During the early innings of a nighttime exhibition between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Yomiuri Giants, Nori Kawana walked through the concourse of the Tokyo Dome in disbelief.
As the head of Fanatics’ East Asia operation, Kawana leads MLB’s merchandising in Japan, and the day had already set his company’s sales record in Asia. He was willing to bet no other sports retailer had ever had a better day in the region, either.
Seemingly every other fan at the Dome wore national hero Shohei Ohtani’s No. 17 jersey. Some 20 minutes after Kawana stopped to talk to a reporter, Ohtani ripped a home run to right field, and the frenzy continued.
Just outside the Dome, fans streamed through a 31,000-foot MLB retail store, even as it grew late on a Saturday. Fanatics and MLB clocked an average of 1,100 transactions every hour across 140 registers. League commissioner Rob Manfred said:
💬 “The Tokyo series is going to be the biggest standalone international event in the history of Major League Baseball.”
If MLB has its way, the series will also serve as a beginning.
GO FURTHER
MLB wants Japan to cheer for more than the Dodgers and Ohtani. The prize could be billions
