Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner Sadayuki Sakakibara is expected to step down when his second two-year term ends in November, with former Mitsui & Co. president Masami Iijima set to replace him, according to a report from Sponichi.
If approved, the 75-year-old will become the 16th commissioner in NPB history. He joined Mitsui in 1974 and worked primarily in steel, natural resources, and energy before becoming company president in 2009. He later served as chairman from 2015 to 2021, vice chairman of the Japan Business Federation, and an outside director for companies including Takeda Pharmaceutical and SoftBank Group — owners of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
Sakakibara, 83, became commissioner in December 2022 after previously serving as president of Toray Industries and chairman of the Japan Business Federation. He took over while Japanese baseball was still recovering from the financial and operational effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
His most notable contribution was pushing NPB toward greater uniformity between its two leagues. Sakakibara publicly questioned why the Central and Pacific Leagues operated under different rules, specifically raising the possibility of bringing the designated hitter to the Central League. After years of discussions, the universal DH was approved starting in the 2027 season.
Sakakibara oversaw the expansion of NPB's farm league with the Oisix Niigata Albirex and Hayate Ventures Shizuoka in 2024, bringing NPB’s developmental circuit from 12 to 14 teams.
He also supported creating the Shigeo Nagashima Award, a new honor recognizing the top all-around position player who combines on-field excellence with star appeal.
Iijima's appointment would make him the third consecutive commissioner drawn from Japan’s corporate world. Unlike MLB, whose recent commissioners have generally built careers within baseball operations, NPB has traditionally selected outsiders from business, law, government, and academia rather than former players or baseball executives. The NPB commissioner also has less centralized authority than his MLB counterpart, with major decisions largely dependent on consensus among owners of the 12 NPB clubs.