Introduced at the end of the 19th century, baseball has arguably become the most popular sport in contemporary Japan. The game occupies the center stage in the Japanese world of sports. This is manifested, among others, through a
, ample media attention regarding the professional scene, well-developed infrastructure in the shape of playing grounds or baseball stadiums, and plenty of qualified personnel that support new players. Japan’s professional baseball circuit is called Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). NPB consists of two same-tier leagues, the Central League, and the Pacific League, each of which features six teams. A typical season starts at the end of March and ends in October. Teams compete for the national cup in a two-stage process: the initial games determine the three leading teams in each league, after which the final contenders are determined in an add-on to the season, the Climax Series. The winners of the Climax Series proceed to the Nippon Series, a best of seven encounter that determines the year’s champion.
Top-performing teams
The current format of NPB came into existence in 1950, and except for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles who formed in 2005, all teams were previously existent or formed in 1950. In the circuit’s history, the
most successful team in terms of national championship wins are the Yomiuri Giants, ending in the first place 22 times. However, while the Giants, who play in the Central League, are sure to retain their top spot for the next seasons to come owing to the large gap between them and the pursuers, Pacific League teams, such as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, are closing in on the gap. The Hawks have won the title seven times in the past 11 years. In 2021, the title was won by the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, who defeated the Orix Buffaloes in the Nippon Series to become the first Central League team to stand on top of the Japanese baseball world after the title went to Pacific League teams in a nine-year streak.
How does NPB compare to MLB?
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the professional baseball circuit in the United States of America. Various differences can be observed between MLB and NPB, one of which is the size of the leagues. The American baseball circuit has 30 participant teams, while the Japanese circuit has 12 teams partaking, less than half of the American league’s size. Key performance indicators such as the estimated value of the leagues show that the value of MLB is considerably larger than that of NPB. This is also reflected in the
remuneration of players, with the average MLB payroll being several times higher than the average NPB salary. Moreover, with more teams to play more games,
total attendance numbers in MLB reach nearly thrice the
number of spectators that are annually recorded in NPB. With the financial incentives extent in MLB and the glory to be had, some of the best or most promising NPB players migrated to MLB, with Shohei Ohtani being one of the recent high-profile examples.
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