Current Popular Teams?

By "current popular teams," do you mean the most popular? If so, the Central League is more popular than the Pacific League. The two most popular teams in the league are the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants, both of whom have an enormous fan base. The Chunichi Dragons also have a large following.

In the Pacific League the most popular teams are the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and the Chiba Lotte Marines. The others do not have anywhere near as many fans.

As to the best and most dedicated fans, these belong to the Hanshin Tigers (despite what the Marines' Valentine-kantoku claims). Most clubs rely for a lot of their revenue on visits by the Tigers, who bring a huge number of travelling supporters. This is also true of the Giants to some extent, though not as much as previously.

- In the Pacific League the most popular teams are the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and the Chiba Lotte Marines. The others do not have anywhere near as many fans.

Believe it or not, only Seibu and Rakuten drew less fans per game than Chiba in the Pacific League.

Sourced from the official NPB stats:

Average attendance in the Pa League

Softbank 31,117
Nippon Ham 20,083
Orix 19,943
Lotte 19,618
Seibu 16,223
Rakuten 14,369

Crowds in Fukuoka and Saitama were down a whopping 33% from 2004.

Average crowds in the Central League were 26,650 and 20,226 in the Pacific League.

Actual attendance was recorded for the first time in 2005. Attendance was estimated prior to 2005, therefore they were often inflated in round numbers.

Average attendance doesn't mean anything. We have a range in the Central League from 42,907 per game to 14,385. The top teams being more popular than the lower teams. The Buffaloes figures are actually still inflated - crowds are not so high as they claim. Be careful when you look at the statistics.

- The Buffaloes figures are actually still inflated.

Actually? Your sources?

- the most popular teams are the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and the Chiba Lotte Marines. The others do not have anywhere near as many fans.

Be careful when I look at statistics? What cheek!

I don't want to enter into a slanging match, but I deserve a rebuttal and this will be my last post regarding this issue, but Chiba were 4th in drawing crowds in the PL! Why don't you look at statistics before making false claims?

- but Chiba were 4th in drawing crowds in the PL!

They may well be fourth, but are they more popular throughout Japan than the other PL teams? The statistics don't tell a whole story. Go throughout Japan and talk to fans and they'll say Chiba Lotte is more popular than Nippon Ham and Orix, no doubt.

I am not sure why some people are defending, or even introducing, obviously unreliable statistics, especially as the original poster didn't ask about them.

Firstly though: inflated Buffaloes figures - I know these are inflated because Buffaloes staff have told me that this is the case. Some of their attendances are really embarassing. In fact even the Tigers can't fill Koshien when the Buffaloes visit - last year they had around a 10,000 fall in attendance per match. This has been worrying the Tigers' front office who were looking at ways of increasing the attendance. Possibly the addition of Kiyohara will provide a necessary boost to the Buffaloes figures.

As for attendance representing the support levels a team might have, this is another spurious belief. Only the Tigers can really claim that they can fill their ground with their fans, and even then there are always a few opposition supporters. Every other Japanese teams' attendance figures are swollen by visiting Tigers and Giants fans. Tigers fans can actually occupy half of Tokyo Dome for the Tigers/Giants matches, and the Giants are a team with massive support. At Jingu, Tigers fans outnumber the home support and regularly spill over into the Swallows' side. Though the Giants didn't have so many away fans last year, they still had a large amount, and if Hara is able to revive their fortunes you will see an increase in the number of Giants fans at other grounds swelling attendance figures.

Now as to attendance figures representing a teams popularity: I am surprised anyone can even contemplate such an obvious fallacy. There are a lot of fans in Japan who cannot make games - for many reasons. However, the main reason is that they have to work. People work late hours in Japan - they cannot get to games during the week. Thus you do not see the true depth of support a team may have. Many fans do not necessarily go to games either. They watch the match on TV or read papers. They are fans of the team but don't have the opportunity. Some can't get tickets. Just today some friends of mine are queued overnight to get Tigers/Giants tickets. There will be many fans who don't queue overnight and won't be able to get tickets.

Taking a look at one example - Seibu Lions. This team is the last but one Japan Series Champions and has a marvelous record. It is a strong side with one of the best pitchers in Japan as its ace. It is popular enough to maintain a dedicated shop in Harajuku - a very upmarket part of Tokyo (though this may have closed in the retrenchment after the Tsutsumi scandal). However its average attendance is the fifth lowest in the Pacific League - why? Quite simply, its ground is at the end of a one and a half hour train ride from Tokyo. The Seibu group assumed that building a baseball stadium there would bring people out. It didn't. To make an 18:20 start you need to leave Tokyo at 16:30. How many companies in Tokyo will let their employees do that regularly? Then after the match you have to return. The logistics of such a trip are a nightmare. Chiba Marine Stadium is also a difficult journey.

Be very careful when you look at statistics. They can appear to indicate one thing, but careful examination and a knowledge of the subject will show that they can be an unreliable guide and lead to the wrong conclusions being drawn.