MLB is Loving the Ohtani Effect

One of the few positions Shohei Ohtani hasn’t played is relief pitcher, but he may have saved baseball. 

Every time the Japanese slugger — maybe the best two-way player ever — steps to the plate, he’s not just helping the Los Angeles Dodgers chase a World Series title. He’s also helping league commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB conquer the world.

Who’s on First?

MLB has been wearing its rally cap for a while now. Last year’s World Series drew an average of 9 million viewers per game, making it the least-watched championship series in league history, followed by 2020, 2021, and 2022. For reference, an average of 24 million viewers tuned in to the 2004 World Series.

This year’s post-season — featuring Ohtani’s first-ever playoff appearance and a World Series showdown between the Dodgers and fellow big-market behemoth the New York Yankees — has been different. And its audience is putting the “world” in World Series:

• Friday night’s Game 1 extra-innings thriller averaged 15.2 million US viewers for Fox, good for the largest Game 1 audience since 2017. Game 2 drew 13.8 million viewers. 
• Across the Pacific, 14.4 million Japanese viewers tuned in to Game 1, MLB announced Monday, and 15.9 million Japanese viewers tuned in to Game 2, which also featured Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting for the Dodgers. That means roughly 12% of Japan’s entire population has been tuning in during breakfast.

Growing the Game: Developing a major international presence can be a key path to growth for non-football sports leagues in America, where the NFL and college football reign supreme. The NBA — which hasn’t had an American-born MVP since the 2017-18 season — has cashed in on a growing global footprint: It generates roughly $715 million annually in non-US media rights deals, good for about 20% of its total media rights revenues, according to Ampere Analysis data. And more global eyes mean even more revenue-generating opportunities. MLB has already felt the Ohtani effect. In the past two years, the number of Japanese brands advertising in MLB stadiums has leapt from 11 to 35, according to SponsorUnited’s 2024 MLB Marketing report. For those of you keeping score at home, those are among the 56 global brands that advertised in MLB stadiums this year.