Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, who created their business model with “high school baseball,” are no longer able to hide their institutional fatigue[Series]Akira Hiroo’s Consideration of Baseball Business Model (Part 2) (1/7) | JBpress (JB Press)

Akira Hiroo’s Consideration of Baseball Business Model

[Series]Akira Hiroo’s Consideration of Baseball Business Models (Part 2)

(Photo: Usa-Pyon/Shutterstock)

When you think of the National High School Baseball Championship, or “Summer Koshien,” the name “Asahi” comes to mind. The Asahi Shimbun Company is the “organizer” along with the Japan High School Baseball Federation (supported by the Mainichi Shimbun Company). Many people seem to wonder why this is the case, but the Asahi Shimbun Company is the first Japanese company to make sports a “business model.”

Masaoka Shiki, who taught baseball to Natsume Soseki

Baseball was officially introduced to Japan in 1872. Horace Wilson, a foreign employee of Kaisei School (later Tokyo Imperial University), first taught the game to students.

Baseball has suited the Japanese character since it was first introduced to Japan. Behind the home of Natsume Soseki, a great Meiji era writer, was the grounds of Ikubunkan, a baseball powerhouse at the time, and it is said that balls would often fly into the home. An episode based on this motif appears in “I Am a Cat.”

Gudabutsuan in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, where Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Soseki once lived together, collapsed in 2010 and no longer exists (photo by author)
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It is said that it was Soseki’s close friend, Masaoka Shiki, who taught him baseball, and Shiki composed many tanka poems about baseball.

“The three bases are now filled with people, and their hearts are racing.”

“Baseball: The ball is in the catcher’s hands and the base becomes someone’s destination.”