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A missed opportunity: The new Tourism Agency, NPB and the Asia Series

November 17, 2008
By Ken Worsley


The Japan Tourism Agency was formally established on October 1 of this year. Under the “Inbound Initiative” section of the new agency’s website, the goals of having 10 million foreign visitors come to Japan in 2010 and attracting more international conferences are listed.

This post is not meant to get too deep into the problems facing the Tourism Agency - the fact that the yen was strengthening just as it was established is sure to be a thorn in the side of anyone trying to attract international travelers to Japan. Rather, we’re simply going to quickly look at one event from this past week - the Asia Series.

On Saturday night I went to the final round robin game of the Asia Series with a colleague of mine. As this game pitted the Korean (SK Wyverns) and Taiwanese (Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions) league champions against each other, we didn’t think buying tickets would be much of a problem, since attendance at the Tokyo Dome was expected to be limited. We showed up at the box office about 30 minutes before game time, intending to buy the cheapest seats in the house. After all, we didn’t know much about the two teams outside of their WBC and Olympic team members. It was the rare chance to watch baseball in November (albeit in a dome) that attracted us.

We were surprised to learn that tickets were actually cheaper than had been advertised. We sat just behind home plate, in “special free seating” for 2,000 yen a ticket. We guessed the crowd to be about 5,000 people; if you’ve been to the Tokyo Dome, you know that’s a tiny crowd (the official attendance was 5,228). Most of the concessions were closed. Those that were open had limited options: 800 yen beer, 900 yen sake, tiny servings of takoyaki, chicken nuggets and yaki soba. On sale was an array of Yomiuri Giants, Hanshin Tigers, Seibu Lions and NPB Series gear. At least the Seibu Lions were relevant to the Asia Series.

The fans that did show up were diehards indeed. Uni-President supporters brought a small brass band, five mascots and a cheerleader/dance troupe. I’ve never heard such noisy baseball fans - a trip to Taiwan to take in some games next year is in full order. The Korean fans were fewer in number, but still made plenty of noise and had a cheerleading/dance troupe - definitely saucier than their Taiwanese counterparts.

Security was tighter than a normal Giants game. We had to empty our pockets, have our bags searched and be scanned with metal detectors. Just like the regular season, however, a bottle of sake made it through undetected. It’s good to see some consistency from the Tokyo Dome staff.

By no means was the game of Major League or NPB quality (not including the Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals or Yokohama Baystars), but that does not matter. The whole time we discussed how the Asia Series was a lost opportunity for baseball fans, the newly founded Tourism Agency, and NPB itself. It was hardly promoted; the largest crowd of the series, at only 18,370, attended the final, a game in which Seibu played and won. Two games failed to draw even 3,000 paying fans. Is it even worth using the Tokyo Dome for these games if they are not properly promoted?

Promotion and marketing is a huge problem for much of the NPB, as was highlighted by my visit to Chiba Marines Stadium this past summer. Their marketing guy, Larry Rocca, took a small group of us “backstage” before the game and showed us how a team can put build a fanbase and start putting asses in seats.

It’s a shame that these techniques are not being used by NPB to promote the Asia Series. This year was the fourth time the contest was held; Chiba Lotte won the inaugural series in 2005 and they still wear a “2005 Asia Series Champions” patch on their uniforms. Seibu, on the other hand, hardly seemed to care. I visited stations on the Seibu Line to see what sort of promotion for the Asia Series was to be found. There was none. There were plenty of posters congratulating the team on winning the Japan Series, and lots of mention of the sales to be held at Seibu department store, but nothing on the upcoming Asia Series.

This seems to be indicative of the state of tourism to Japan. Although the new Tourism Agency is supposed to be a central organ for promoting the nation as a tourist destination, it was completely absent from the Asia Series, an event that could draw a much greater number of foreign tourists to the country each year. Of course, NPB is probably more likely to blame than the agency, but both of them need to step up to the plate and play a greater role in promoting Japan as a destination.

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Comments

3 Responses to “A missed opportunity: The new Tourism Agency, NPB and the Asia Series”

  1. Garrett on November 18th, 2008 9:52 am

    Well put, Ken. After all, various agencies in Japan, not least the Tourism Agency and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, are working hard and spending harder to attract international conferences and sporting events to the city (and the country in general) in the hopes that visitors will spend money elsewhere and that such events will create some sort fo positive feedback cycle in which the area becomes an even more attractive destination for such events. Here they have what could be a world-class sporting event with strong regional appeal and lack of promotion was so glaring that I suspect there was an intentional effort to kill the tournament in the crib.

