No Pa League on TV This Year?

Just to clarify: The second and third paragraphs of the original post are my unofficial translation of this article.

I had read something about SoftBank forming a child company called GT Entertainment (GTE) to manage the broadcast rights of all the Pacific League teams except the Fighters in yesterday's (January 23, 2008) paper version of Nikkan Sports. It said that GTE was to manage the "CS broadcast rights" for 2008-9. Internet broadcasts for 2008 were also mentioned in the article as being placed under GTE's control.

My initial reaction was that it would be good for the Pacific League teams to start coordinating their effort to market their product better via cable and the Internet.

But with this being mentioned, I can see why the shareholders are up in arms over this. From what I've heard from one Tokyo SABR member involved with broadcasting, the cable companies get the Pacific League games (content) for practically nothing. Any kind of organized group controlling the broadcasting rights (as opposed to a bunch of individual teams who haven't got a clue) are going to seriously cut into the profit margins of J-Sports and others, trying to maximize profits for the teams who are generating the content.

Well, I know that Son-san is both an intelligent businessman and wants to promote Pro Yakyu beyond what the other owners have been willing to imagine possible. I hope that this deal means that more content will find its way to the Internet for more peoples' enjoyment. Being exposed to more Pacific League games on cable has really given me more of an appreciation for "that other league," and I hope that something can be worked out so that I may continue to enjoy complete games from start to finish.

Warning to J-COM. If you don't have the baseball content, my wife and I will both be very happy to do away with the cable bill altogether. I only subscribe to cable TV for its superior baseball coverage. Without it, I'll happily turn to what SoftBank does with the Internet.

This Sponichi article says just what I had expected, that Yahoo! Japan will be carrying all six Pacific League teams' games on the Internet this season.

While no URL was mentioned in the article, I expect that it will be here. I already see subcategories for the Hawks, Fighters, Eagles, and Marines.

God, anything but that "Japan only" junk.

Are you saying that the above link to Yahoo! Douga only works within Japan? Or that you're hoping that they do away with that restriction this year?

Well, the way it was last year, if you were outside Japan you could see all the links to Yahoo! Douga just fine, and the page would look exactly like it would if you were in Japan. The only difference was that when you tried to actually watch a game, it'd give you all of the "sorry, you're not in Japan, so you can't get this stream" stuff.

Offhand the normal Yahoo! baseball pages look the same as last year (when they had the restriction), so who knows.

I'm still wondering how it happened that the Fighters' playoff games were suddenly not Japan-only in 2006, despite the streams being Japan-only all year. That was a treat.

It would be nice to see the teams rid of the Japan-only viewership, but I don't see it realistically happening. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all video context on Yahoo! Japan is Japan only.

That switches it to, who is the majority shareholder in Yahoo! Japan? SoftBank. Who is the key person at SoftBank? Masayoshi Son.

Son-san is the one with a vision that can make anything change with Yahoo! Japan's policy of Japan only or with games online in Japan. If he can't make anything change, I hate to say I don't see it happening.

What about the Buffaloes?

While I didn't see anything there yet for the Buffaloes or Lions, the article said all six Pacific League teams will be covered on the Internet.

Going back to the original topic, the reason that the Fighters were not included in the GTE deal is because they are already under contract with another rights holding company for 2008. It seemed to have been inferred that they would join the group once their current contract has ended, but that was never actually stated.

I just read that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo.

Could it affect the Japan-only viewer policy of Yahoo! Japan if the deal goes through?

My understanding is that Yahoo! Japan is fully owned by SoftBank and only shares the brand name with the U.S. version. There is some technology sharing between the two companies, but from what I've heard, the two don't collaborate with each other that much.

I feel very sorry for those who have a lot of their Internet profile on Yahoo! should this deal go through. Like Hotmail, Yahoo! is mainly a FreeBSD shop. It took Microsoft over 5 years,the addition of 3 times the number of servers, and many disruptions to convert that to Microsoft technologies.

If they require Silverlight for their multimedia from now on, I'll never use their services. As big a baseball fan as I am, you couldn't pay me to install Microsoft technologies on any computer I run, so I'd rather go without baseball entirely. This is something I feel very strongly about.

- My understanding is that Yahoo! Japan is fully owned by SoftBank and only shares the brand name with the U.S. version.

