Let’s begin with a quiz: What nationwide sports activities groups in Japan are proven reside on terrestrial tv in Japan?
Soccer is the simple reply and baseball will get loads of air time for its worldwide tournaments, however that’s about it … apart from volleyball. Somehow, volleyball has been in a position to keep its standing as a premier TV sport whereas it doesn’t at all times get the identical quantity of media protection that soccer and baseball and different sports activities get in mainstream media retailers.
Volleyball continues to be a staple of college sports activities and round 4 million folks say they play the game (in comparison with 7 million for baseball and 5.3 million for soccer), so it has a powerful participation fee in Japan. And in the event you nonetheless doubt its recognition, try the figures for “Haikyu,” a manga, anime and film sequence that includes volleyball.
In May 2020, Haikyu was the second best-selling manga in Oricon’s Top 10 Weekly Chart, promoting almost half 1,000,000 copies per week. It was solely overwhelmed by “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.” The manga sequence ran for eight years and has offered over 70 million copies. The anime was reportedly among the many prime 10 streamed anime within the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and different international locations in 2020 and the film model – “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” launched a 12 months in the past – has grossed over $100 million on the field workplace!
Not surprisingly, the organizations operating volleyball in Japan are eager to use the game’s recognition and its attraction for each home and worldwide audiences. Commentator Clayton Lucas, the “voice of volleyball” for TV and different broadcasts, instructed Japan Today, “Volleyball in Japan is unlike anything anywhere in the world due to the incredible defensive abilities of its players and with the speed of play, you have one of the most exciting leagues on the planet to watch.”
Those who’ve been paying consideration will know that Japan’s volleyball leagues had been revamped this season and the highest competitions are actually often called the Daido Life SV Leagues, with the lesser V League slightly below. The intention is to make the SV Leagues the very best on the planet. And they’ve obtained off to a great begin.
Image: ©️SV.LEAGUE
The SV League has simply introduced {that a} whole of 1,034,667 spectators attended matches throughout the just-completed common season, marking a rise of 528,389 from the earlier 12 months. The males’s division noticed a 75 p.c year-on-year enhance with 664,709 spectators, whereas the ladies’s division recorded a formidable 195 p.c progress, drawing in 369,958 followers.
“In terms of attendance, our men’s league is now comparable to the top leagues in Italy and Poland,” League Chairman Masaaki Okawa stated. “I believe we’ve taken a strong first step in this inaugural year.”
Some of the lads’s video games have attracted greater than 10,000 spectators – the highest attendance was 11,599 followers at a sport between the Suntory Sunbirds and Tokyo Great Bears on November 3 – and is proving to be very fashionable amongst feminine followers. A report in JT acknowledged: “It’s easy to mistake a men’s volleyball game in Japan for a concert featuring the latest idol pop group, especially since many superfans follow their favorite players as religiously as J-Pop fans support their favorite idols.” The report says as much as 80 p.c of followers at males’s video games are ladies of their 20s, 30s or 40s.
While the Japan males’s group hasn’t gained an Olympic medal since 1972, it’s on the rise and the nationwide group is at present ranked sixth on the planet. It gained the bronze medal within the 2023 Volleyball Nations League and silver in 2024. It has quite a lot of real stars, headed by Yuki Ishikawa (who performs in Italy), Ran Takahashi and Yuji Nishida.
In a multimedia world, volleyball has been in a position to exploit its skills. JT article quotes Japan Volleyball Association President Shunichi Kawai – himself a former star participant and TV star – as saying: “When I was an active player, my media appearances were limited to televised games and postgame interviews. We weren’t allowed to be on entertaining TV shows. Newspapers and magazines helped make us popular. National team players today do what we weren’t able to do, like be on variety shows and use personal social media accounts to express themselves.”
Curiously, the ladies’s sport is attempting to catch as much as the lads’s recognition. Curious, as a result of extra males comply with sport than ladies and the ladies’s nationwide group has had more moderen success than the lads’s group, taking the bronze medal within the Olympics as not too long ago as 2012 and the silver medal in final 12 months’s Nations League. However, attendance at SV League video games has seen an enormous increase, with a 195 p.c enhance over the earlier 12 months’s V League figures.
The folks behind the SV Leagues have seen the success of different professionalization in different sports activities, reminiscent of soccer and basketball, and are transferring ahead to lift the extent of Japan’s home leagues.
“Japan already fields men’s and women’s teams with Olympic-medal potential, world-class stars and a nationwide fan base, yet volleyball has never been fully professionalized as a business,” an SV League spokesperson instructed Japan Today. “Seeing how football’s J.League has grown over 30 years and how basketball’s B.League has surged ahead, we felt a real risk of being left behind if we stayed with the traditional company-team model.”
Image: ©️SV.LEAGUE
The SV League is step one in making Japanese volleyball extra skilled, together with the professionalization of each gamers and golf equipment, larger industrial alternatives, broader media publicity and elevating the general stage of the gamers. The intention is to make SV League the world’s premier volleyball league by 2030 and to assist increase the extent of the nationwide groups because the gamers get to play with high-level overseas stars within the home league.
“Our first season already featured players from 25 countries, including Olympians from the Paris 2024 Games,” the SV League spokesperson stated. “We view competitive excellence as the outcome of stronger governance and business foundations, and the accelerated foreign-player quota will raise the league’s standard even faster.”
The SV League is already trying forward and has determined that by the 2026-27 season at the very least half of the gamers needs to be below skilled contracts (the lads’s league already qualifies on this rating), extra overseas gamers will likely be allowed to play and golf equipment should set up themselves as unbiased companies.
The future appears vivid and volleyball followers in Japan can get pleasure from top-class video games over the subsequent few months, beginning with the SV League Finals in Tokyo this week. The best-of-3 ladies’s closing between Osaka Marvelous and NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki will happen on May 2, 3 and 4 (if crucial), whereas the lads’s closing between Suntory Sunbirds Osaka and JTEKT Stings Aichi will likely be on May 3 (a double-header with the ladies’s match), 5 and 6 (if crucial).
While the home season ends there, there are worldwide video games to comply with. Suntory Sunbirds and Osaka Bluteon will symbolize Japan within the AVC Men’s Volleyball Champions League that takes place in Osaka and Kyoto from May 11 to May 18.
In July, Japanese followers will be capable to assist their nationwide groups within the Volleyball Nations League in Chiba. The ladies’s group will likely be up in opposition to Brazil, South Korea, France and Poland, whereas the lads will likely be competing in opposition to Brazil, Argentina, Germany and the United States.
SV League Finals
Women – Best of three
May 2, 3, 4 (if crucial)
Ariake Arena
Men – Best of three
May 3, 5, 6 (if crucial)
Ariake Arena (May3), LaLa Arena (May 5, 6)
AVC Champions League
Group Stage
May 11-13, Panasonic Arena, Osaka
Finals
May 15-18, Shimadzu Arena, Kyoto
Volleyball Nations League
Women
July 9-13, Chiba Port Arena
Men
July 16-20, Chiba Port Arena
© Japan Today