    Want closer ties with Korea. Taiwan, and China? Having their baseball fans visit Tokyo and have a good time here certainly won’t hurt, nor would positive interactions with Japanese fans (the atmosphere at the tournament, while spirited, was quite cordial.)

    For NPB’s part, they’ve formed partnerships between NPB teams and each team in the fledgling CBL, allowing coaches and advisors from Japan to work with teams in the PRC in the hopes of increasing the sport’s profile and popularity along with the level of play there, which would ideally help develop a market for NPB’s product, viz. a league second only to MLB in terms of level of play and organization. Korea and, especially, Taiwan would be natural markets for NPB, even if only as a complement to the relatively new leagues there.

    If nothing else, NPB is paying out the same amount of prize money (￥50 million to the winning team, ￥30 million to the runners-up, ￥1 million to the tournament MVP), venue fees, and travel money whether anyone watches the games or not - one would think they’d see the value of promoting the event and encouraging the participating teams to do so as well.

    As it stands, the only promotion I saw was at the stadium around game time and on the Asia Series website. A number of other baseball fans I talked to were not even aware that there was such an event, much less that it was in their own town and was in its fourth year. This includes fans of the Saitama Seibu Lions, who, presumably, would be interested in seeing how their Japan Series-winning squad stacked up against the KBO and CPBL champs (the CBL has a way to go yet before their entrant will even have a realistic shot at winning a game.) Those fans might be surprised to see that mighty Seibu got its two round robin wins and the championship by one run each and lost their only round robin game by one run. That’s what I call a cluster of interesting games.

    As you said, Seibu did absolutely nothing to promote the event, nor did anyone else in the Tokyo area. No posters, no TV or radio advertising, no mention on team websites or the NPB site (that I could find, anyway). . . nada. The organziers couldn’t even be bothered to update the ticket prices listed on the site to reflect reality. Through the last day of the tournament, the ticket prices ranged from ￥2,000 for cheap seats to a ridiculous ￥8,000 for the seats you sat in. In actuality, the OF was clsoed off, the upper deck was empty, and all tickets were either ￥1,000 or ￥2,000, which is a good deal cheaper than a regular season Giants game, as it should be.

    I won’t even get into the pathetic merchandising, but Negro League teams that have been defunct for over 60 years have better merchandising than current NPB teams and merchandising of the Asia Series and the non-Japanese teams in it was an embarrassment even by NPB’s risibly low standards.

    All in all, a good tournament that suffered at the hands of people who really should not have their jobs anymore. One high school kid with a laptop, some paper, and a marker could have done a better job.

  2. John on November 25th, 2008 9:50 pm

    I was at the Taiwan vs. Korea game and the final Japan vs. Taiwan game. As I went with some Taiwanese friends, I sat in the Taiwanese section. It was a great time, although Taiwan lost the final in a terrible way (bottom of the ninth grounder up the middle to score the game’s only run, ending in a 1-0 Seibu win). I was really surprised by the dismal attendance, especially at the Korea-Taiwan game. Since the post is about tourism, I have to say based on my observations sitting in the Taiwan side, a good deal of people were not tourists but rather students like my friends and I who thought it was cool to see a Taiwanese baseball team play in Tokyo.

    But again to reiterate, what a sad turn out. The concept is such a great idea, pitting the best professional teams from different countries. If they included other countries professional league champions, it could be a real World Series.

    BTW, my ticket was 1500 yen, bought at Lawsons before the game.

    Although a bit off topic, it seems that the popularity of baseball is waning a bit. J-League is vying hard for that number one spot in the heart of the Japanese.

  3. Ken Worsley on January 14th, 2009 12:52 am

    the Tourism Agency and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, are working hard and spending harder to attract international conferences and sporting events to the city

    Let’s see how the Olympic bid goes in October, plus the bid for the World Cup in 2018/2022.

    John, I agree with you that the turnout was sad. But, I don’t think soccer is anywhere near taking over from baseball in terms of popularity. There was a major boost after the world cup in 02, but NPB teams still outdraw J League teams by far. The complete failure of Japan’s national football team has been a big part of this.

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