TOKIO-Located twenty minutes of the Tokyo Dome is one of the most prominent balls in Japan, the 99-year-old Megi Jingo Stadium, one of the few fields that are still being used anywhere you can demand Pep Roth as a mixture. Yakult Swallows held an exhibition in the spring on Tuesday afternoon against Hanshin Tigers, which led to an opportunity for Crossstown Doubleheader the fortunate fans of all as well as tickets for the Dodgers-Cubs season in the dome that night.
Swallows bob fans small umbrellas on their seats during coordinated chants-an umbrella dance-unlike the Tokyo dome, the Jingo competition is in the open air, and it is a great scene in the right day. But what Jeff Shimizo enjoyed from Los Angeles more was the way to play. When the mixture pretended that he was wearing and then returning to swing, something was rarely seen in the main baseball game, she called it 70 -year -old Shimizo in the stands: “This is a tilted play!”
“I love how the Japanese baseball game is mainly more pure,” said Shimizo, who spent many years as a youth coach. “It is a big difference. I watch the main league games, you see that they make rising mistakes often. You don’t see it here.”
Shimizu has arrived in Tokyo as part of a tour run by Japanbaall, a company founded in 1999 that arranges travel for fans interested in watching the best league in the country, Nippon Profesmon Baseball. Many Japanese fans have been attracted to MLB in the past thirty years as stars like Shohei Ohtani, who was formerly for Nippon Ham fighters, made their brand, but the new interest has also grown in the other direction. Some fans in the United States took their desire for the Japanese baseball circle, albeit on a smaller scale.
“The standards of the number of people who want to reach our tours and the number of people who want to participate in our NPB news message, and follow our social media accounts – it was just fixed and fixed growth, then it seems as if it just exploded last year,” said Japan’s Shen Barclay. “It is clear that Al -Autani is the main power in everything.”
Barclays said that the email subscribers on the land had grown 31 percent in the past 12 months, while its followers in Instagram and X have grown 27 percent.
However, at one time when MLB is trying to take advantage of OHTANI’s rise to make its own gains In Japan-and these aspirations are not afraid-NPB, consisting of 12 teams, does not move almost the same to capture a group of international fans. This is because NPB rarely moves together as one, for cultural and institutional reasons.
“The Japanese baseball game did not grow,” 50 years. “
The result is what some fans in the United States consider a lost opportunity, which impedes their ability to follow sports easily from afar. You live in New York and want to buy a NPB shirt? There is no online store on the league level to do so. Sellers on EBay or Amazon may be your best bet.
NPB also does not offer a full periodic television package, leading to the search for creative solutions. The New York -based Robert Viets, who wrote several books on Japanese baseball cards and trading cards, registered in the Japanese broadcasting package for the cable company for about $ 200 a year.
“I have 81 Japanese channels,” Fitz said, “Every morning, it is like, well, where is the game? It takes 20 minutes.”
For a long time, MLB was divided into two different different bodies, American and national championships, but discrimination is not relevant today outside the ranking. Not so in Japan, where the Central League and Pacific League runs various programs.
“They are working completely separately from each other,” said Yuri Karasawa, who built a writing that follows NPB. “The league will have more recognition and a lot of popularity abroad if they really try to get it. But it seems that they don’t do it.”
Individual clubs carry all the strength of NPB, in contrast to the baseball in the United States. Yomiuri is the strongest team. While the MLB Rob Manfred Commissioner ultimately at the mercy of his owners, his office is officially authorized to deal with much more than the office of the NPB SADAYUKI SAKAKIBARA.
Jingo Stadium, a century -old. (Evan Drailic / Athlete))
One of the two dorals inside NPB is more progressive than the other, but. The six teams in the Pacific League are working on a marketing project that sells a half -NPB flow package. The company, Pacific League Marketing, said it has approximately 490,000 digital viewers in North America last year.
Only last month, the Pacific League also started selling tickets on the website in English, tickets in Japan, managed by the online ticket seller, Wavedash.
The tickets in Japan said: “We have found that a very small percentage of Japan visitors were benefiting from the scene of prosperous direct events,” said tickets in Japan. “The data shows that only about 1 percent of the annual spending by international visitors in Japan in sporting events, and 2 percent on theatrical performances and music … We know that there is a request and interest for consumers, it is the issue of access.”
The United States is not the only country where NPB can see more business, if it chooses to follow it. Tickets in Japan said they are getting a preposition between baseball fans in Taiwan, and this country may also be the next border of goods sales.
