MLB Playoffs: Japan Outpaces U.S. in Viewership As Ohtani Mania Reigns

The 2024 Major League Baseball postseason has been a viewership hit domestically. Now, it’s becoming clear how big a deal it is internationally, too.

The league said Thursday that the decisive Game 5 of the National League Division Series between the Dodgers and Padres played Oct. 11 drew an average audience in Japan of 12.9 million viewers. The figure—easily surpassing a comparable U.S. average of 7.5 million for the elimination contest—set a new high as the most-watched MLB postseason game in Japan. The Japanese figure also surpassed television ratings from the last three times the league has played in Tokyo. 

Game 1 of the Dodgers-Padres NLDS series, marking the MLB postseason debut of Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, drew an average audience of 9.1 million, a figure roughly tripling the comparable U.S. figure of 3.1 million.  

Those totals are happening despite a 16-hour time difference between Tokyo and the U.S. West Coast that results in many games being shown in Japan’s morning hours. In addition to the time difference, Japan is also outdrawing the U.S. in some MLB playoff viewership despite the obvious North American base of the league and a U.S. population size that is nearly three times the size of Japan’s.

Capitalizing on a Legend

The key driver of the robust numbers, of course, is the presence of Japanese-born Ohtani in the playoffs for the first time in his MLB career. Before the playoffs started, the league made that milestone a focus of its international marketing, as well as Ohtani’s historic season as MLB’s first player with 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a season.

In particular, the league constructed 113 billboards in Tokyo depicting each one of those homers and steals. Beyond Ohtani, though, the Dodgers-Padres NLDS series also featured a Game 5 pitching clash of San Diego’s Yu Darvish and Los Angeles’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto, marking the first postseason starting-pitching matchup of all Japanese-born players.

The international viewership also builds on strong U.S. results for the playoffs that have included an 18% viewership gain through the wild-card and Division Series rounds. The National League Championship Series between the Mets and Dodgers is posting the best start for that postseason round on any network since 2015, while the American League Championship Series with the Yankees and Guardians drew an average of 5.6 million viewers, up 28% from the comparable game last year and TNT Sports’ best MLB postseason figure so far this year. 

Japanese viewership from the LCS round has not yet been released, but given the Dodgers’ continued playoff march, it’s quite possible the record from the Division Series will be short-lived.