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The story
On November 10, the B.League announced that 62 players were earning over ¥100 million a year as of the start of the B.Premier season, of whom only 7 were Japanese. The figures cover basic salary only, excluding signing fees, signing bonuses, allowances, and incentive pay. On 5ch, the numbers sparked comparisons with salary trends in pro baseball and the J.League, with some pointing out that more Japanese players top ¥100 million in the J.League, while others offered a cooler take, noting that spread across 26 clubs it works out to only 2-3 such players per club.
The men’s professional basketball B.League announced on the 10th that 62 players were earning annual salaries of ¥100 million or more as of the B.Premier season’s opening in September. Of these, 7 were Japanese registered players. The figures cover only basic salary (fixed annual pay) and exclude signing fees, signing bonuses, allowances, and incentive pay of any kind.
The survey covered 350 professionally contracted players across the B.Premier’s 26 clubs who had completed registration by the day before the season opener. Beyond the top bracket, 29 players earned ¥80 million to under ¥100 million, 21 earned ¥60 million to under ¥80 million, 29 earned ¥40 million to under ¥60 million, and 81 earned ¥20 million to under ¥40 million. The largest group, 128 players, earned under ¥20 million.
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Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Is $600,000 really "big money"?
When they experimented with a higher hoop, shooting percentage naturally dropped and more balls bounced off the rim — the ball stayed airborne longer, which actually gave tall players an even bigger edge in rebounding battles lol. Basketball has been tweaking and introducing "anti-giant" rules since its early days specifically so that merely tall players can't dominate on height alone.
Soccer: 25
Basketball: 5
Per capita, baseball wins by a mile.
Isn't the basketball number off?
Pro baseball (NPB): 168
B.League: 62
J.League: 60
Going by revenue per spectator, J.League players look overpaid. Maybe it's the tax breaks.
There are 26 clubs though, so that works out to only 2-3 per club, and most of those are foreigners anyway.
Not as impressive as it sounds.
No dreams left.
It'll just end up overtaken by volleyball. It was supposed to be a business built on fans swooning over good-looking Japanese players, but management went off the rails and turned it into this "Premier" thing.
It'll come down to how the national team does. If volleyball wins an Olympic medal, it could become the #2 most popular sport after baseball.
The J.League is seriously on its last legs — Japanese players are even getting poached by MLS now. It's turning into a league of nothing but washed-up foreigners and immigrants. We're in an era where a Japanese player making ¥20-30 million in Japan could earn 5-6 times that in America.
The J.League actually has 62 players over ¥100 million too. Of those, 26 are Japanese.
So what's the total if you include Japanese players on overseas basketball teams? Something like 20?
So only 7 Japanese players top ¥100 million. The J.League still has way more Japanese players above that line.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOmtK79bUAAU26y?format=png&name=4096×4096
Go J.League! Wonder if the B.League will still have this kind of momentum 33 years after its opening season.
The J.League doesn't have 11 Japanese players, it has 26.
Re: #58
This is probably last year's data — it's likely gone up even more this year. Also, these publisher-estimated salary figures tend to be calculated lower than the numbers the J.League itself releases.
Of those 200 players overseas, 170 are only at J2 level or below. There's probably not a single one among those 200 who could dominate in J1 right now. Don't underestimate the level of the J.League.
Japanese people are nationalistic to begin with, so they're not that interested in sports dominated by foreigners. I mean, the Dodgers are more popular than NPB at this point.
Soccer isn't that strong either, but it's still popular.
Soccer's popularity keeps declining, so it's actually in trouble. If basketball or volleyball gets results in international tournaments, they'll overtake it immediately. Baseball has both popularity and real strength, so it stays at No.1.
The old media has an unspoken agreement not to hype up any domestic league except baseball. Rugby got buzz from that viral "enema pose" celebration — but did its domestic league actually take off?
Doesn't look like it's more, actually.
Re: #58
Players getting poached away from the J.League isn't really a big problem — it feeds back into the national team, which is what matters for soccer's popularity in Japan. There's even a flow now of players using the J.League as a stepping stone toward the national team. The real problem lately is that players are starting to skip the J.League entirely.
Basketball: 5
Soccer: 11
Try dividing the average salary by those numbers.
That's thanks to the coaches and league management. It just attracted fans who were into the looks of idol-like Japanese players — and those fans will probably move on to volleyball from here.
Background and key points of the debate
The B.League’s announced figure of “62 players over ¥100 million” covers basic salary only, explicitly excluding signing fees, signing bonuses, allowances, and incentive pay — meaning some players’ actual total income is higher than this. Where the thread’s discussion diverged was over the gap between publisher-based estimated salary tables circulating online and the B.League’s official figures: one post claiming “11 Japanese J.League players exceed ¥100 million” was corrected in later replies to “26, not 11,” with discrepancies between sources standing out repeatedly. There was also disagreement over whether to evaluate the numbers per player or per club — spread across 26 clubs, it averages out to only 2-3 players per club — and comparisons of popularity with other sports tended to devolve into weakly-sourced back-and-forth that numbers alone can’t settle.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Hōdō+) thread “[Basketball] B.League: 62 players earn over ¥100 million as of B.Premier’s opening, 7 of whom are Japanese.”
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