Sadayuki Sakakibara, the commissioner of Nippon Professional Baseball, Japan’s top professional baseball league, announced that the league plans to stage games outside of Japan for the first time in the near future.
Holding games outside Japan would extend the league’s reach, similar to the way Major League Baseball has reached beyond the borders of the United States and Canada recently by holding games abroad.
“[Major League Baseball has] been doing world tours for about 10 years now, in London, Beijing, Korea, and many other places to spread baseball,” Sakakibara said to the media at NPB’s headquarters in Tokyo on Monday. “I think the majors are fulfilling their responsibilities to a certain extent. I hope Japan can do the same. It would be great if we could hold a Giants-Hanshin match in Seoul or London.”
Sakakibara acknowledged the difficulties in such a plan, stating, “It would be a big financial burden and a big physical burden on the players.”
Major League Baseball has, over the years, played 37 regular season games outside the United States and Canada, including 10 games at the Tokyo Dome, the home of NPB’s Yomiuri Giants. In 2019, the Seattle Mariners opened the season at the Tokyo Dome against the Oakland Athletics, in a series that saw Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki play his final game. There have also been MLB games played in London, Mexico City, Monterrey, Seoul, and Sydney.
This coming season, Major League Baseball’s regular season will open at the Tokyo Dome with the Los Angeles Dodgers facing the Chicago Cubs on March 18-19. The Dodgers roster features former NPB stars Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, while the Cubs have pitcher Shota Imanaga in their starting rotation.
The NPB commissioner also expressed interested in speeding up the game, noting that the average NPB game lasted about three hours last year.
“We want to make it to the two-hour range. If it starts at 6 p.m. and finishes by 9 p.m., and you can get on the train, then children can come,” Sakakibara said. “It will change how easy it is to come to baseball games, so it is important to accumulate such things and be brisk.”
