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.

In 2009, the president of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), Bob Elphinston, requested to the Japan Basketball Association (JBA) to merge these two leagues in order to resolve this complicated situation and develop the national basketball team of Japan. Since then, the JBA has worked on establishing a new basketball league that involves both the JBL and the bj League. The leaders from the both leagues were involved as the board of the new league in order to find out mutual benefits for each other. This new basketball league is expected to start in August 2012. However, 6 out of 8 works teams from the JBL suspended to join the new league.

Why the JBL do not want to join the new league? Reasons are strongly connected with the origins of both leagues.

The forerunner of the JBL was formed in 1967. Since then, this league had been considered as the top league by the JBA, but players were still considered as amateur because the league was formed by works teams. After a professional soccer league was formed in 1997, the JBA started to consider changing the league to a professional league. However, most of works teams declined to change their teams to professional teams did not want to take the risk of failure and the financial risk. Therefore, the JBL decided to keep running the league as amateur for a while.

On the other hand, two teams from the JBL desired to form a professional basketball league. When the JBL decided not to form a professional league, these two teams left the JBL as well as the JBA and tried to form a professional league by themselves. They recruited new teams in order to establish a new professional league, and they formed the bj League in 2005. The bj League was the first professional basketball league in Japan, but this league had not been authorized by the JBA because the original teams of the bj league had already left the JBA. It meant that the players in the bj League could not play for the national team. Because of the origins of two leagues, the JBL still look down on the bj League even though both leagues are looking for any solution to make a new league.

There are other problems that should be solved in order to make a new league.

·      Differences on the rules and regulations

·      The JBL players are paid double than the bj League players in average

·      Corporation vs. Club teams

·      Etc.

It is often said that basketball is the most played sport in Japan. On the other hand, it is still small business as the sports industry.  The average ticket sales of a bj League game are 2,500. If the JBA can form a new basketball that involves both the JBL and the bj League, they can grow market of the new league because they will have both market of the bj League and the JBL.

April 27^th is the deadline to apply to join the new league for the basketball teams. We will see what is going to happen on the future of basketball in Japan.