How Los Angeles Dodgers’ plan to win over Japan has begun

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Seiko Watanabe stood near the path leading to the baseball fields at the Los Angeles Dodgers' spring training facility on a recent weekday morning, wearing a white Shohei Ohtani jersey purchased at the team's store one day earlier. She kept one eye on her 6-year-old son – outfitted in a Dodgers cap, a Dodgers glove and a blue Dodgers shirsey with Ohtani's number 17 on the back – and the other on a next door from which the players generally emerge. .

Two days earlier, Watanabe had traveled nearly 6,000 miles from his Japanese hometown of Yokohama in hopes of catching a glimpse of Ohtani, with no guarantee of an autograph or even interaction.

“I just want to see him,” she said. “This is my dream.”

Twelve months ago, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman sat in the stands in Miyazaki, Japan, watching the Japanese national team practice for the World Baseball Classic and thought of people like Watanabe. He was struck by the thousands of fans who showed up, but also by how their loyalties were divided among a half-dozen Major League Baseball teams. He imagined them all wearing Dodgers gear instead. That image stuck with Friedman and his front-office lieutenants throughout 2023 — and caused them to allocate more than $1 billion to Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

“I think the passion for baseball there is as strong, if not stronger, than in any other country in the world,” Friedman said. “And so, in an ideal world, in the next five to 10 years, we'll have kids growing up as Dodgers fans.”

The Dodgers have yet to play their first game of 2024 – which will take place Thursday, in an exhibition game against the division rival San Diego Padres, at 3:10 p.m. ET on ESPN – but their status as The predominant MLB team from Japan is already becoming clear.

Dodgers brand wine has been sold in liquor stores in Japan; Japanese publications previewed the Dodgers' upcoming season as faithfully as any local team; and former Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo's iconic No. 16 jersey has been popping up all over Camelback Ranch, the spring training home of the Dodgers. In the two months that encompassed Ohtani's decision to be a free agent and Super Bowl Sunday, the Dodgers were searched on Google twice as often in Japan as in the United States.

“Every day you see the news about the Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto,” Watanabe said. “Every channel. Every evening newscast, you see it.”

A dozen Japanese photographers and videographers stationed themselves on the outskirts of the Dodgers' facility each morning shortly after sunrise, waiting to capture Ohtani and Yamamoto as they walked toward the players' parking lot. Ohtani's first interview session, on February 9, was attended by approximately 70 accredited members of the media. Later in the afternoon, at least as many people stood along a rope line to watch Yamamoto, Nippon Professional Baseball's MVP three years in a row, warm up with fellow Dodgers starter Walker Buehler.

“Obviously baseball is covered differently than other sports, and when you get the personalities and the following that these two guys have, it feels a little more like Sunday football every day,” Buehler said. “I think it's great for us as a team, great for a lot of guys on our team who are going to get more attention for what they're doing and for our team as well. You can kind of go back to the World Baseball Classic. and the coverage, the energy and the atmosphere that it provides. I think it's good that the game is covered this way.

The Dodgers had established a foothold in Japan in the mid-1990s, when Nomomania swept Los Angeles. Nomo won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1995 and finished in the top five in Cy Young voting for a second straight time the following year. He passed away shortly afterward, but his presence and prowess spawned a generation of people in Japan who would become Dodgers fans.

Since then, the biggest Japanese stars – Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka, not forgetting Ohtani when he arrived in the big leagues in 2017 – have signed elsewhere. But with this winter's actions, the Dodgers have reclaimed their title as the Japanese team, at least in the mind of Scott Okamoto, a lifelong Angelino who has followed the Dodgers since the 1970s.

A little less than two years ago, Okamoto launched a podcast, “Asians in Baseball,” about Asian representation in the major leagues, alongside Kim Cooper and Naomi Ko, two women in their 30s who discovered the sport thanks to the hype around Chicago. The Cubs' World Series title in 2016 and fell in love with it while watching Ohtani establish himself as a two-way star in 2021. Ohtani's influence in Japan in the 2020s evokes Michael Jordan's imprint on the American culture in the 1990s.

“Everyone from your 90-year-old grandmother to your toddler has heard the name Ohtani in Japan,” Okamoto said. “It’s so ubiquitous.”

Ohtani's introductory press conference on December 14 was broadcast by five different networks in Japan and attracted a global audience of 70 million people. His Dodgers jersey set a Fanatics sales record within 48 hours of its release, breaking a mark previously held by soccer star Lionel Messi, when he joined Inter Miami.

The Dodgers, who are not giving details on ticket sales, are almost certain to reach the 4 million spectator mark for the first time this season. The Angels, according to sources, have earned about $20 million a year in additional sponsorship and marketing revenue by employing Ohtani over the past six years, and league sources expect the Dodgers – a much more global brand to begin with – are doing much better. The immediate tangible gains are obvious. What's harder to understand is what this will mean in the long term.

“I don’t think we understand the magnitude of this,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said.

Perhaps Rōki Sasaki, the 22-year-old Japanese sensation the Dodgers and 29 other teams are salivating over, will prioritize Los Angeles when he is assigned in the near future. Perhaps the generation that follows him will do the same, having grown up in an era when their idols wore Dodger Blue.

“I certainly think that had to be part of the calculation,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who was born in Okinawa, Japan.

“We've talked a lot over the years about doing everything we can to be a destination place, where our own players don't want to leave, where players from other teams look longingly at the Dodgers and want to play there.” , Friedmann said. “And to the extent that that can extend to the elite players who will be playing in NPB over the next 15 or 20 years, that’s even better.”