The 37th Annual USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series will take place in Japan from July 12-16.
July 12th: Botchan Stadium (Matsuyama),12pm July 13th: Tokyo Dome (Tokyo), 6pm July 14th: Kleenex Miyagi Stadium (Sendai), 6 pm July 15th: Tsuruoka Dream Stadium (Tsuruoka), 6pm July 16th: Meiji Jinguu Stadium (Tokyo), 6pm
※All dates and times are in Japan Standard Time
The US National Team was selected after ten days of trials that included intersquad games and practices. The team consists top non-draft-eligible college players in the United States including 1 junior, 14 sophomores, and 7 freshman players including Trevor Bauer (UCLA) and Kolton Wong (University of Hawaii), who were on the Freshman All-America Team.
The stars of the Japan national team is junior right hander Yuuki Saito (Waseda University) and senior Kazuhito Futagami (Hosei University) who was the MVP in the recent All Japan University Tournament. Seven seniors, who will be eligible for the upcoming draft, will be included in the squad.
Tickets still remain and details will be listed on the All Japan University Baseball Federation website.  Notable past MVPs from this five game series include current Colorado Rockies Todd Helton (1993) and Huston Street (2003), current Yomiuri Giant Yuya Kubo (2001) and current Chiba Lotte Marine Shouitsu Oomatsu (2004). Japan won the last series, 3-2, in the 36th Annual USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series, played in the United States in 2007.
Blogs written by players are usually well-known and have their daily readers, but in recent years blogs written by front office personnel and behind-the-scenes people have been an effective PR method. It allows the fans to gain a  different perspective and increase the interest toward sport business. There are some of the blogs I found written by team personnel around NPB.
If there are others that comes up to mind, please feel free to comment.
If interested, fans can find all player blog updates in プãƒé‡ŽçƒFreak. Shugo Fujii, of the Nippon Ham Fighters leads the NPB in most updated blog entries in the last month with 92 entries.
To celebrating the 60th anniversary of the current two-league (Pacific and Central) system, NPB has created a website for fans called Fan Stadium. The website includes an opportunity for fans to learn, participate in games and make predictions.
Online fantasy sports have been a big part of sports business developing in the United States and it will be interesting to see what type of opportunities NPB will create for the fans to interact online and become more knowledgeable of the game.
Baseball has grown into a global game and the Boston Red Sox and the Chiba Lotte Marines are working to keep it that way for the next generation. The Japan Society of Boston and the Red Sox Foundation teamed up to bring Japanese youth to Boston in the summer of 2008, and will send Greater Boston youth to Japan in 2009.
The Chiba Lotte Marines will take part in the program this summer and is currently looking for host families for the 12 youths from Boston. If you’re interested in hosting a youth, you may download the application from the website.
Last year, Boston played host to 12 youths coming from Kyoto and Chiba (Kyoto is a sister city of Boston). This program had several meanings as Kyoto and Boston was celebrating their 50th anniversary as sister cities. Another meaning to the exchange program came from the commemoration of the official partnership between the Chiba Lotte Marines and the Boston Red Sox. Those are the reasons behind youth from both Kyoto and Chiba participating in this program.
The participants experienced the whole package of American baseball and the city of Boston in their eleven day program (including travel). Japanese native Hideki Okajima (who is also from Kyoto)Â and Daisuke Matsuzaka took part in the program as an instructors and for a meet and greet opportunity with the youth (pictures can be seen on the Kyoto City website).
Now the Chiba Lotte Marines will look to return the favor and will welcome the youth from Boston to experience the culture of Japan. The youth will also have the opportunity to attend a Chiba Lotte Marines game and will be interesting what else the team has planned for them.
The world has gotten smaller with the game of baseball reaching to many part of the globe. The kids in Japan are watching MLB at a younger age with their stars going overseas and the American kids are being exposed to Japanese stars on a daily basis. However the youth in each country might not be exposed to anything more than that. Youth exchange programs like this should allow the next generation to understand and experience the different cultures starting from baseball.
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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.
With the draft over in the United States, the next focus will be on teams negotiating with agents to reach agreements for the players starting their professional careers. Agents occasionally get the national spotlight for some negotiations and have become a big part of sports business and the baseball world, which has led to a paradigm shift in professional sports. For those with a passion for other sports, items like Bushnell packages may be worth exploring.
On the other hand, in NPB, player agents are still a fairly new idea, and agents are known as Dairinin (representative). One agent that comes to mind, having received national attention, is Don Nomura (the son of Sachiyo Nomura, and step-son of Rakuten Golden Eagles manager Katsuya Nomura). He was involved in negotiating a minor-league deal for Mac Suzuki and played a key role in Hideo Nomo crossing the Pacific.
