Dodgers-Cubs opener in Tokyo averages greater than 25 million viewers in Japan, a report viewers | EUROtoday

Tuesday’s first recreation of the Tokyo Series averaged greater than 25 million viewers in Japan in accordance with Major League Baseball, making it the most-watched MLB recreation within the nation’s historical past.

The viewers for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs surpassed the 18.7 million viewers who tuned in for the primary recreation of final 12 months’s Seoul Series in South Korea, which featured the Dodgers in opposition to the San Diego Padres.

Tuesday’s recreation featured the primary all-Japanese beginning pitching duel on opening day. Los Angeles’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in 5 innings whereas Chicago’s Shota Imanaga threw 4 scoreless frames.

The Dodgers’ 6-3 win on Wednesday, which featured a towering solo house run by Shohei Ohtani, averaged greater than 23 million Japanese viewers. The second recreation additionally featured pitcher Roki Sasaki making his Dodgers’ debut.

The two video games — which began at 5 a.m. CDT in Chicago and three a.m. PDT in Los Angeles — averaged 590,000 viewers within the U.S.

Tuesday’s recreation on Fox averaged 838,000 viewers with Wednesday’s on FS1 drawing 361,000.

The earlier season opener in Japan, a 9-7 win by Seattle and Ichiro Suzuki over Oakland in 2019, was seen by 5.6 million, MLB mentioned Friday.

MLB mentioned the video games in Tokyo had probably the most merchandise gross sales of its worldwide occasions, up 320% from final 12 months’s video games in London between the New York Mets and Philadelphia. MLB didn’t specify the worth of the merchandise bought however mentioned its Tokyo Dome retailer averaged greater than 1,000 transactions per hour and bought greater than 500,000 merchandise.

The top-selling product was Ohtani Dodgers jersey with the Tokyo Series patch.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb