The Hachi #3: A forest in the desert
If the Samurai Blue play where nobody's watching, do they make a sound?
It’s mid-January in Tokyo, which means the wind is sharp enough to cut through all 50 layers of HeatTech you’re wearing and chill you to your very soul — that is, if you’re brave enough to go outside in the roughly five hours of daylight we seem to enjoy around this time of year.
But unlike last four winters — two of uncertainty sandwiching two of dread — this one seems like it could offer something a little brighter. Tourists are back, sports are at last free of restrictions, and, as I wrote in this newsletter’s first issue, there’s so much to look forward to in every corner of the industry.
Last week saw The Hachi crack 100 subscribers, a number that seemed impossible when I finally committed to launching this project. Here’s to the next 100 and all the 100s that are to come — and if you’ve enjoyed the journey so far, please do share with your friends and spread the word.
1. Tuning out
The 2023 Asian Cup, one of the last major sporting events to have been impacted by the pandemic1, finally kicked off last weekend in (*sigh*) Qatar.
Japan, runner-up in the previous edition and gunning for its fifth continental title, grinded out a 4-2 win over Vietnam — after atrocious set-piece defending had Philippe Troussier’s men up 2-1 midway through the first half — thanks to goals from Takumi Minamino (2x), Keito Nakamura and Ayase Ueda.
But despite an 8:30 p.m. kickoff that actually favors Japanese audiences, we’re never going to learn how many people actually tuned in, as it was streamed exclusively on DAZN, with former Japan stars Tomoaki Makino, Shinji Ono and Tadanari Lee offering somewhat uneven commentary from a Tokyo studio.
The so-called “Netflix of Sports” is going through a rough one in Japan, having just announced that it will raise its monthly subscription price from ¥3,700 to ¥4,200/month, with the annual plan also jumping from ¥30,000 to ¥32,000. This marks the third straight year the service has seen a price increase, much to the dismay of soccer fans who are surely looking on with jealousy at the new ¥2,300/month baseball-only plan the site has rolled out.
DAZN has had an outsized impact on Japanese soccer this last decade, thanks mainly to its $2 billion, 10-year deal with the J.League that the two parties inked in late 2016 and have twice extended since.
That massive cash infusion has certainly been a financial boost for the league and its clubs, but not everyone agrees that the transition to a primarily streaming-centric market — after being somewhat to the party compared to its western peers — has been all positive for the sport.
DAZN’s 2021 acquisition of the rights to various AFC competitions through 20282, including the AFC Champions League, Asian Cup and final round of World Cup qualifying, has resulted in several Samurai Blue games over the last couple years becoming DAZN exclusives, much to the chagrin of casual Japanese viewers who have become accustomed to watching the team on traditional broadcasters.
Notably, JFA President Kozo Tashima tried — but eventually failed — to convince DAZN to sublicense the March 2022 WCQ against Australia that eventually saw Japan clinch it seventh straight World Cup appearance.
The tug-of-war between rights distributors (who only want to see the line go up, come hell or high water) and both traditional broadcasters and streaming services is not unique to soccer. The NFL’s recent decision to air a wildcard game exclusively on NBC’s streaming service Peacock drew criticism, but it also drew 23 million viewers and set a record as the “most-streamed live event in U.S. history.”
But soccer isn’t going to convince 7% of the Japanese population to pay for a streaming service. I’m not sure any sport could pull that off.
Without a major broadcaster in the driver’s seat, promotion of the ongoing Asian Cup has been sparse, leading a growing number of observers to ask whether or not the sport is at risk of audience stagnation if it’s not reaching enough new fans:
My friend who isn’t subscribed to DAZN but doesn’t hate soccer didn’t know about the Asian Cup.
Soccer will decline at this rate. It’s wild. We can’t be satisfied if the only ones getting excited are already in the community.
(Kawasaki Frontale beat writer Takashi Eto, 2024.01.14)
We’ve seen signs of the negative impact this insular broadcast/streaming cycle can have on the game elsewhere, with the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup nearly without a broadcaster until NHK stepped in at the last minute. The industry may want to embrace streaming more than it has in the past, but in order for that to work the Japanese public has to be ready, and right now we’re simply not there.
