Dan Patrick doesn’t want Major League Baseball exporting Opening Day to other countries.
While unofficial, the start of the 2025 MLB season will come next Thursday, March 27. It officially began this week in Tokyo. MLB took its opening games to Asia for the second consecutive season, this time with the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers playing at the Tokyo Dome in Japan.
In 2024, ESPN had the call. In 2025, the onus was on Fox Sports. The games received little fanfare stateside, probably because the start times were at 6 a.m. ET, but they were a hit in Japan. Because of conflicting schedules with its top announcers, Fox didn’t send its play-by-play voice or analyst overseas. And there were plenty of complaints about the remote broadcast to go around.
Patrick’s gripes weren’t with the broadcast itself but with the concept of exporting Opening Day overseas.
“Do I want us exporting Opening Day? I don’t. I understand its business,” he said on his The Dan Patrick Show. “Certainly, with the Dodgers and the number of players, whether it’s Korea, whether it’s Japan — I get it. I understand it. I don’t like it, but I understand it. It’s business. Ten years ago, five years ago — I remember the Yankees went over there. How about we think of the players? You’re in spring training, totally chill; now let’s go to Japan, play a couple of games, they count, and then let’s come back, let’s chill again.
“Tough to manage your staff, your pitching. Once again, I know it’s business. The Dodgers, their pipeline with all the players; I understand all of it. I don’t know if the fans in Japan would be that upset if you said, ‘We’re going to play two spring training games over there.’ Are they going to be upset? I think just having Shohei Ohtani over there, some of the players who are from Japan, that would be enough. We don’t need to have Opening Day over there. Have Opening Day here.
“You can have kind of a faux Opening Day… How about Faux-opening Day? It’s a fake Opening Day, and you play a couple of games, and you have all the pomp and circumstance and the pageantry, and then you come back and you resume spring training. Everybody benefits.”
And despite his reservations, Patrick knows there’s a broader strategy at play. He just thinks it might be worth rethinking how it’s executed.
“I know we’re trying to grow the business there,” Patrick continued. “And the Dodgers have done a wonderful job, and Japan is a great market… Then, they resume spring training again. Then, they wait for their second Opening Day for both of these teams. ‘Get off my lawn.’ I know. I know. I know.”
While MLB may have its sights set on global expansion, Patrick feels like there isn’t a good reason to sacrifice the tradition and excitement of Opening Day in the process.