The fanatics, the main retail seller of sportswear in the United States, partnership with five NPB teams, including giants. Nuri Kuanna, head of the East Asian department of the company, said that some club executives are interested in paying more abroad, but bringing NPB signs to the states is difficult.
“There are complications about what IPS protects us,” said Koana. “Let’s say Tokyo’s giants. Can you sell giants in the United States where there are San Francisco giants?
“There is definitely an interest (in expanding sales) more towards Asia, such as Taiwan. There are Taiwanese players, and there are Korean players playing in Japan. NPB definitely has the possibility of exceeding Japan, and he somewhere I think we can play a big role.”
Topps, the company of fanatical trading cards, produces its own sets of NPB cards, competing with three other major manufacturers: BBM, Epoch and Calbee. She sells her last cards with potato chips.
NPB cards sell “very well” in Japan, said David Lynar, head of trading cards, but the allocation of the United States “is more limited because the demand is not strong.”
“They like to show them more in the United States, but I don’t know how great it is for them,” Liner said of NPB. “The samurai, the national team, its global existence is definitely important.”
When asked if Topps was interested in obtaining any other card makers, Leiner said, “In fanatics, everything on the table.”
Amy Moussa, a 48 -year -old Virginia, attended many MLB special occasions in the past, including games in London, but she did not go to Japan before joining Japan’s Japan tour. I watched Hanchin playing in Meiji Jingu on Tuesday and Saturday as well, at an exhibition against her cubs in the dome.
Moses said: “I had no idea what would be the case in this matter.” “I was very excited because Hanshin Tiger fans were electric, and I was never in an atmosphere.”
On Sunday, Moussa spoke with the Japanese fans in the stands about the peculiarities of their game: Where was the bulls in the Tokyo Dome? The conversation later moved to the chanting. In Japan, fans often hit souvenirs together, which is uncommon in the United States
Moses said: “How do you make noise in America? Is it only with your voice and hands? “And I thought this was an unusual way to do so, right? What I love more was talking to the two and then participating back and forth. “
On the journey, Moussa read a known book on the Japanese baseball game, “You Gotta Have Wa”, by Robert Whiteing. Whiting, who came for the first time to Japan in the 1960s and accelerated sport and country for decades, feels that NPB’s dependence on the current situation may be fraught with risks, if not really.
Robert Fitz, Jeff Shimzo and Amy Moussa at Jingo Stadium. (Evan Drailic / Athlete))
“The days of Night TV in the country are decreasing long, as the Japanese prefer to watch Japanese players like Ottani at MLB Telecasts instead of NPB,” said Whiteing. “Youth finds the baseball very slow.”
Whiting believes that NPB needs to push its players more and clarify a large Bache to remove some of the best MLB talents to come to NPB.
NPB revenues amounted to about two billion dollars in 2024, a person who briefed him on the league’s financial affairs, which was not allowed to speak publicly. This is about 10 billion dollars less than MLB. But growth and expansion are not necessarily goals for the league owners. In part of it, this is due to the lack of competition. Unlike the United States, where MLB must compete with the American Football Association, NBA, Sabbole and NPB at the top of the series.
“It is not about every dollar, which increases our team’s exposure and did everything we can win,” said Barclay from Japanal. “This is a reason behind a lot of attractive things about the Japanese baseball game, because I believe that any of MLB fans can tell you the extent that they treat as just a credit card to increase spending in each game.
“But then in other ways, it is frustrating, because I love,” I want to offer you money. “
Jim Jim Allen, Jim Allen, from JBALLALLENEN.COM, said that the goal of NPB teams is to increase the value of the advertisement to the maximum and a tax discount on operating losses. New stadiums, which can enhance attendance and profits, are not often built. Only two conquered this century.
“It is not America. They can not only go to Tokyo (the government) and say:” building a stadium or I will leave. “They will say,” Yes, roam. “
The change in NPB may always be gradual. A new generation of owners can produce different thinking, but there is no likely to happen quickly, and perhaps except for a scenario as NPB begins threatening through MLB competition for the top players.
“I think you will have to see just a mass migration, and until then, I don’t know if it’s enough to stimulate change. Anything else?” Said correspondent Jason Koskri of the Japan newspaper.
Shimizu has toured Japanbal Ball before, from the spring training in the league. He loved her so much that he returned. But at home in the United States, he does not discover a lot of attention to NPB around him.
“Not much, to be completely honest,” said Shimizo. “It is not really on the radar unless you are a man like me.”
(The upper photo of Jingo Stadium: Kyuchi Otta / Getty Erch)
