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Mazda is taking advantage of the popularity of the newly-built stadium it sponsors to show off some its newest products.

Mazda utilized the concourses and the big screen of the ballpark to promote their new Mazda AXELA. Mazda is showing a little bit of innovative thinking in finding this way to leverage the naming rights they hold for the stadium. Sometimes you’ll see a car exhibited in American ballparks, or a section or suite sponsored by a car company, but I personally never heard of a car show being held at a ballpark.

The ballparks in Japan are not mostly owned by individual teams, instead they are owned by the cities. The teams pay usage fees to the city in most cases, so it’s hard for the teams to be creative and conduct their own events like many of the professional teams do here in the United States. It would be nice to see non-sporting events conducted at the ballparks and arenas rather than having them sit silent and dark on days when there are no home games.