Softbank is the majority shareholder in Yahoo! Japan, but not the only shareholder in Yahoo! Japan. This Investor Information page shows us all the shareholders in Yahoo! Japan. They're listed as: SoftBank 41.09%, Yahoo! Inc. 33.42%, Japan Trustee Services Bank, Ltd. 1.45%, Chase Manhattan Bank GTS Clients Account Escrow 1.35%, The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. 1.19%, and The Bank of New York for GCM Client Accounts (E) ISG 1.09%.

As for how much Yahoo! and Yahoo! Japan collaborate between the two, I couldn't tell you.

I just saw on NHK that the Pacific League will be web-casted. I can't find this website anywhere. Help!

This page [GT Entertainment - in Japanese] has the information on the upcoming Internet broadcasting for 2008.

As usual, the games will be televised over at Yahoo! Japan, and by checking the team reports below, it is Japan only.

Yes, That's the website I saw on NHK. Thank You.

In addition to being Japan-only, it also seems to be Windows-only, something I never noticed before my hard drive decided to die and left me running Linux off a USB stick. (Don't ask.) I have no idea whether this is just for Open-sen, but it gave me a whole lot of pain when I tried to make it run for me to watch today's game on Yahoo Douga.

(Or maybe I'm just doing something wrong. It said Windows required, when I looked, though.)

Westbay, you have been reading way too much Stallman.

This is way off topic, and I'm sure that 99% of the people here don't know who you're referring to [Wikipedia]. But I appreciate the chuckle.

RMS and I have just two things in common: we both are passionate about our principals, and we both have a deep distrust of Microsoft. The former makes us both look to be a bit eccentric, while the latter we both arrived at from very different roads. But he says GPL only, I say BSD is fine; he says emacs, I say vi. It's hard to find rifts bigger than those two. (Maybe Hanshin vs. Kyojin?)

Back on topic, I'm glad to see Yahoo! fighting this. They know that their corporate image and culture will be ruined with a Microsoft merger. Tech boards have been lit up with near unanimous opposition to such a merger, with all but one respectable (i.e. not in Microsoft's pocket) analyst saying that this will be bad for both companies. Most of the talent at Yahoo! that Microsoft hopes to buy will most likely quit rather than fall under Microsoft's umbrella.

Sure, I keep up with what Stallman is up to to a degree. (Like I just read today that he's passing the emacs project on to new caretakers.) But I haven't heard him weigh in on the Yahoo!/Microsoft merger talks at all. He's been a non-player in this bout.

I tried to watch the game tonight (February 25), but it didn't work. I clicked on the icon to watch but got no response. Anyone else have a problem?

Westbay,

After I posted here I read Stallmans' blog. He is the prototypical computer nerd with a heart of gold. Seems like he has a girlfriend now, amazing. I have seen him at shows, he seems like an odd sort but his blog has a different character entirely.

No sign he is a baseball fan however that I could pick up.

I have worked with Eric Raymond, if you follow that crowd. I brought him over to Japan once for a OS show. He is a huge gun nut. He gave an excellent speech which unfortunately did not translate well.

Agree with you about the Yahoo acquisition. MS is getting dumber and dumber over the years.

[Moderator note: This post is way off topic and will probably be deleted in the near future. Please don't post anything on-topic as a reply to this one as it will be lost. It's interesting to learn about some of the posters here.]

Well, I guess the NPB doesn't need any "outside of Japan" fans.

It seems like my only hope of being able to watch the NPB on the Internet is if the BayStars stream there home games like they did last year. Othersie, it looks like I'll be following the MLB again from now on.

So that's one less NPB fan (even if they don't really care).

Are NPB games often shared as torrents or via other P2P networks?

I don't know about Torrents, but last year it was possible to watch some games on PeerCast.

Living in the USA, I'd love to see Japan games on TV. Japan always has great players and I'd love to see them live.

YankeesDaily

I live in Japan and I can't get the Yahoo! website to work. I click on the icon to watch the game but nothing happens. How can I fix this?

Have you installed the "Yahoo! Broadcast" application?

Ya, I did that. Then I thought the problem was the firewall, but as it turns out you have to download ActiveX which I don't like.

What about sopcast? Did anyone try using sopcast? I use it all the time, but it freezes a lot because I live in the US. I doubt it would freeze for Japan that much.

YankeesDaily

I tried to use that to watch cricket, but couldn't get it to work.