Major League Baseball opened up the 2024 campaign in Asia, and that will be the case again in 2025. The league announced when the schedule was released that two regular-season games in Tokyo will take place in mid-March. And, it’ll feature two teams that have a significant amount of Japanese talent. Here’s a look at when the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series will take place, plus the two teams.

Dates

The 2025 MLB Tokyo Series will take place on March 18-19, 2025. Both will be Cubs home games.

The Tokyo Dome will host the games. The venue hosted the 2019 MLB Tokyo Series between the Mariners and Athletics.

These will be the first two games of the 2025 MLB regular season. The action in the United States and Canada will commence on March 27, 2025, eight days after the conclusion of the Japan Series.

Participants

The Cubs and Dodgers are the participants.

It’ll be a homecoming for several MLB players, including Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers, as well as Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga of the Cubs.

Both teams are no strangers to playing games overseas. Los Angeles started the 2024 MLB season in South Korea, as part of MLB’s first regular-season games in the country. The Dodgers split a two-game series with the Padres.

As for the Cubs, Chicago (NL) played in the Tokyo Dome in 2000 to begin the season. The Cubs split a two-game series with the Mets that season. And most recently, the Cubs played two games in London against their archrival, the St. Louis Cardinals, in June 2023.

The two games in Japan will be a part of an active slate of specialty games across the 2025 Major League Baseball schedule. Additionally, the league is scheduled to contest a neutral-site game in Bristol, Tennessee, between the Reds and Braves.