Along with signing some of the biggest stars from Japanese professional baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers are now fielding an all-star lineup of Japanese companies.
The Dodgers are expanding their brand strategy in Japan by partnering with 16 Japanese firms during the 2025 season.
The companies are banking on the presence of three Japanese superstars on the roster of the Major League Baseball team–Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki.
The Dodgers signed one of the agreements with a major Japanese company before the MLB season opened on March 26 (Japan time).
A ceremony was held in a room in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on March 4 to announce an agreement signed between the Dodgers and PR Times Corp., a Japanese entity that provides press release distribution services.
The two-year partnership agreement took effect on Feb. 18.
Lorenzo Sciarrino, a senior Dodgers official, appeared pleased with the agreement.
“I speak on behalf of the back-to-back (World Series) champion to welcome you into our family, and we greatly value our engagement with our fans worldwide,” Sciarrino told an audience of 30 or so PR Times employees who attended the ceremony.
The Dodgers have had many Japanese players on their roster, including trailblazing pitcher Hideo Nomo, who joined the team in 1995.
Nomo became the first Japanese player to play permanently in the major leagues and he was soon followed by many of his countrymen.
The Dodgers began reinforcing its ties with the Japanese market after Ohtani joined it in the 2024 season.
The Dodgers successively announced partnerships with major Japanese businesses such as All Nippon Airways Co. and travel agency JTB Corp.
Japanese entities accounted for 16 of the 115 companies that Dodgers signed partnerships with during the 2025 season.
DODGERS’ DRAW FOR JAPANESE COMPANIES
The team’s focus on Japan remains unchanged into the 2026 season, as symbolized by the latest agreement with PR Times.
The operator of distribution services that have been utilized by more than 121,000 corporate entities in Japan has been assigned to disseminate information on the Dodgers that is not limited to game results alone but also includes athletes’ volunteer community work and notices related to Japan.
The Dodgers are hoping to ride the clout of PR Times, whose content was carried on more than 260 media outlets as of November, to increase points of contact with fans in Japan, whom the team’s officials have yet to reach, officials said.
It has been some time since Japan-born athletes began making a name for themselves in various sports around the world.
It’s no mystery as to why Japanese companies are so eager to tie up with the Dodgers.
Accounts by Japanese and U.S. sporting world insiders indicate the move has, not surprisingly, been in large part inspired by the way that Japanese are succeeding spectacularly outside their country.
GROWING SPONSORSHIP REVENUE
Ohtani, in particular, has won the National League Most Valuable Player award unanimously for two successive seasons after he moved to the Dodgers in the 2024 season.
He is the poster boy of the major leagues in the “homeland” of baseball.
Distinctive characters of MLB are also a major factor, the insiders said.
MLB’s regular season consists of 162 games a year. A team has the opportunity to continue enjoying exposure for as long as nine months or so from the time of its training camp only if it manages to make it to the World Series.
PR Times was also drawn to the Dodgers’ clout.
Takumi Yamaguchi, president of PR Times, pointed out the Dodgers have outstanding public recognition both in Japan and the United States.
“Perhaps the team is close to being a unique presence of the sort in Japan,” Yamaguchi said, adding that he believes the latest agreement will present a golden opportunity for his company, which is eager to expand its overseas operations.
Helped partially by the Japanese businesses, the Dodgers earned the most revenue of all 30 MLB teams during the last season, sources said.
A SponsorUnited report on the marketing activities of the MLB teams in October 2025 said that five of them earned more than $100 million (16 billion yen) in sponsorship revenue during the last season.
The Dodgers, the list leader, were expected to be the first North American professional sport team to earn more than $200 million a year, the report said.
On March 25, the day before the current MLB season opened, the Dodgers announced a multi-year partnership agreement with Samty Holdings Co., an Osaka-based operator of real estate development and other businesses.
Samty has been endorsing Yamamoto as a brand partner, under a separate agreement, since 2023, when he played for the Orix Buffaloes in Japan.
Samty officials said they are hoping the new agreement will help their company improve its global brand value.
The agreement gives Samty opportunities for promoting itself at Dodger Stadium, including through signage installed at the bullpen and an ad on the pitcher’s mound.
“We will be advertising our brand on this world stage,” company officials said.
The Dodgers’ success with Japan has acted as a strong stimulus to other MLB teams as well.
The Houston Astros have signed a naming rights agreement with a group company of Daikin Industries Ltd., a major Japanese manufacturer of air conditioners, for their home stadium for 15 years from the 2025 season.
The Astros are amplifying their organizational setup for increasing their presence in the Japanese market.
As a first step toward that goal, the Astros acquired pitcher Tatsuya Imai from Japan’s Seibu Lions for the 2026 season.
Things are much the same for the Chicago White Sox, which acquired slugging third baseman Munetaka Murakami, who had been the clean-up hitter for the Yakult Swallows.
The White Sox’s contract with Murakami was partly motivated by the intent to forge ties with Japanese companies, the sources said.
Original Source: This article was originally published on Asahi Sports. Click the link to view the full article.