Although agents are starting to gain recognition, NPB still has a closed culture toward accepting the role of agents. An agent needs to be a licensed lawyer or certified as an agent by MLB, or pass the exam provided by the Players Association. They also need to register with NPB in order to take part in a player’s contract negotiation. In order to register as an agent, the candidate must read the rules and apply downloading the materials from this page.
The biggest difference in the role of agents between MLB and NPB is that an agent can only represent a single player. This restriction reduces the appeal to become a player  agent as not many people will be able to live off of the five percent commission from one player.
Surveys have been taken by the Players Association in the past to look at what the players actually think about agents and if they would like to utilize an agent in the future (The Results from 2000). Players were still hesitant to embrace the idea of using agents, as only 2.2 % (14/633) of the players answering the surveys stated they would definitely like to use one.
However, in recent years, as agents have become well-known for representing players negotiating for major league deals, the idea of agents is gaining ground with players. A new development we’ve seen is established lawyers adding player representation to their resumes. “Lawyer Kitamura Joining the Baseball World” is one famous recent example.
Unless the rules change to allow agents to play a larger role in the sport, it’s hard to imagine an icon like Scott Boras appearing in the NPB world. However, as agents become more trusted by players, opportunities for sports agencies should grow. Notably, Hisashi Iwakuma signed a deal with IMG in December, 2007.
NPB teams still have a closed culture regarding new hires and job openings usually do not go open to the public. Although some teams are changing their mentality and internship opportunities are becoming a popular way to be involved with academics, the idea has not yet been fully embraced throughout the league.
During the off-season if you browse on some of the team’s websites you might be lucky enough to come across a job opening that the team is trying to fill. That was why I was actually suprised to come across this opening with the Hanshin Tigers at this time during the season. Applications are due by June 30th for this ballpark operations opportunity and the qualifications listed are that you need to have at least graduated high school, must have a strong interest in sports business, and must have a sense of leadership and responsibility among other things.
I will be looking for a full-time opportunity in the off-season myself hoping to stay in the sports industry, but I will not be applying for this obviously, so I thought I’d share this opening with the readers here who might be looking for an opportunity with a NPB team like the Hanshin Tigers.
It’s officially Draft Week here in the United States, so it’s a great time to take a look inside the NPB Draft.
The NPB Draft occurs at the end of season in October and two different types of draft take place: the regular draft where teams select high school graduates, college graduates and industrial league players; and the ikusei player draft, for players for the Ikusei System.
Players eligible for the regular drafts are…
Graduating from a school in Japan the March after the draft
Graduating from a college the March after the draft (only seniors are eligible for the draft)
High School players who registered to enter the draft by notifying the Japan High School Baseball Federation
College players who registered to enter the draft by notifying the Japan University Baseball Federation
For industrial league players: If the player entered the league as a junior high or high school graduate, three years after entering they will be eligible for the NPB Draft. All other players are eligible two years after starting industrial league careers, unless the team is discontinued for financial reasons
For independent league players: Players will be treated equally to industrial league players unless the player declares intent for NPB, in which case they will be eligible anytime during their independent league career
There’s also a new regulation known as the Tazawa Rule…
Players who refuse to enter the NPB Draft and elect to play overseas will not be eligible for the draft for three years if going overseas after high school, two years for all others
How the draft works…
The first round is lottery-based, where every team may select the same player. In the event that more than one team selects the same player, the right to negotiate with that specific player will be determined by a drawing (Scene from 1989 Draft: Hideo Nomo) (Scene from 1992 Draft: Hideki Matsui)
After the first round, the draft continues in the waiver style, which is based on the final standings from the previous season. The last place teams will select first and so on. The last place team from the league which won the All-Star series will select first. If the All-Star series was a split by the two teams, who gets the first pick will be determined by the run difference in the two games.
The Draft is complete when 120 players total have been selected or if every team indicates they are finished selecting players. However foreign players and independent league players being drafted will not be included in the 120 players… So one team may end up with more players selected than another, usually depending on financial reasons or the strength of the draft class. Many changes are waiting to happen with the restrictions of the draft and we shall see what will really be the impact of Junichi Tazawa opting out of the NPB Draft in 2008.
19 Year-Old Yuuki Karakawa is inching toward the status of being the face of the Chiba Lotte Marines. His voice will be used as the announcement inside the Keisei Shuttle Busses that run from the train stations to the stadium on game days.
From the spring of 2006, the Keisei Busses used voices of Chiba Lotte Marines, Bobby Valentine, Shunsuke Watanabe, and Toshiaki Imae. The face of the franchise each have their turns and now the baton will be passed to the young pitcher Karakawa.
Front office personnel states: “Not only this year’s record, but looking back from last years stats is a big part. He is a home grown player and we hope he continues to succeed.”
Teams can sometimes be hesitate in giving young players the spotlight too early in their career, but the Chiba Lotte Mariners seem confident that Karakawa will not be pressured, and will continue to make him the center of their marketing strategy.