Chance of Kintetsu Continuing is 0%
Discussion in the NPB News forum
Comments
Re: Chance of Kintetsu Continuing is 0%
[ Author: mijow | Posted: Sep 14, 2004 2:50 PM
| HT Fan
]
Interesting update Michael - thanks.
The thing that bugs me is that Kintetsu claims it can't afford to run a baseball team (which loses, what? 3 billion yen a year?), yet they won't consider selling it, which would surely solve the cash problem. Instead, they've turned the yakyu world upside down by insisting on what has turned out to be a messy merger - antagonizing the fans and the players.
Is it a prestige thing? If so, this can't be worth much as the Kintetsu name will disappear with the establishment of the new club.
I just don't understand it.
The thing that bugs me is that Kintetsu claims it can't afford to run a baseball team (which loses, what? 3 billion yen a year?), yet they won't consider selling it, which would surely solve the cash problem. Instead, they've turned the yakyu world upside down by insisting on what has turned out to be a messy merger - antagonizing the fans and the players.
Is it a prestige thing? If so, this can't be worth much as the Kintetsu name will disappear with the establishment of the new club.
I just don't understand it.
Team Finances
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Sep 14, 2004 7:16 PM
| YBS Fan
]
Do we have anyone here who understands fincances in Japanese? There's an article in today's (September 14) Nikkan Sports related to the above article about some simulations run by a Miyamoto-professor, head of the Economics Departement at Osaka Prefectoral University. I have no clue what his charts are trying to say, but they appear to say that it would be more economical (as far as income in concerned) to have two six team leagues with inter-league play than one league with five teams and the other with six and inter-league play.
I did a quick Google on him (in Japanese), and there are a number of articles with simulations of earnings of the teams under a number of conditions (two leagues 4 and 6, two leagues 5 and 5, costs to the clubs if the strike is for four days, six days, etc.).
What I don't know, and what a number of researchers have asked me for, is where he's getting these income figures. Can anyone who understands all of this finance talk wade through some of this and report on it? A lot of researchers would be very greatful. (Posting your findings in another thread would probably be best.)
I did a quick Google on him (in Japanese), and there are a number of articles with simulations of earnings of the teams under a number of conditions (two leagues 4 and 6, two leagues 5 and 5, costs to the clubs if the strike is for four days, six days, etc.).
What I don't know, and what a number of researchers have asked me for, is where he's getting these income figures. Can anyone who understands all of this finance talk wade through some of this and report on it? A lot of researchers would be very greatful. (Posting your findings in another thread would probably be best.)
Re: Team Finances
[ Author: Guest: Tigers Baka | Posted: Sep 14, 2004 11:48 PM
]
Sorry guys, I must have missed something! I thought the owners met all 3 of the Players' Associations demands last week to avoid a strike last weekend, one of which was to postpone the merger for a year. Was this not the case? It's so hard to follow this because I think things are being missed in the translation when I read the English papers like the Japan Times!
Re: Team Finances
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Sep 15, 2004 8:50 AM
| YBS Fan
]
- I thought the owners met all 3 of the Players' Associations demands last week to avoid a strike last weekend, one of which was to postpone the merger for a year. Was this not the case?
It was not the case. Talks last Thursday and Friday were progressing well enough that Furuta decided that the owners were sincere in their promise not to reduce the number of teams next season. When the owners' representatives met on Monday, after a full weekend of games, the representatives (preluded by Yomiuri's president's negative comments on Saturday) basically said that they would not agree to nullify the Orix-Kintetsu merger and they didn't think that any team could clear their conditions to join by the end of this month (which now appears to be their cut-off date).
- It's so hard to follow this because I think things are being missed in the translation when I read the English papers like the Japan Times!
Garland-san's Merger Page tends to be much more informative than The Japan Times. Although, I don't always read the same things in Nikkan Sports the same way. But Garland-san gathers information from more sources than I do, and I trust his translations on these business matters more than my own.
It was not the case. Talks last Thursday and Friday were progressing well enough that Furuta decided that the owners were sincere in their promise not to reduce the number of teams next season. When the owners' representatives met on Monday, after a full weekend of games, the representatives (preluded by Yomiuri's president's negative comments on Saturday) basically said that they would not agree to nullify the Orix-Kintetsu merger and they didn't think that any team could clear their conditions to join by the end of this month (which now appears to be their cut-off date).
- It's so hard to follow this because I think things are being missed in the translation when I read the English papers like the Japan Times!
Garland-san's Merger Page tends to be much more informative than The Japan Times. Although, I don't always read the same things in Nikkan Sports the same way. But Garland-san gathers information from more sources than I do, and I trust his translations on these business matters more than my own.
Re: Team Finances
[ Author: Guest: Tigers Baka | Posted: Sep 15, 2004 10:30 PM
]
Hmm, interesting. Now I can see Furuta's reluctance to shake hands with the owners' rep last Friday. Surely this means the players will take industrial action from this weekend. It seems like they're just stringing the players along to get the most games from them.
About
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
Copyright (c) 1995-2024 JapaneseBaseball.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
To put it shortly, they dismissed #1 off hand. They aren't going to even consider cancelling the merger of the two ball clubs. They've made their decision, they aren't going to change it now.
As for restrictions on new ball clubs, a deposit of 25-oku yen to cover the bulk of player salaries would be necessary, with it being returned after five years. It's essentially being thought of as insurance money while the team is new.
While the owners have said that they will accept an application from Livedoor, there are a number of hurldles that the new ball club must clear in order to be considered. Livedoor needs to have a team of players, a home ground, living facilities for the team (mainly for players making league minimum), an indoor practice field, and grounds for ni-gun. (Only the players and home ground are considered necessary, the others are "unwritten" conditions.) Livedoor has essentially two weeks to make all that happen in order for the owners to work out how the new team will fit into the November draft and how to schedule them.
Nomura-kantoku (Shidax) feels that having his team join NPB by next season will be pretty difficult, even though they already have most of the above conditions cleared. They haven't even begun looking for a new place to call home. Furthermore, after Shidax's owner announced on August 31 that he was interested in adding his team to NPB, watching the current owners work has cooled his desire a bit. But he has not said that he will not pursue joining NPB. (Don't you just like those double negative statements?)
Anyway, another thing that the owners were supposed to do was run simulations on next year's schedule with 5 and 6 teams in the Pacific League. What they did instead was run simulations on next year's schedule with 6 or 12 games against the Central League, assuming only 5 Pacific League teams. In other words, they don't appear to be considering 6 Pacific League teams as even a possibility next season.
My conclusion: they've stalled long enough that they don't care if the players strike for four games. The owners will give into zero player demands.
Furthermore, by forcing the merger through and not allowing Livedoor to purchase Kintetsu, the owners have pretty effectively put up a barrier to entry to the young capitalist with fresh, young ideas.
I do hope the owners prove me wrong in my conclusions.