This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Work on Sapporo Dome started in 1998 and was completed in June of 2001. There were 15 games played there last season with a total attendance of 480,000, averaging 32,000 per game. Of course, the three Giants' games were sell outs (53,000) while Seibu vs. Lotte averaged 23,000 for a three game series. Sapporo managed to attract a J-League (soccer) team to their dome last year and have averaged 37,000 fans per match, showing that Sapporo can support a professional team that calls Hokkaido home.
And that's one of the major things it comes down to. There are six professional baseball teams in the Tokyo area. This is clearly more than the market can support. Furthermore, the Fighters share Tokyo Dome with the Giants, making it rather difficult to really call it home. (When you say "Tokyo Dome is the home of ...." that's more often than not concluded "Giants.") This can only work out to the advantage of both the Fighters and Sapporo city, who want more use out of their 537-oku yen dome.
There is also talk from ball club president Oshima of changing the team name to better relate to the rural fans. Things that won't change include Nippon Ham retaining at least 51% of stock in the club and will still run club affairs, as well as 2-gun remaining in Kamagaya (Chiba).
The last ball club to make a "big" move (i.e. not across town to a new stadium) was Lotte moving from Kawasaki to Chiba. It seems to me that they've done well with their move, even though it's farther away from central Tokyo.