Japan has been baseball-obsessed for generations, but Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani‘s first World Series is powering the game to unseen levels of popularity in the country.
The second game of the World Series between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees attracted an average of 15.9 million viewers in Japan, around 12 percent of the population.
The Dodgers’ stirring 4-2 victory over the Yankees — which featured a strong game of pitching by Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but had fans holding their breath when Ohtani exited in the 7th inning with a shoulder injury — was the most-watched MLB postseason game ever in Japan.
The U.S. actually slipped below Japan for the first time as the second-biggest TV market for baseball during the game. About 13.8 million viewers in the U.S. — home to a much larger population of 346 million — watched the game, according to data released Monday by Major League Baseball and Fox Corp.’s sports division.
Japan is 16 hours ahead of Los Angeles, so the first two games of the series started at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning there. The games are being aired in the country by Fuji TV, NHK BS and J Sports.
The Dodgers announced that Ohtani will play in Game 3 of the World Series in New York, ensuring that Japanese fans will again be watching in enormous numbers.
The high-profile showdown between the two most valuable franchises in baseball — the Dodgers and the Yankees — has become a ratings bonanza for Fox Sports, which is airing the games stateside. So far, viewership is on track to hit highs not seen since the 2017 World Series. Perhaps more importantly for the game’s future, viewership among 18 to 34 year-olds, a coveted demographic for advertisers, is up 93 percent this series, according to Nielsen. And social media views (345 million) and engagement (25 million) have been the highest in World Series history, according to the league.
