TOKYO — Twenty minutes from the Tokyo Dome sits one other of Japan’s most revered ballparks, the 99-year-old Meiji Jingu Stadium, one of many few fields nonetheless in use anyplace that may declare Babe Ruth as a batter. Jingu’s residence membership, the Yakult Swallows, held a spring exhibition Tuesday afternoon towards the Hanshin Tigers, making a crosstown doubleheader alternative for followers fortunate sufficient to even have tickets for the Dodgers-Cubs season opener on the Dome that evening.
Swallows followers bob small umbrellas at their seats throughout coordinated cheers — an umbrella dance — and in contrast to on the Tokyo Dome, a contest at Jingu is open-air, a stunning scene on the fitting day. However what Jeff Shimizu of Los Angeles loved most was the gameplay. When a batter pretended he would bunt after which pulled again to swing, one thing hardly ever seen in Main League Baseball anymore, the 70-year-old Shimizu known as it out within the stands: “That’s a slash play!”
“I really like how Japanese baseball is a lot extra basically pure,” stated Shimizu, who spent a few years as a youth baseball coach. “It’s a giant distinction. I watch major-league video games, you see them make actually rookie errors often. You don’t see that out right here.”
Shimizu arrived in Tokyo as a part of a tour run by JapanBall, a enterprise based in 1999 that arranges journey for followers fascinated by seeing the nation’s high league, Nippon Skilled Baseball. Loads of Japanese followers have been drawn to MLB within the final 30 years as stars like Shohei Ohtani, previously of the Nippon Ham Fighters, make their mark stateside, however new curiosity has additionally grown within the different route. Some followers within the U.S. have taken a liking to the Japanese baseball circuit, albeit on a smaller scale.
“The metrics of how many individuals wish to come on our excursions and the way many individuals wish to subscribe to our NPB publication, comply with our social media accounts — it’s simply been a gradual, regular development, after which it actually feels prefer it’s simply exploded final 12 months,” stated Shane Barclay, who owns JapanBall. “Ohtani is clearly the principle drive in all the things.”
JapanBall e mail subscribers have grown 31 p.c within the final 12 months, Barclay stated, whereas its Instagram and X followers have grown 27 p.c.
But, at a time when MLB is aggressively attempting to leverage Ohtani’s rise for its personal acquire in Japan — and making no secret of these ambitions — the 12-team NPB will not be transferring with practically the identical verve to seize its personal set of worldwide followers. That’s as a result of NPB hardly ever strikes collectively as one, for causes each cultural and institutional.
“Japanese baseball has not grown in, I might say, 50 years,” stated participant agent Don Nomura, who was a thorn within the league’s aspect when he orchestrated pitcher Hideo Nomo’s groundbreaking departure to MLB in 1995. “The uniforms, the gamers have modified, however their construction of baseball hasn’t modified. They’re owned by main, large companies, and principally what they care about is commercial of their membership, and so they’re not likely into baseball enterprise.”
The result’s what some followers within the U.S. contemplate a missed alternative, hampering their capacity to simply comply with the game from afar. Stay in New York and wish to purchase an NPB jersey? There isn’t any league-wide on-line retailer to take action. Resellers on eBay or Amazon may be your finest wager.
NPB additionally doesn’t provide a full-league TV bundle, main some to hunt artistic options. The New York-based creator Robert Fitts, who’s written a number of books on Japanese baseball and buying and selling playing cards, signed up for a Japanese cable firm’s streaming bundle for about $200 a 12 months.
“I’ve like 81 channels all in Japanese,” Fitts stated “Each morning it’s like, OK, the place’s the sport? It takes me 20 minutes.”
For a very long time, MLB was divided into two meaningfully totally different our bodies, the American and Nationwide Leagues, however the distinction is irrelevant at present exterior of the standings. Not so in Japan, the place the Central League and Pacific League run totally different packages.
“They perform utterly individually from one another,” stated Yuri Karasawa, who constructed a following writing about NPB on social media and runs the web site Yakyu Cosmopolitan. “The league would have a lot extra recognition and a lot extra recognition abroad if they really tried to get it. However they don’t appear to be doing that.”
Particular person golf equipment maintain nearly all the ability in NPB, a distinction to baseball within the U.S.. Yomiuri is essentially the most highly effective workforce. Whereas MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is finally on the mercy of his homeowners, his workplace is formally empowered to deal with excess of the workplace of the NPB commissioner Sadayuki Sakakibara.
The century-old Jingu Stadium. (Evan Drellich / The Athletic)
One of many two leagues inside NPB is extra progressive than the opposite, nonetheless. The six groups within the Pacific League function a advertising and marketing enterprise that sells a streaming bundle for its half of NPB. The corporate, Pacific League Advertising, stated it had roughly 490,000 digital viewers in North America final 12 months.
Simply final month, the Pacific League additionally started promoting tickets on an English-language web site, Tickets in Japan, run by a web-based ticket vendor, WaveDash.
“We discovered {that a} very small share of tourists to Japan have been making the most of the thriving reside occasions scene,” Tickets in Japan stated. “The info exhibits that solely about 1 p.c of annual spending by worldwide guests in Japan is on sports activities occasions, and a couple of p.c on theater and music performances. … We all know there may be client demand and curiosity to seize, it’s a matter of accessibility.”
The U.S. isn’t the one nation the place NPB might see extra enterprise, if it selected to pursue it. Tickets in Japan stated it’s getting traction amongst baseball followers in Taiwan, and that nation may be the following frontier for merchandise gross sales, too.
