Record-Setting Tokyo Series Maintains MLB’s World Series Momentum

As expected, Major League Baseball’s season-opening trip to Japan is the league’s largest stand-alone international event in league history.

The league said Friday that the two-game series earlier this week at the Tokyo Dome between the Dodgers and Cubs set an array of records for viewership, attendance, and merchandise sales—showcasing the soaring popularity of the league in Japan and the rabid fan reception for the homecoming of native-born stars such as Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki. 

The historic totals included an average audience of 25 million in Japan for the first game, smashing the record for MLB viewership in the country set during last fall’s World Series. The second game then nearly matched it with an average of more than 23 million. Adjusted for Japan’s population, such figures are greater than what the recent AFC championship game drew in the U.S. The games happened during prime time for Japanese viewers, contrasting with the early-morning airing there of the World Series. 

Even a set of four exhibition games preceding the season-opening contests—also involving two Nippon Professional Baseball teams—drew big numbers in Japan, averaging 11.6 million across all platforms.

Back in the U.S., the first Dodgers-Cubs game drew an average of 838,000 viewers on Fox, while the second on FS1 averaged 350,000—despite the fact that the games started at 3 a.m. local time in Los Angeles and at 5 a.m. in Chicago. Collectively, U.S. viewership surpassed last year’s Seoul Series between the Dodgers and Padres by 59%.

The two games, along with the four prior exhibitions, also drew a combined attendance of 252,795 at the Tokyo Dome. The MLB Tokyo Series Fan Fest attracted more than 450,000 fans over a 12-day run, representing the most-visited fan festival of any type in league history. 

MLB, meanwhile, had the best merchandise sales of any international event in its history, beating the prior record-holder, the 2024 London Series, by 320%. 

The league went into the trip with lofty expectations, as did fans who drove ticket resale prices to Super Bowl–type levels and then saw two lively sellout crowds cap a weeklong celebration of baseball in Japan. 

The Dodgers, led by newly extended manager Dave Roberts, won both games in Japan, beginning a World Series title defense in perfect fashion.