2. At least Japan got the win, right?
At least, indeed.
For more analysis I recommend clicking through to Ryo Nakagawara’s Twitter thread, in which he does a great job of breaking down both sides’ performances.
And don’t forget to check out Ryo’s Substack, Shogun Soccer, for more great insight on the J.League and JNT.
Meanwhile, here’s hoping for better defending when Japan takes on Iraq in its second group game on Friday.
3. Dotonbori drifters
Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura is reportedly at the center of a plan to bring a Formula One race to Osaka.
The bid has the backing of the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau, which is hoping to build momentum off Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai, a project that is already drawing flak from the Japanese public for its spiraling costs.
Motorsport.com’s Japanese edition spoke with an official from the OCTB, who talked up the potential of a grand prix not only as a race but as a major entertainment event that would draw high-paying customers to the city.
“We went to observe the Singapore Grand Prix, and it was totally different from the image of F1 that I had. There’s (various) live events, and luxury brands were holding business meetings in nearby hotels.”
“It might be hard to profit from just the circuit, but when you think about the hotels around the circuit there’s a possibility. Hokkaido’s Es Con Field isn’t just a baseball stadium but has a lot of entertainment options. That’s what our thinking is close to.”
The legendary Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture is set to host the next Japanese Grand Prix in April, but 2024 is the last year of the circuit’s current contract with Formula One and its future hosting status is up in the air.
The unnamed OCTB official said that Osaka doesn’t want to compete against Suzuka, using the phrase 共存共栄 (co-existence and co-prosperity) and suggesting that Japan could and should host two GPs.
One preliminary step could be for Osaka to host a Formula E race, like Tokyo will be hosting at the end of March, about a week before the next Japanese GP in Suzuka.
4. Big men on campus
Japan’s American football season wraps up this week with the Dream Bowl, a matchup between Japan and Ivy League all-stars.
Seven of the Ivy League’s eight schools (what’s up, Yale?) have sent players to Japan, with Brown head coach James Perry bringing the majority of his coaching squad with him to lead the team.
Earlier this week they checked out the sights in Kamakura:
Japan’s All-Stars almost all hail from X League teams: 41 of the 60 came from the Fujitsu Frontiers and Panasonic Impulse, who have met in the last three Rice Bowls (with Fujitsu coming out on top every time).
The one college selection on the Japan squad is Yosuke Sugano, a linebacker at Syracuse University who just completed his masters degree.
Tickets are still available to the game (in English, as well!), which will take place on Sunday, Jan. 21, at the National Stadium in Tokyo. Per a post by the Ivy League, ESPN+ subscribers stateside will be able to watch a delayed broadcast on Wednesday, Jan. 24.
5. Basho’s back, baby!
The New Year Grand Sumo Tournament is off and running, with just three wrestlers undefeated after four days of action at Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Yokozuna Terunofuji, wrestling in Tokyo for the first time since May 2023, already handed out his first kinboshi of the year to maegashira Wakamotoharu in an epic Day 2 battle of endurance that lasted one minute and 45 seconds — and showed that Tokyo-area sumo fans may be a little out of practice when it comes to one of the sport’s more fun traditions.
The bout is great and worth watching in its entirety, but check out the post-bout attempts by fans to throw zabuton cushions into the ring, a tradition when a yokozuna is defeated by a rank-and-filer.
Between Terunofuji’s injuries, his impressive 14-1 title in May and the previous pandemic-era restrictions on cheering, there haven’t been many opportunities for zabuton-throwing in recent years. But c’mon guys, this is pathetic. More wrist action!
6. Not my type(face)
It’s January and that means J.League clubs are dropping their new uniform designs for the upcoming season. I will pass my judgement in a future issue (possibly after the Super Cup when I’ll have a chance to see all of them in person), but I do want to yell at clouds for a couple minutes about one thing.
As a glasses-wearer for about three decades, I’ll take all the help I can get when it comes to being able to see things, and it’s in that spirit that I welcomed the introduction of the J.League’s official uniform markings, which were introduced ahead of the 2021 season.
These markings were meant to improve readability not only in the universal design sense (check out this PDF from the league illustrating the challenges of establishing contrast for colorblind viewers), but also for the large number of fans who were watching games on smartphones and tablets in the early 2020s for (*ahem*) reasons.
