandom around baseball in Japan is undeniable, with a lot of support not only for Japanese MLB stars but local NPB teams as well.

“Topps has grown its business to the eight numbers in the country,” “Linner said.”

The company also holds Japanese and football championships licenses, as well as other recreational properties, and Liner said that fanatics see the possibility of the market to be more than nine numbers.

Linner said that Japanese baseball cards are not completely different from that American, but one of the important differences is the amount of what they look forward to supporting players from their country. “Do they want Derek Giter? [card] Or Mike Trout [card]? Of course, but they tend a little more towards Japanese players in MLB, and there is a lot of pride in it. “

Linner said this leads to Vanu, from the teams played by Japanese players, and this sticks over time – for example, there is a group of Seattle Mariners fans in Japan because of the time of Echiro Suzuki with the team. But there are other examples of being a passing phenomenon, as the Japanese fans flocked to one player and then stopped following up closely when this player left MLB. Now, the growth of Japanese players and their impact within the league helps build a wider Vandum for MLB.

Last season, there were 10 Japanese -born players on MLB lists on the opening day, which is more than 2013 when he was 11 years old. While this greatly extends some other countries represented in the league, such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela-which had 108 and 58 players in the opening lists, respectively-the few countries can match the strength of the stars in the current group of Japanese players. MLB has not yet requested the difference to finish the touches on the opening day of the opening day, but the number of Japanese players is expected to grow.

Koana, who is based in Tokyo, said that although Japanese fans were historically focused on the player, he is now witnessing growth in the Fandom team, especially because it has become easier to follow these teams.

The presence of MLB teams on Earth did not harm either. Before this year, it was the last time that MLB played official games in Japan in 2019, and Garden said that the league hopes that when he agreed to the new CBA, it is scheduled to end in 2026, it will come “bigger [international] Plan. ”

MLB will host a list of games in Monterrey, Mexico, later this month.

Garden said: “These types of things are years of making, and it takes a long time to participate at the youth level until they really ripen,” Garden said. “You see her crowning now, and this should be included in a new era of prosperity for MLB and baseball in Asia.”