We started the day with a visit to the MLB Japan office, which has been around since roughly 2004. The whole reason it exists comes down to Ichiro and Hideki Matsui. Their success in the early 2000s made MLB realize they needed more than just advertising from overseas, they needed an actual office in Japan doing real work. They walked us through how they license merchandise, manage sponsorship rights, and grow their younger fan base through youth baseball events aimed at elementary and middle school kids.
One thing that really stuck with me was learning about the financial side of the Tokyo Series. When a team plays games abroad, MLB has to cover the lost home gate revenue for both clubs. That means flying over 120 employees per team to Japan, which adds up fast when you factor in flights, hotels, and food for over 200 people. Since games tip off in the morning Tokyo time, the office has to find creative ways to get fans who are commuting or already at work to think in the back of their head that a game is happening right now. They lean on radio, apps, and some genuinely cool marketing moves. The best example was a collaboration with Demon Slayer, where they made an anime style advertisement to connect with Japanese audiences on their own turf. They also compared how their approach differs across China, Korea, and Taiwan. Japan focuses on highlights and on field plays, while Korea leans into bringing out K pop celebrities to generate buzz at games.
After MLB we headed over to the PGA Tour International Japan office. Honestly I did not know what to expect walking in but it turned out to be one of the more interesting stops of the day. The office itself was on the smaller side, but the guy running the presentation did a great job breaking down how the PGA Tour actually functions as its own separate operation from Augusta and the USGA. They are not the same thing, which I think a lot of people assume, and they each run their own events while still finding ways to work together when it makes sense. We got to see each department up close including sponsorships and international media, and learned how tightly they work with the JGTO to give Japanese players a real competitive ladder to climb beyond just dreaming about a PGA Tour card someday. He also pointed out that youth interest in golf across Japan has been climbing steadily since COVID, and the office here is trying to turn that momentum into something lasting. The challenge is that golf in Asia is just expensive, Korea even more so than Japan, and both are pricier than what you would pay in the States, so bringing younger people into the sport is genuinely difficult work.
We wrapped up the day at Tokyo Dome to watch the Yomiuri Giants take on the SoftBank Hawks. Right before the game we made a stop at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, and as someone who grew up playing and watching baseball their whole life, that place was something special. Seeing decades worth of Japanese baseball history displayed like that was genuinely cool, not something you come across every day. The Giants pulled out the win and the crowd energy inside Tokyo Dome was on a different level than anything I have seen back home at a stadium.
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