Michael rightly points out that the "Watch" criteria is a future move to the Majors, but only peripherally. Yes, that is where the greatest interest lies with American baseball fans. I am doing my best to write articles that appeal to the demands of the market, while moving the genre in the direction of a broader appreciation for the non-MLB-bound players in Japan. You and I, and all of us here, love to follow Japanese baseball for the game itself, but there is a larger world of people who are only interested in the highest level of play in the world, MLB.I have another friend who writes an occasional article for Sports Illustrated. He's tried to get them to take articles that would interest fans of Japanese baseball, but they've turned them down. They want articles with people saying that NPB is turning into a farm league for MLB, the floodgates are opening, nothing will stop the mass exodus, etc. I've done a number of interviews where that was the point that the "journalist" was striving for, and I wouldn't agree with that view (and was subsequently cut from the articles - no doom and gloom for NPB, no good sound bytes).
In trying to prove my point in a serious discussion with my minor league manager, Koga-kantoku, I tried to reject what Koga-kantoku was saying by questioning the credibility of Baylor and Hargrove, the men he was quoting.Second, even if it was true, there's a lot of real truth to Baylor and Hargrove's managerial decisions. From three years' experience of watching Hargrove day after day in Baltimore he made some questionable decisions, though so does every manager at times regardless of how good they are. Though once again, that was never Valentine's objective. It was a quote taken out of context.
According to Video Research, which tracks TV viewing figures in Japan, the Giants, who used to have nearly all their games telecast nationwide in prime time on terrestrial TV, enjoyed an astonishing per-game rating average of around 20 percent a decade or more ago.
Today, however, in the wake of the departure of Matsui, the biggest Yomiuri star in a generation, and a spate of losing seasons, it is down to single digits, representing a drop of approximately 10 million terrestrial TV viewers.
It was the biggest single loss of an audience since children's TV star Pee Wee Herman was caught flagrante delicto in an adult theater in Florida.
Each year the number of prime-time nationwide telecasts into Japan's 50 million-some homes via the country's conventional TV network decreases, as more and more gamecasts are relegated to Japan's relatively underdeveloped regional cable systems and SkyPerfect satellite channels (The number of Giants terrestrial network telecasts has declined from 70 to 40, as of 2007).
Contrast that with these numbers:
It is an indication of the sorry state of affairs in the NPB that Matsuzaka will get more TV exposure in Japan by being in a Boston Red Sox uniform than he ever got playing for the Seibu Lions.Source: MLB'S EFFECT ON JAPAN: Is the MLB destroying Japan's national pastime?, by Robert Whiting, The Japan Times
TV audiences for Lions games, which sold for 700,000 yen per contest last year, were estimated by Tokyo area sportswriters to be as low as 100,000 yen on cable and satellite.
Seibu's highest-rated game last year was the opener of the playoffs versus Softbank, when Matsuzaka faced off against Kazumi Saito, last year's PL pitcher of the year.
Aired on TBS, it drew a 6 percent rating in the Kanto area, a somewhat humble figure for such an important game and one that featured the country's two best hurlers.
It was nowhere near the ratings for the WBC final, which was watched by nearly one out of every two Japanese on Nippon TV, one of Japan 's largest commercial networks.
(Water consumption increased 25 percent during commercial breaks.)
Kozo Abe, a sports editor for the Fuji-Sankei group said, "Matsuzaka is a good athlete, but his popularity in Japan did not last past his rookie year. People were interested in his lovelife, his marriage, his famous traffic violations and whether or not he would go to America, but only a small segment of sports fans were actually interested in coverage of his games.
"The same was true of Ichiro when he was in Japan. It is only now, because he is in the States, that people are starting to pay attention again. Compared to Japan, the American game is just more dynamic -- it's bigger, stronger and faster. And more exciting, as long as Japanese players are in the game, of course."
Naturally, ALL of the games that Matsuzaka pitches for the Red Sox will be shown on NHK-BS satellite, now beamed into 13 million households, with a potential audience of around 32 million and growing.
Given the intense interest in Matsuzaka, in the wake of the enormous sum of money the Red Sox paid to acquire his services, viewership of some of Matsuzaka's games is expected to approach the unofficial BS record to date of an estimated 9 million people who watched Ichiro Suzuki break Sisler's record on Oct. 2, 2004, according to a special survey conducted by Video Research.
(That ratings firm normally limits itself to measuring conventional, terrestrial TV viewership, but made an exception for that game because of the mass interest and historic importance of the event.)
It is ironic that fans in Japan are now buzzing excitedly about upcoming Matsuzaka-Ichiro matchups in the MLB, when those matchups were largely ignored by the fans and the mainstream national media while both players were in the PL in 1999 and 2000.
At that time, the Tokyo Giants, as led by Matsui, occupied the spotlight nearly all the time.
Recently, sports channel ESPN interviewed Robert Whiting, famed author of You Gotta Have Wa - the ultimate explanation of the subtleties and intricacies of the Japanese game. Whiting says Japanese baseball "is doomed" if more players choose to abandon ship.Now:
Whiting: "There is still a healthy interest in the game in Japan. There is too much baseball history and the country produces too many top quality players for the Japanese pro game to ever die out.So yakyu seems to have gone from "doomed" to "not doomed" in the space of a few years. Having a book or three published doesn't mean you can't get it wrong from time to time.
... if MLB thinks it's going to just step in and ride roughshod over Japanese baseball, they should realize they'll have a fight on their hands ...You seem to see conflict where there isn't any. You seem to look for trouble, to fabricate an issue where one does not seem to exist. You position for a fight, when there is no threat. That's strange to me.
[Dean Wormer's plotting to get rid of Delta House]
Greg Marmalard: But Delta's already on probation.
Dean Vernon Wormer: They are? Well, as of this moment, they're on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!
Said Masayuki Tamaki, Japan's leading baseball writer, summing up the difference between the MLB and the NPB: "One's professional and the other isn't. One cares about the game and the other doesn't. One knows how to market its product and make money while the other doesn't know its a**."
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
And, yes, Bobby V hits back on his blog. Well, I didn't know he cussed so much.