Basketball in Japan

Last week, I read an article on an online Japanese newspaper that titled “6 Works Teams Will Not Join the New Basketball League”. This article disappointed me because I had strongly believed that we would have a new basketball league in order to encourage the basketball industry in Japan.

As discussed on the previous blog post, two professional basketball leagues exist in Japan. One league is named Japan Basketball League (JBL) that is formed by 8 works teams. Another league is Basketball Japan League (bj League) that includes 19 teams. Usually, each country has one top league, but Japan has two top leagues. As the result, there are a lot of arguments that this strange situation in Japan has made obstacles to develop basketball in Japan.

What We Can See from the MLB's Opening Games in Japan

Photo From: Nikkei.com

Prior to the regular season of the Major League Baseball (MLB) starts in the United States tonight, the opening games of the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners were taken place in Japan on March 28^th and 29^th (in Japan Time).  A lot of Japanese baseball fans enjoyed watching the playing of Ichiro Suzuki, the most popular Japanese MLB player.

Angel Investors for the Sports Industry vol.2

As discussed on the previous blog post, Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca can be the investors for a venture company in the sports industry. Both of them have been angel investors and helped new businesses. Mark Cuban owns an NBA team, Dallas Mavericks. Chris Sacca is helping younger ages by supporting Tony Hawk Foundation.

On my master’s degree program, I have developed a business plan that is a travel agency specialized in voluntourism for Japanese young ages. Participants of tours will visit local schools in Asian countries and teach sports to local children in order to help educational developments by sports education.

Angel Investors for the Sports Industry vol.1

If you are planning to start up a new business in the sports industry, pitching angel investors is a great option to kick-start your business. Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca can be considered as great angel investors for the sports industry.

Why are they appropriate angel investors for the sports industry?

Mark Cuban

Photo from Forbes

Mark Cuban is the owner of an NBA team: Dallas Mavericks as well as the founder of Broadcast.com, HDNet, and some other companies. Additionally, he has been an angel investor, and he had invested for Goowy, Boxnet.com, etc.  Therefore, he is actually working in the sports industry, and he has knowledge and experiences in the sports industry.

Photo from Lowercase Capital

Chris Sacca

On the other hand, Chris Sacca does not own any sports team, but he is helping Tony Hawk Foundation to help younger ages’ development through skateboarding.  Therefore, he is not alien to the sports industry. He used to be Head of Special Initiatives at Google, Inc. And then, He established an investment firm, Lowercase Capital. Their significant investment is Twitter, Inc. Chris has consulted business plans about web and mobile technologies by himself as well as consulted other fields’ business plan through Lowercase Capital.

"Lin-Sanity" Can Change the World

Video from YouTube

Since the emergence of “Lin-Sanity” on February 4, the New York Knicks has not lost any game. Now, the winning streak of the New York Knick is 7. Along with his incredible performance, the “Lin-Sanity” brand has skyrocketed all over the world in these 10 days.

Economic Impacts of 2012 London Olympics

Image from Wikipedia

Forbes.com listed the 2012 London Olympics as one of the 10 sports business stories to watch in 2012.

The cost projection of the London Olympics had been grown from $3.6 billion in 2005 to $14.4 billion in 2007. Forbes.com expects the total cost of the London Olympics would be between $15 to 18 billion. This number is the second most expensive Olympics below the 2010 Beijing Olympics with the cost of $40 billion.

As discussed before, hosting the Olympics can bring positive economic impacts to the hosting country and the city even it costs a great amount of money.

3D Technology in Sports

3D technology is a new technology for the sports industry. The world’s first live broadcasted sports game in 3D was come out in February 2010 in UK. In the US, a New York Rangers hockey game was the first live sports game that was broadcasted in 3D in March 2010. Lee Berke, president and CEO of LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media, mentioned “sports programming has been a key component for driving the success of virtually every new media technology over the past 90 years, from analog radio to broadcast television to cable, satellite, broadband and wireless”. However, there are a lot of issues that have to be overcome by the media industry.

Media Technology and Sports

            

Everyone might agree that the best way to enjoy watching sports is going to stadiums and watching games. It is difficult to share the atmosphere and feeling at the stadium through TV or radio. However, the advance of technology has changed ways of sharing games and information. Therefore, the sports industry utilizes new technologies to maintain their fans and get new fans.