Dodgers president Stan Kasten told SBJ that his team’s popularity has reached a “whole different level” with its popularity in Asia.Getty Images

Dodgers executives knew the Shohei Ohtani effect would provide a financial windfall at home. But even they are stunned by Ohtani’s impact — sparked by his first postseason performance — along the Pacific Rim.

“We’ve always been, I think, the most popular team in Asia,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten told SBJ. “But now it has reached a whole different level, in a way we couldn’t have predicted.”

An estimated 12.9 million viewers in Japan watched Game 5 of the NL Division Series – which pitted Japanese starters Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers and Yu Darvish of the Padres – making it the most-watched MLB postseason game ever in the country. “Who would have thought that?” Kasten said.

And that viewership should only grow when Ohtani plays in his first World Series against the Yankees on Friday night in LA.

The Dodgers brought in twelve new sponsors from Japan this year. And that portfolio is expected to grow in 2025, with the team opening the regular season against the Cubs in Tokyo on March 18 and 19. “What will that be like?” Kasten said. “I can’t even imagine it, but I think it will be fun.”

An increase in Asian customers at Dodger Stadium in 2024 has led the team to offer more Asian food items at the stadium. It has also led to an increase in the number of daily stadium tours, in different languages, no less.

“I can’t walk to any part of my stadium on a day when I don’t see a tour group,” Kasten said. “It was an amazing thing. He’s incredibly popular throughout LA. You will see pictures of him. And photos of (his dog) Decoy, everything. That’s something we didn’t expect.”

Aside from the gambling scandal involving his former interpreter – Ohtani was acquitted by federal authorities – the first year of his tenure with Dodger Blue was an overwhelming success.

“As I have said from the beginning, and the MLB will confirm it, the combination of our profile and Shohei’s profile is baseball putting its best foot forward,” Kasten said. “It’s good for baseball domestically, and very good for baseball internationally.”

The Dodgers drew nearly four million fans this season, with an MLB-best 3,941,251 (48,657 per game). They also led the league in road attendance (36,253 per game). Ohtani’s number 17 jersey was the best seller in baseball. A report in USA Today stated that the team’s outfield wall would generate $6.5 million in advertising this year, up from $500,000 in 2023 (Kasten would neither confirm nor deny that).

The Dodgers would generate an estimated $30 million or more in new revenue, the best among U.S. professional sports teams this year, SportsUnited founder and CEO Bob Lynch told SBJ’s Terry Lefton in July.

“I won’t give you numbers, but you wouldn’t believe the numbers if I gave them to you,” Kasten said. “They were really impressive and significantly exceeded our expectations.”

After signing a 10-year, $700 million deal (with a whopping $680 million deferred), Ohtani posted the first 50-homer, 50-steal season in MLB history. The bidding war over his 50th home run milestone ball from his three-homer, 10-RBI performance in Miami on September 19 fetched a record $4.39 million at auction.

“Shohei is such a different experience,” said Kasten, “before this season, 50-50 wasn’t even dreamed of. ‘A man cannot do these two things. And he hasn’t even thrown yet.”

Ohtani-Mania reached a fever pitch on August 28, as fans lined up hours before the first pitch to get their hands on a coveted bobblehead featuring the superstar slugger holding Decoy. The first 40,000 fans received a Shohei-Decoy bobblehead, but there were also 2,000 special gold editions of the collectible, which only boosted demand. The bobbleheads quickly struck the secondary market, with one seller asking $20,000 for a gold edition on eBay.

“In retrospect, we shouldn’t do that anymore because it created a frenzy that we had never seen before,” Kasten said. “Next time we will be better prepared. …They didn’t have to stand in line at 9 o’clock in the morning. That wasn’t necessary. We’ve never had that problem before, and we won’t again.”

The Guggenheim Group bought the Dodgers in 2012 for $2.15 billion. Forbes now values ​​the team at $5.45 billion, behind only the Yankees. Last season, LA spent more than $1 billion on contracts for Ohtani and Yamamoto (12 years, $325 million).

“We never wanted to be (the) Evil Empire,” Kasten said. “We want to be a perennial contender, and we have been. I don’t consider the Yankees bad. I never did that. I certainly never thought of us that way. I can tell you who doesn’t think we’re bad: almost four million people a year.

“They think we provide great entertainment, and I like to say that our fans have invested in us, and if we do our job, we get paid back in tickets, merchandise and media.”

The Dodgers continue to invest in Dodger Stadium, which recently underwent a $100 million renovation phase.

It’s hard to keep finding superlatives for how well everything went.

“I’m running out of ways to describe it,” Kasten said. “It’s just been an extraordinary year, and there will be more to come.”