Fanatics, the key U.S. sports activities attire retailer, has partnered with 5 NPB groups, together with the Giants. Nori Kawana, head of the corporate’s East Asia division, stated that some membership executives are fascinated by pushing additional overseas, however bringing NPB marks to the States is difficult.
“There are problems round what IPs are protected in U.S.,” Kawana stated. “Let’s say Tokyo Giants. Are you able to promote Giants within the U.S. the place the San Francisco Giants are?
“There’s positively curiosity (in increasing gross sales) extra in the direction of Asia, like Taiwan. There are Taiwanese gamers, there are Korean gamers enjoying in Japan. NPB positively has a possible to transcend Japan, which is someplace I believe we are able to play a giant position.”
Topps, the Fanatics-owned buying and selling card firm, produces its personal units of NPB playing cards, competing with three different main producers: BBM, Epoch and Calbee. The final sells its playing cards with potato chips.
NPB playing cards promote “very, very effectively” in Japan, Topps head of buying and selling playing cards David Leiner stated, however the U.S. allocation is “way more restricted as a result of the demand isn’t as robust.”
“They like that we’re exposing them additional within the States, however I don’t know the way large of a push it really is for them,” Leiner stated of NPB. “The Samurai, the nationwide workforce, their international presence is unquestionably vital.”
Requested if Topps was fascinated by buying any of the opposite card makers, Leiner stated, “At Fanatics, all the things’s on the desk.”
Amy Moses, a 48-year-old Virginia resident, has attended a number of MLB particular occasions up to now, together with video games in London, however had by no means been to Japan earlier than becoming a member of JapanBall’s tour. She watched Hanshin play each at Meiji Jingu on Tuesday and on Saturday as effectively, in an exhibition towards her Cubs on the Dome.
“I had no concept what it’d be like coming into this,” Moses stated. “I used to be so excited as a result of the Hanshin Tiger followers have been electrical, and I’ve by no means been in an environment like that.”
On Sunday, Moses spoke with Japanese followers within the stands about their sport’s idiosyncrasies: The place have been the bullpens on the Tokyo Dome? The dialog later moved to cheering. In Japan, followers usually hit memento sticks collectively, which isn’t as frequent within the U.S.
“He stated, ‘How do you make noise in America? Is it simply along with your voice and your fingers?’” Moses stated. “And I assumed that was such an uncommon strategy to phrase it, proper? What I really like essentially the most was speaking to the 2 of them after which sharing backwards and forwards.”
Moses on the journey learn a well known guide about Japanese baseball, “You Gotta Have Wa,” by Robert Whiting. Whiting, who first got here to Japan within the Sixties and has chronicled the game and nation for many years, feels NPB’s reliance on the established order might ultimately be perilous, if it isn’t already.
Robert Fitts, Jeff Shimizu and Amy Moses at Jingu Stadium. (Evan Drellich / The Athletic)
“The times of NPB video games on nightly nationwide TV are lengthy declining as Japanese individuals favor to observe Japanese gamers like Ohtani in MLB telecasts somewhat than NPB,” Whiting stated. “Youthful individuals discover baseball too gradual.”
Whiting thinks NPB must pay its gamers extra and shell out large bucks to pry away some high MLB expertise to return to NPB.
NPB’s revenues have been about $2 billion in 2024, an individual briefed on the league’s funds who was not licensed to talk publicly stated. That’s about $10 billion lower than MLB. However development and growth aren’t essentially targets unto themselves for the league’s homeowners. Partly, that’s due to an absence of competitors. Not like within the U.S., the place MLB has to compete with the NFL and NBA, baseball and NPB are on the high of the chain.
“It’s not all about making each greenback, maximizing our workforce’s publicity and doing all the things we are able to to win,” Barclay of JapanBall stated. “That’s a purpose behind lots of interesting issues about Japanese baseball, as a result of I believe any MLB fan can inform you how a lot they resent being handled as only a bank card to maximise spending at each sport.
“However then in different methods, it’s irritating, as a result of I’m like, ‘I wish to offer you cash.’”
The longtime Japanese baseball author Jim Allen, of jballallen.com, stated the purpose for NPB groups is to maximise promoting worth and take a tax deduction on the working losses. New stadiums, which might enhance attendance and income, additionally aren’t constructed fairly often. Solely two have opened this century.
“It’s not America. They will’t simply go to Tokyo (authorities) and say, ‘Construct me a stadium or I’m gonna go away,’” Allen stated. “They’ll say, ‘Yeah, take a hike.’”
Change in NPB may all the time be gradual. A brand new era of householders might produce totally different considering, however nothing is prone to occur quick, save maybe for a situation the place NPB begins to be threatened by MLB’s competitors for high gamers.
“I believe you’re going to need to see only a mass, mass exodus, and even then, I don’t know if it’d be sufficient to spur change,” stated reporter Jason Coskrey of The Japan Occasions, who grew up within the States and went to Japan to cowl baseball in 2007. “There’s no impetus to make cash. There’s no impetus to develop the fan base. It’s a really insular mind-set. It’s like, ‘This works in Japan, so why ought to we do anything?’”
Shimizu had finished a JapanBall tour as soon as earlier than, of the league’s spring coaching. He appreciated it a lot that he returned. However again residence within the States, he doesn’t detect lots of curiosity in NPB round him.
“Not a lot, to be fairly trustworthy,” Shimizu stated. “It’s not likely on the radar until you’re a baseball man like me.”
(Prime photograph of Jingu Stadium: Kiyoshi Ota / Getty Photographs)