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The story
The men’s final of the 2026 Asian Volleyball Championship, Japan vs. Iran, broadcast live on Fuji TV on September 13, recorded a household rating of 14.2% and an individual rating of 9.8%, making it Fuji TV’s highest-rated program of the year. The figure even surpassed the network’s broadcast of the World Cup Asian final-qualifier match against Brazil, prompting surprised reactions on 5ch’s Geinou/Sports Breaking News+ board like “Who’d have guessed volleyball would beat the World Cup.” Meanwhile, the thread saw the long-simmering feud between soccer fans and baseball fans flare up again, with plenty of comments also praising the players’ looks and how easy the sport’s rules are to follow, broadening the discussion further.
Men’s volleyball Asian Championship final hits 9.8% individual rating, Fuji TV’s best of the year — surpasses the soccer World Cup
Huge attention gathered around this pivotal match, with a Los Angeles Olympics berth on the line.
It was revealed on the 14th that “Kaitori Daikichi Presents: Volleyball Asian Championship 2026 Men’s Final, Japan vs. Iran,” broadcast live on Fuji TV on the 13th, recorded an average individual rating of 9.8% overall, making it the highest-rated Fuji TV program aired this year. The core demographic (ages 13-49) came in at 7.8%, and the household rating was 14.2%.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
The audience seats are packed with women too
The idol-group promo guests get publicly executed [ratings-wise] every single time, huh
If it's on BS, I'll just watch it on BS
The commercials are super annoying anyway
That's why sports news shows are spending so much time covering it
Even on Mr. Sunday, the Okinawa governor election news wrapped up in no time, but they did like 40 minutes on volleyball
Well, Japan's genuinely strong right now
"The strongest Japan ever!" is actually true this time
The individual rating is tied
Nobody even uses household ratings as a benchmark anymore
A between-other-countries final at dawn pulled over 20%, lol
Common sense doesn't work on antisocial baseball fanboys
No point telling them
And now baseball fanboys have started leeching onto volleyball too?
Must be rough when your own sport's washed up
Isn't it just Ren Takahashi?
Yuki Ishikawa's getting up there in age now
Compared to the foreign players they all look so much more glowing-skinned, glossy-haired, and young
Add "cleanliness," the thing women value most, plus height and muscle, and nobody's gonna dislike that
Takahashi Ren tends to get pigeonholed as "the pretty-boy one," but
he can attack and defend, a pretty all-around player
He's basically a savior for Japanese volleyball
If the guy in this position can't reliably dig the ball, the team never stabilizes
Basketball, rugby, and table tennis fans already snapped ages ago
They cause trouble everywhere
Even hated on Girls Channel [a women's forum]
And in recent years automated in/out line calls have cut down on the stress
Compared to the old days, it's definitely more fun to watch now
Another good thing about volleyball and basketball is that bad calls or favoritism from refs barely matter
In soccer, a whistle can kill a scoring chance and the impact is huge
In volleyball and basketball a single point matters less, so even with some favoritism the stronger side wins in the end anyway
High school baseball already pulls numbers like that
Typo, meant "autumn-to-spring" season
Everyone's playing overseas so there's no one to root for
Broadcasting's monopolized by DAZN and terrestrial TV has basically given up trying to cover it
Broadcast rights are cheap too, so it's genuinely shifting toward volleyball where you can at least joke about the hunks
The key stations would happily air the big matches, but none of them will step up since it doesn't pull ratings, lol
Guess interest in volleyball is pretty high after all
Basketball still can't seem to break down volleyball's walls
Basketball's popular with kids but hasn't caught on as a sport people actually watch
Especially avoided by young people
[TVAL viewer age breakdown analysis]
① 2026 World Cup Japan vs. Tunisia
② 2025 MLB World Series
It's not baseball, come on
Totally unrelated idol-group guests would show up and the venue would go nuts while the volleyball itself was garbage
Making the Olympics was basically out of the question
Once other networks took over as the main broadcaster, the men's team actually got strong
In other words, Fuji TV is basically a jinx, a symbol of how weak men's volleyball used to be
They should let this be the last time Fuji gets to broadcast it
It's not so much that they got stronger because the big Eastern European guys moved into money sports like basketball and tennis — competition just dropped off a cliff
[Let's Build It Together] Parade celebrating the Hanshin Tigers' fastest-ever NPB league championship
38,283,000 yen
76% achieved
Closed
Target: 50,000,000 yen
Antlers' Future, Together 2025
66,780,000 yen
Target: 50,000,000 yen
That's the big difference from baseball
Outside of baseball, demand only exists for the national team matches
That's not true.
The B.League, SV League, and League One are all seeing huge popularity right now
Expensive tickets are selling like crazy.
Soccer gets simulcast on BS and NHK ONE
Which drags down the terrestrial rating accordingly
2026 World Cup Japan matches 🇯🇵 latest ratings
●Mon 6/15 vs. Netherlands, 5:00-7:00, NHK
27.1% (not including BS4K)
●Sun 6/21 vs. Tunisia, 13:00-15:00, NTV
41.9% (BS 8.7%)
●Fri 6/26 vs. Sweden, 8:00-10:00, NHK
35% (not including BS4K)
●Tue 6/29 vs. Brazil, 2:00-4:00, Fuji TV
31.2% (BS 15.3%)
Also simulcast on NHK ONE and DAZN
Source:
Video Research
https://www.videor.co.jp/press/assets_c/2026/06/press260629_01-thumb-autoxauto-q80-115459.webp
Background and key points of this discussion
It’s worth noting that this “beat the World Cup” rating claim isn’t a comparison against every World Cup broadcast — it’s specifically a comparison against Fuji TV’s own broadcast of the Japan vs. Brazil match. According to the data cited in the thread, the Netherlands, Tunisia, and Sweden matches broadcast by NHK and Nippon TV all pulled high ratings in the 27-42% range, meaning that across the whole network landscape, soccer still draws bigger numbers overall. This result is only the “highest-rated Fuji TV program this year” — a limited claim — and it’s easy to overlook how much it’s tied up with volleyball’s rising popularity as well as differing conditions like broadcast scheduling, time slots, and whether a BS simulcast was offered. The thread mixed genuine praise for the sport itself (the rally-point scoring system, automated line-call tech) with plenty of jabs aimed at soccer and baseball fans.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “[Ratings] Men’s Volleyball ‘Asian Championship Final’ — Household 14.2%, Individual 9.8%, Fuji TV’s best rating of the year! Surpasses the soccer World Cup.”
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