Shohei Ohtani's memorabilia yields eye-popping numbers after Dodgers win World Series

The baseball Shohei Ohtani hit for his historic 50th home run of the 2024 season — on the same night he stole his historic 50th base — recently became the top-selling baseball ever at an auction.

By the time the bidding ended on Oct. 22, Goldin Auctions announced the final price at $3.6 million, or $4,392,000 including the buyer's premium.

The Dodgers have since won the World Series, and demand for Ohtani merch has predictably kept rolling.

Last Friday, Goldin announced it had sold the highest-priced Ohtani rookie card ever, at more than half a million dollars. The exact final sale price of the 2018 Bowman Chrome Rookie Autographs Orange Refractors Shohei Ohtani Signed Rookie Card: $533,140.

Since Oct. 5, when the Dodgers began their march to a World Series win, global eBay users searched for “Shohei Ohtani” items more than 1,900 times per hour on average from Oct. 5-27. Ohtani was also the most-searched Dodger on eBay globally during the MLB postseason, beating out World Series MVP Freddie Freeman.

For his part, global searches for ‘Freddie Freeman’ increased nearly 1500 percent on eBay on Oct. 26 — the day after he hit a walkoff grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series —compared to the average day during the week leading up to the game.

Tuesday, Ohtani had arthroscopic surgery to address a labrum tear he suffered in his left shoulder during the World Series. He's expected to be ready for the Dodgers' 2025 Spring Training.

His memorabilia market is no worse for the wear.

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