Shohei Ohtani leads the way in Dodgers setting merchandise sales record after World Series win

Dodgers fans were ready to celebrate the second Walker Buehler struck out Alex Verdugo for the final out of the World Series,

They were also ready to spend — and they did so more than any other fan base of a title-winning team in at least 10 years.

After clinching their eighth World Series title with a 7-6 win over the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, the Dodgers set a Fanatics sales record for first-hour sales of a team’s merchandise, across any sport, after claiming a championship.

The statistics are based on the amount of money spent on all merchandise, including jerseys, T-shirts, collectibles and more. Fanatics has been the official online sportswear retailer for most North American sports leagues — including MLB, NFL, NBA, WNBA and NHL — for more than a decade.

The Dodgers beat the sales record they set in 2020, after they won their first World Series title since 1988. Over the first 12 hours of sales following Wednesday’s game, Fanatics said, sales of Dodgers merchandise are up 20% from four years ago.

The company also released the top five Dodgers players in merchandise sales since the World Series ended. The name at the top of the list is no surprise — Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, who signed with the Dodgers in the offseason and was making his first postseason appearance after spending the first six years of his MLB career with the Angels.

First baseman and World Series MVP Freddie Freeman was No. 2. Playing through a serious ankle injury that limited his availability earlier in the playoffs, Freeman became the first player to hit a walk-off grand slam in the World Series. He hit a home run in each of the first four games of the series and drove in a record-tying 12 runs overall.

The top five was rounded out by right fielder Mookie Betts, rookie pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who did not pitch during the postseason because of a toe injury.