Expansion?

He, he. Back in 2004 a group of owners tried to force contraction on the league. The players and fans revolted, resulting in the first player strike in Japanese baseball history - fully supported by the fans. Instead of contracting (with the merger of the Orix BlueWave and Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes) plus one more merger (which a hand full of the owners wanted to do), the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles were born.

The owners destroyed the man (Horie-san) who rallied the fans into wanting a new team. They then stepped down from their roles of running/owning the teams (at least up front in the case of Watanabe Tsuneo).

What were some of the benefits of the fan/player revolt? Inter-league play, which I thought would never happen in my lifetime due to the Central League teams' unwillingness to share the Giants, was started. The Central League has adapted the Pacific League born playoff system. The Asia Series came into being. Independent leagues started springing up around the country.

Unfortunately, all signs of possible expansion have evaporated over the past couple of years. Inter-league play was quickly reduced from 6 to 4 games against each team in the other league. The Asia Series has become a 1-game playoff between the Japan and Korea champions.

The current economy is only part of the problem. Even the new independent league based in Kansai pretty much failed in their first year as the teams were unable to even pay their own players. The Kansai area has a much more densely populated area than Nagano or Okinawa, thus more potential fans. But it didn't work out as well as it looked on paper.

I've written about my ideas for expansion before - long, long ago, when the economy wasn't yet in shambles and before inter-league. I still think that the place to expand to is Asia, not internally. But that's just my opinion. Other ideas are certainly equally valid. How about elaborating on why you think Okinawa or Nagano would work?

It's just to satisfy me geographically. It's strange how there are no teams on the west coast. Of course there are obstacles like the economy, lowly populated cities, blah blah blah, but in my dream scenario there'd be a good small market team or two out there.

As for Okinawa, I think teams already do spring training there? The place seems like a natural to have a team, with the weather and all.

As for "the weather and all," I'm sure you know typhoons would be a major concern in Okinawa.

IMHO, there already is a small market team in NPB in the Rakuten Eagles. Rakuten has done a great job of expanding its market in northern Honshu, A.K.A. the Tohoku region, by hosting a few games a year in the northern prefectures like Aomori and Iwate (Akita in 2008) and hosting minor league games in Miyagi Prefecture and Yamagata Prefectures on a regular basis. I would like to see, however, Rakuten expand south into Fukushima Prefecture and possibly Northern Kanto (Tochigi and Ibaraki), but the later remains a long shot at best I feel.

Having been to Nagano for Yakyu games, the market is just not big enough to support a pro team. While they certainly have the facilities to host games (Nagano Olympic Stadium), I feel it's too isolated to host Pro games on a regular basis. I compare it to Niigata's situation in that they have the facilities, but again, the location is the problem. Teams hosting a game or 2 a year there is a good thing as the people do show up (with Yokohama drawing crowds of 20,000 plus each of the past 3 years against the Giants) and I hope that teams continue to do so.

Economics and demographics do not support the expansion of Japanese baseball in these two regions. Two other factors need to be considered, firstly fragmentation of interests. The days when the Japanese focused only on baseball have long since disappeared and now the average person has a massive range of entertainments to choose from. Secondly, the insane working hours of a lot of the potential fan base. People staying in the office until 10 or 11 pm are just not able to get to games. This aspect of the current culture needs to vanish before one can even contemplate expansion.