The signs say Uniqlo Field. You will continue to say Dodger Stadium

It was Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, when the grass outdoors the baseline and the brilliant pink signal excessive above middle area learn “UNIQLO FIELD.” It will be Dodger Stadium on Thursday, when the defending World Series champions open their new season, and forevermore.

The official identify of our summer season house is now Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium. The staff announcers will say that, and so will a few of the signs. The followers will not, and the founding father of the corporate that simply spent 9 figures on the identify you will not use stated he utterly understands.

“That’s a very natural reaction,” Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai informed me via an interpreter. “We respect that.”

Yanai stated his firm’s cope with the Dodgers covers 5 years. He would say solely that the overall worth was “more” than $125 million. That gives the Dodgers with an annual naming rights cost in step with those at Crypto.com Arena, Intuit Dome and SoFi Stadiumwith out the Dodgers having to promote naming rights to the present venue.

Are the Dodgers baseball’s model of a gold mine? Yes. Do they spend large and win large? Also sure. Do you thoughts if Uniqlo basically covers Freddie Freeman‘s wage this season?

“We need a lot of revenue to put out the product that we do,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten stated. “That’s not a secret. And we’re proud of everyone who helps us do it: all of our fans, all of our media partners, and all of our sponsor partners. They are all important. It is how this all comes together.”

While Uniqlo can be delighted should you used its identify, no matter native followers select to name the stadium just isn’t vital to the success of the partnership.

For a Japanese company in pursuit of brand awareness and expansion within the United States and elsewhere, there is likely to be nothing higher than getting your identify in entrance of tens of millions of followers world wide watching Shohei Ohtani play on tv.

Ohtani made an estimated $125 million in endorsements and sponsorships final 12 months, Sportico reporteda bigger annual haul “than any other athlete in the history of sports.”

“The Dodgers are such a popular team,” Yanai stated. “I usually ask my wife, after I come back from the office, whether Shohei hit a home run. I think all the Japanese people do that.”

According to Forbes, Yanai is the richest man in Japan, the place baseball groups carry company names. Why not purchase a staff and name it, say, the Uniqlo Bears?

“I always keep saying that could be very interesting,” he stated, “but my wife turned it down. She keeps telling me, ‘Tadashi, you are not cut out to manage sports teams.'”

Instead, he’s managing Uniqlo, an attire firm that pitches itself as mixing consolation with high quality. “We do not make disposable clothing,” Yanai stated within the firm’s final annual report.

Uniqlo has 794 shops in Japan however solely 77 in the United Statestogether with 14 within the Southland. Koji Yanai, a senior govt officer and Tadashi’s son, stated the corporate aspires to develop annual US revenues from $6 billion to $30 billion.

I’ve shared what is likely to be a tougher aspiration.

“The Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium name may be very new for everyone,” he stated, “but I hope in the near future the fans will like it and will love it.”

United Airlines Field on the Coliseum? Yeah, no.

Jeff Marks, the chief govt of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group, as soon as brokered a naming rights deal by which the Cal soccer staff would play on Kabam Field at California Memorial Stadium. I’ve tried to discover a receptive viewers for the identify.

“We educated a lot of freshmen, sophomores and newcomers,” Marks stated. “Are you going to go after alumni who have been calling it Memorial Stadium? No. So you didn’t focus on that. You focused on people that could be more impressionable, and it worked.”

With Dodger Stadium, we’ll see. For the 2026 season, it’s now time for Dodgers baseball, however not earlier than one reporter at a information convention Wednesday requested firm officers whether or not Uniqlo would supply the Dodgers gamers with free clothes.

Kasten couldn’t cross up the prospect to interject.

“We pay them enough,” he stated with a smile, “to shop at Uniqlo stores.”