It would also make replica uniforms slightly cheaper across the board, with the league able to order them in bulk rather than clubs having to order smaller lots of bespoke markings.
While the intention was great in theory, the new markings had fewer proponents among fans, especially those supporting clubs with long-established traditions of using certain typefaces or color schemes.
The league wound up the program at the end of the 2023 season, once again allowing clubs to do their own thing. That’s fine, for the most part, as we see in FC Tokyo’s 2024 markings via New Balance:
But we’re also getting some weirdness, like Mizuno’s numbering for Nagoya Grampus, or the oddly thin markings that Nike have created for Kashima Antlers, Urawa Reds and Sanfrecce Hiroshima.
The baseline standard is “can the referee(s) read the numbers,” and in all these cases the answer is probably yes? But things start getting a lot blurrier from the press box or the nosebleed seats (or at home when DAZN is buffering), and I think the league could do more — maybe in the forms of more cut-and-dry guidelines, if not a full approval process — to make these numbers more recognizable.
7. Trevor Bauer steps on a rake
Noted litigant and starting pitcher Trevor Bauer, whose 194-game suspension3 for violating MLB’s policy on domestic violence/sexual assault/child abuse remains the longest since that policy was put into place in 2015, is on somewhat of a right-wing media rehab tour after a one-season stint with NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars, claiming he’s learned the error of his ways and is ready for an MLB return.
Japanese fans, seemingly oblivious to the controversy over Bauer’s bedroom conduct, embraced Bauer enthusiastically upon his arrival in Yokohama, and he responded with a respectable 10-4 record before choosing free agency following DeNA’s Climax Series exit.
Like many foreign NPB stars before him, Bauer could have held onto that goodwill for as long as he wanted and perhaps even parlayed it into profitable celebrity endorsements.
Instead, he’s apparently chosen to set it on fire by celebrating the release of Ridge Alkonis, a naval officer who was released early by U.S. authorities after he had initially been sentenced to three years in a Japanese prison for a car accident that resulted in two deaths, in an Instagram comment.
Suffice to say, Japanese netizens have not taken this development well:
While this development isn’t exactly surprising for someone with Bauer’s worldview, you would think that after several interviews in which he expressed regret for flying off the handle in the face of criticism, he’d have learned that sometimes it’s okay to simply not post.
8. Takumi’s Tokyo trip
I’m trying not to cram too much soccer content into this newsletter, but in this house we celebrate good English-language content about Japanese athletes, and AS Monaco’s new minidoc on Takumi Minamino — filmed last month as the Samurai Blue superstar arrived in Japan ahead of Asian Cup preparation and released on Tuesday, his 29th birthday — is a nice bit of video.
Presented in three languages, the 16-minute documentary follows Minamino as he arrives in Tokyo, gets a haircut from a stylist known for working on Japanese stars like Keisuke Honda and Hidetoshi Nakata, does a photoshoot in the middle of Shibuya’s famous Scramble Crossing, and enjoys some okonomiyaki.
French journalist and friend-of-the-newsletter Florent Dabadie, who interpreted for Troussier during his time in charge of Japan, gets a deserved bit of screen time as well, discussing Minamino and his popularity in Japan.
The Asian Football Confederation stripped China of hosting rights in May 2022, when the country still showed no sign it was ready or eager to emerge from its zero-COVID policy.
Reduced from over 300, not that anyone’s counting.
The DAZN deal was a boon for the J.League at the time, offering financial stability and an early entrance to the streaming era, but I'm skeptical that it's the right platform for the league's ambitions in the next decade. DAZN's financially beleaguered state has already looking for margin relief (price hikes, attempting to ditch J3, slashing UCL, cutting original soccer content) at the expense of subscribers, potentially hampering home penetration as fewer and fewer soccer games are shown on OTA TV.
Going forward I would love to see the J.League court better capitalized and global sugar daddies who are more willing to take some short-term hits to promote user growth, and can help with international distribution - the obvious parallel being MLS and Apple. This is prime パパ活 season for the J.League :)
I came for Soccer, bit I'm staying for everything else. Nice Basho (I know nothing of Sumo)