Japanese professional baseball saw the highest-ever attendance at both Central and Pacific league games this past season, apparently due to efforts to cultivate more fans.
More than half of the leagues' 12 teams marked their highest numbers since 2005, when specific attendance figures were first released, and 11 teams saw higher attendance than in the previous year.
Many teams worked to come up with ideas, from installing new seats to give spectators more exciting views of games, to offering fans areas where they can interact with players. These efforts appear to have had a positive effect on attendance.
The Yokohama DeNA BayStars posted the largest growth rate, at 12.6%. The team's home ground of Yokohama Stadium will be the main venue for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics' baseball and softball games, and new seats called "wing seats," which were added onto the existing seats on the right-field side, became available this past season.
This boosted the seating capacity from about 29,000 to about 32,000. Wing seats on the left side are also scheduled to be completed for next season, boosting the total capacity to about 35,000.
The BayStars successfully turned the stadium's additional seats into increased turnout, thanks to sales strategies that drew attention. For instance, a 1 million yen ticket package offered the chance to watch a game in special seats and have dinner with the team's skipper.
Detailed audience analysis and efforts to cultivate new fans based on the data also contributed to the positive results.
"Fans, [the team's] operator and local communities have come together to create a space that can't be seen anywhere else in the country," said Shingo Okamura, the team's president.
According to Baseball Reference, a U.S. statistics website, the average attendance at major league games has continued to decrease after dropping below 30,000 in 2017. It totaled 28,198 this past season.
In contrast, the average attendance in Japan per game surpassed 30,000 for the first time this year with 30,929.
This shows Japanese professional baseball's drawing power has increased more than that of the U.S. major leagues.
While professional baseball has developed as a spectator sport, the decrease in the number of players remains a problem. At a meeting among the 12 team owners of the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) on Nov. 27, NPB Commissioner Atsushi Saito expressed mounting concern.
"The number of people who play baseball in various places and occasions is decreasing," Saito said. "How should we maintain and expand [the number of players of] baseball?"
At a session held after the owners meeting, subjects including measures to promote baseball were brought up.
Attendees exchanged opinions and agreed to continue discussions at a subcommittee.
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) is also promoting the spread of "Baseball5" in which players hit rubber balls with their hands in a five-on-five, five-inning game.
It is quite different from baseball in some respects, but the WBSC plans to hold Asian regional games in April next year, in an active bid to let more people know about the attractions of Baseball5 as "a sport to play."
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
