Japan

Features
News

Latest Features

Baseball
Events

Japan’s biggest domestic sports league, Nippon Professional Baseball, commenced its 2020 season on June 19 following a three-month delay due to Covid-19.
Multi-Sport
Events

Only a handful of the biggest sports events globally were insured for the Covid-19 interruption. Tommy Elliot of specialist events insurer Circles Group tells SportBusiness about the implications for sports properties, and for his own industry.
Multi-Sport

 A
Basketball
Business

Kevin McCullagh looks at the growth of the B. League, Japan's domestic basketball league, and considers whether it might be the country's biggest sports expansion of the Reiwa era.
Olympic Games
Events

In the third of a trilogy of interviews with the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, SportBusiness speaks to Hideyo Hirata, head of the innovation promotion office and deputy executive director of technology services.

Latest News

View All
Baseball
Attendance

Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league will admit increased numbers of fans to its games from this weekend, following the Japanese government's relaxation of Covid-19 spectator limits
Multi-Sport
Industry Moves

Koji Murofushi, the sports director of Tokyo’s summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, has left the organising committee to take up a new role as commissioner of the Japan Sports Agency.
Badminton
Events

Seven-times MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi has dismissed speculation he will be retiring from the sport at the end of the season, saying he is on the verge of signing a new deal with Malaysian-based team…
Multi-Sport
Events

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has said “important and intensive discussions” will take place in the coming weeks over Covid-19 countermeasures for Tokyo’s summer Olympic Games…

Features

Basketball
Finance & Money

In just a short amount of time, the Wizards have put themselves in prime position to become the NBA's most-popular team in Japan following the arrival of Rui Hachimura. Bob Williams discovers how they have done it.
Olympic Games
Marketing

In the second of a trilogy of interviews with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, SportBusiness spoke to Masahiko Sakamaki, the executive director of the committee’s marketing bureau.
All Sports
Governance

In the first of a trio of interviews with the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Kevin McCullagh speaks to Masa Takaya, spokesperson and communications team leader, about what Tokyo 2020 wants to say to the world and how his team is delivering the message.
中文

在明年东京奥运会的马拉松项目确认将转移到札幌举办之后，东京政府在与国际奥委会的位置争议中正式宣告落败。
Basketball
Events

The Philippines, Indonesia and Japan have taken over from China hosting duties for the 2023 Fiba World Cup
Rugby
Events

The best rugby players on the planet are heading to Japan for the first Asian Rugby World Cup, but what impact will it have on the fan and player base across the continent – and the game’s commercial prospects? SportBusiness Asia editor Kelvin Tan reports.
Judo
Events

The 2019 World Judo Championships in Tokyo will not only be the showcase event of the year in the sport; it will also provide a perfect launchpad for athletes, officials and fans ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games.
Rugby Union
Licensing & Merchandising

IMG Licensing says it has secured contracts with 25 Japanese licensees and 21 global licensees for this year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan. Ben Cronin reports.
Judo
Events

In association with the International Judo Federation.
Rugby Union
Business

With just two years to go until the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, the competition's chief operating officer, Alan Gilpin, tells Ben Cronin about the benefits of its proximity to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and how it could influence the future of sports hospitality in the region.

Basketball

E-commerce giant Rakuten is making waves in the world of sport having recently signed off on sponsorship deals with the NBA, Barcelona FC and the Golden State Warriors. Ben Cronin spoke to the company’s global marketing director, Rahul Kadavakolu, at the recent Leaders business conference.

Baseball
Fan Engagement

Blair Hughes visits the Kyocera Dome in Osaka to experience a professional baseball game Japanese style

Olympic Games
Media

A free report, commissioned from SportBusiness by the Budapest 2024 Olympic Games bid, surveying attitudes to, and media consumption habits around, the Olympic Games.
Football
Media

The $200m pact between OTT operator Perform Group and the J.League is the largest deal in the history of Japanese sports. John Duerden looks at how it might help to transform the country’s football infrastructure and help the sport connect with millennials.

Olympic Games
Stadia

Is the saga surrounding the development of the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games finally at an end? SportBusiness International reports.

Rugby Union
Business

World Rugby chairman Bernard Lapasset writes exclusively for SportBusiness International about the future of rugby union as he prepares to step down from the helm of the governing body.

Golf
Events

Rob Ridley looks at how a brand new event for ladies golf, The Queens, could attract a whole new demographic of fans from its key Asian market

Multi-Sport
Stadia

Elisha Chauhan asks industry experts to assess the Tokyo 2020 national stadium saga, and whether it will be ready on time and on budget, having dropped Zaha Hadid Architects’ controversial design.

Media

This third annual survey of global sports media consumption by Perform, KantarSport and TV Sports Markets takes our research wider and deeper than before. Wider, because the number of territories covered has increased from 10 to 14, with the inclusion this year of important growth markets such as India, Indonesia, Japan and Turkey. Deeper, because we have asked questions designed to burrow down into new areas, such as consumers’ second-screen activities, that have not been properly examined until now.