Orix Corp to Buy Osaka Dome

Does this mean that ORIX will permanantly move to Osaka Dome and give up on Skymark? Stupid move if you ask me; consider that basically everyone in Osaka is a Hanshin fan, and consider the pride that Kobe has simply because it's Kobe. The BlueWave really became Kobe's team after the earthquake and there was more of a feeling of Kobe pride over Kansai pride in the area. It woild be a shame to see Kobe lose a team.

That's a sticky one. Sure, the BlueWave identified strongly with Kobe after the earthquake, but the Tigers popularity is just as overwhelming in Kobe as in Osaka (remember that the Tigers are actually a Hyogo-based team).

But even more than that, I feel it's hard to get close to Orix. It seems to be they've made it hard for themselves, because:

• Skymark is not on any of the major railways or near any other crowd-pulling facilities; it's just too much of a hassle to get there. Also, <nit pick> it's in the "wrong" part of Kobe, by which I mean it's in neither of the highly populated areas to the coastal east or west, which also happen to be the areas best served by JR, Hanshin and Hankyu railways; rather it's in that neither-here-nor-there portion up towards the mountains - sparsely populated, under-developed, and with poor public transport access </nit pick>.


• Also, Orix as a company has a limited strike zone. Specifically, it has no appeal to kids. Children watch Yomiuri TV, ride Hanshin trains, shop at Daiei, etc., but how many of them enter into lease contracts? And doesn't the same go for a sizeable portion of the adult population?

From a purely crowd-attraction point of view, I think a team - especially one that was not owned by a company that had close ties with a broad range of its target market segment - would do better to base themselves at a stadium located in a central, easily-accessed part of a smaller city (Tokushima, Matsuyama, Okayama, and Sendai leap to mind) than an out-of-the-way ground in a city that's already enamoured with one of the oldest teams in Japan.

Given the hold that Tigers have on Kobe as well, it really is unimportant where Orix play in Kansai. Like the whole Kansai region, Kobe's team is the Tigers. Koshien is located midway between Kobe and Osaka just for that reason.

Kobe stadium's beautiful from what I've seen. But apparently it's not exactly close to the city of Kobe. And the BlueWave couldn't fill the seats even when Ichiro was there. So I can see the point. It's unfortunate though.

Yeah, the Tigers definitely own all of Kansai. I went to a "home game" for the Buffaloes in Skymark against the Tigers last year. It was 95% black and gold. It would definitely be a shame if the Buffaloes permanently move to the Osaka Dome, as Skymark is one of the best places in Japan to see a game and Osaka Dome is one of the worst. How about moving a couple Tigers games a year to Skymark instead of Osaka Dome. It would never happen, but I'd love to see it.

I know exactly where the place is (as I live one stop away on the subway), but I disagree with the sparsely populated part of it. The stations around the area (Seishin Chuo, Seishin Minami, Gakuentoshi, Myodani, Myohoji, and Itayado) are actually filled with families. Furthermore there are numerous bus lines which go to those stations, and it connects directly to Sannomyiya. The people who go to those games don't seem to mind traveling too much either, as there are surprisingly many fans from Himeji, Akashi, Nishinomiya, and Amagasaki who are regulars at games.

But I do understand how Osaka is the larger attraction, and indeed, it is more populated by far. I just don't see the point in giving up on Skymark which, in my opinion, is the best place to watch a ballgame in Japan (from the five stadiums I've been to) as opposed to Osaka Dome (Kyocera Dome if you're nasty), which is a pathetic waste of money - you can't see a good third of the outfield if you sit in the bleachers!

And if we are going to talk about fans who attend games, it's a given that there will almost always be more visiting fans than ORIX fans at the games, normally sitting in the outfield, in which case, you want Skymark because they don't have to split between two levels. There are ALWAYS more visiting fans at games in Skymark than le Dome.

- [At] Osaka Dome ... you can't see a good third of the outfield if you sit in the bleachers!

This is true. Incidentally, the best seats I've ever had at Osaka Dome are the restaurant seats. There is a restaurant in the outfield under the first level of seats. If you get a counter seat your table is right up against the outfield wall, so you can see everything (naturally it's netted to stop a home run ball landing in your soup).