bAseball has long been known as America’s pastime, but during the 2024 MLB playoffs, the United States won’t even be home to the sport’s largest audience.

Friday’s decisive NLDS Game 5 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres drew the largest television audience in the U.S. for a division series game since 2017, averaging 7.24 million viewers on Fox. But in baseball-mad Japan — where Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is a national hero — the same game drew an average of 12.9 million viewers.

That viewership accounts for 19.2% of households in Japan, a higher share than any non-NFL programming in the US and comparable to primetime. Monday night football match, despite starting at 9 a.m. Tokyo time on Saturday.

Japan has been an important international market for MLB for decades. Detsu, the Tokyo-based advertising giant that has controlled the rights to linear distribution in the country since 1990, is the league’s longest-standing international media partner. Digital rights are controlled by South Korea-based Eclat Media Group, and the two entities sublicense games to nine different distribution channels, including public broadcaster NHK General TV, which aired the Dodgers-Padres series.

Combined, they pay MLB an estimated $64 million a year, according to research firm Omdia, which accounts for about a third of all international fees collected by MLB. Meanwhile, domestic media rights deals with ESPN, Fox and TNT pay MLB more than $1.7 billion per year, and Apple has a separate package worth $85 million per year.

International revenues are evenly distributed among MLB’s 30 teams at just over $2 million each, despite interest in the country focused on one team and one player specifically: Ohtani.

The 30-year-old slugger — who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract to play for the Dodgers in December — has already fulfilled his record deal. The two-time American League MVP is a lock to win his first National League MVP following his record-setting season in which he became baseball’s first 50/50 player by hitting 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases. He is also a global marketing superstar, endorsing everything from pharmaceutical company Kowa to watch brand Seiko and fashion brand Boss (formerly Hugo Boss). Forbes estimates that Ohtani made $60 million off the field this year, and another $2 million as part of his heavily delayed contract.

That makes Ohtani the highest-paid baseball player this season, and right behind him with total earnings of $59 million is his Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a Japanese pitcher. The 26-year-old right-hander moved from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league to the MLB before this season, joining the Dodgers on a 12-year contract worth $325 million.

Last week’s Game 5 was something of a perfect storm for Japanese baseball fans, as Yamamoto pitched for the Dodgers against another Japanese baseball legend, 38-year-old Yu Darvish of the Padres.

But it was not a one-time phenomenon. Game 1 of the Dodgers-Padres series, which aired the previous Sunday at 9 a.m. local time, drew nearly nine million viewers on NHK G, or 13.6% of households. That was already double the number of viewers of the most-watched match of the 2024 regular season in Japan, and comparable to Ichiro Suzuki’s farewell match in 2019, which was broadcast in prime time. MLB also reported a 336% increase in web traffic from Japan around the game.

As impressive as the MLB numbers have been, they pale in comparison to the viewership of last year’s World Baseball Classic. Six of the seven matches played by the Japanese national team drew more than 30 million viewers domestically, with the outlier drawing only 29 million viewers early on a weekday morning. All Japanese games attracted a household share of more than 40%, comparable to NFL playoff games in the United States, excluding the Super Bowl.

“So far, the play-offs have not had as strong an impact as the last Japanese WBC matches,” said Toshi Ogura, professor of sports business at Chuogakuin University in Chiba, Japan. “We’ll see how the future playoff games develop if the Dodgers continue to win and Ohtani performs.”

There is no reason to expect that interest will not continue to increase. In Game 1, the Dodgers’ current National League Championship Series faced New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga, also of Japan, who is expected to pitch in the series again, as is Yamamoto. Lurking in the World Series could be the New York Yankees and Aaron Judge, a matchup that would make TV network executives on both sides of the Pacific salivate.

MORE FROM FORBES

ForbesHow Snoop Dogg made a big gamble: on himselfBy means of Matt CraigForbesWith his $700 million deal, Shohei Ohtani is poised to become MLB’s all-time earnings leaderBy means of Justin BirnbaumForbesThe highest paid baseball players of 2024By means of Justin BirnbaumForbesBaseball’s Most Valuable Teams 2024By means of Mike Ozanian