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The story
A thread on 5ch’s live-commentary board raised the question of why golfer Hideki Matsuyama and tennis player Kei Nishikori don’t get more media buzz. Matsuyama has a major championship to his name, and Nishikori once climbed all the way to a Grand Slam final, yet posters pointed out that neither has reached the kind of national stardom enjoyed by Ichiro or Shohei Ohtani. The thread covered a range of theories, from personality and public image to sponsorship deals and how golf and tennis themselves are perceived as sports in Japan.
What people said
Tiger Woods' career earnings are like 10x Ohtani's — it's a sport where you can make serious bank.
It gets plenty of TV coverage and commercials too, so I don't think it's disrespected that much.
Even Rory McIlroy has earned something like 100 billion yen.
Guess I shouldn't say 'even' McIlroy though.
He only ever gets hyped up with 'if it weren't for the Big Three era' type hypotheticals.
If you actually watched him play in real time, you wouldn't say that.
There aren't many players who have wins against all of the 'tennis gods,' are there?
He was basically humanity's representative.
His opponents were straight-up aliens from Planet Tennis.
Nishikori's personable enough, but when it comes down to it he retired without ever winning a Slam, so that's kind of unavoidable.
But Ichiro and Hidetoshi Nakata were national stars.
Those two may have had an edge to them, but they also had star quality.
Matsuyama looks like some Showa-era middle-aged guy and isn't very personable, so it's tough for him to get popular.
Skill aside, Keisuke Honda had more star power than Hidetoshi Nakata.
But Ryo Ishikawa's in the middle of overhauling his swing, so…
The golf world's pretty short on real stars these days.
Like Momoka Miura, for example.
Kind of odd for a sport that's supposedly played worldwide.
It's only really popular in English-speaking countries plus Japan and Korea, so…
When I told them you can play a round in Japan for about 10,000 yen, they were shocked, like 'that's way too cheap.'
He's got Lexus at least, I think.
That's kind of racist, man.
Guess he's just not that big a deal after all lol
These days it's not just [Naomi] Osaka getting hyped up, they're pushing Zion too, which is kind of…
Zion getting called 'world class' is honestly unbelievable.
He's quietly grinding it out on overseas developmental tours.
He shows up in Japan every once in a while too.
Honestly, in Japan these days it's more like 'what's so great about Matsuyama' in the first place.
Golf? Is that some kind of esports? That's the level young people's awareness is at.
That's how little interest there is in what golf even is anymore.
That's exactly why all you can offer is some insider, hardcore-fan-only take.
To the general public, nothing short of winning a title makes any impact.
Doesn't a name like Federer carry any weight?
Having a win over him seems like something even regular people would find impressive.
On a course where the leader was shooting 18 under.
He was actually in contention to win the ANA Open just last year though.
Looks like his career might really just fizzle out without ever breaking through.
Probably because they're good-looking.
Matsuyama and Nishikori are both kind of rugged-looking, so maybe they just don't photograph well?
Sota Fujii (the shogi prodigy) gets covered nonstop and he's not exactly photogenic either lol
At the end of the day it all comes down to how the media decides to play it.
However you look at it, golf's a bigger sport than figure skating.
Watching someone else play is boring as hell.
I get tennis, but golf's fun to watch.
Different players smash it insanely far, curve the ball like some crazy breaking pitch, thread it out of the trees through a gap — there's plenty to see.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters Tournament in 2021, becoming the first Japanese man to claim a major championship. Kei Nishikori, for his part, became the first Asian man in history to reach a Grand Slam final at the 2014 US Open, going on to rack up 12 career tour titles and a career-high world ranking of No. 4. Given those credentials alone, it wouldn’t be strange for either man to be treated as a national star, yet the thread questioned why their actual media exposure has stayed so limited. The discussion centered on their personalities and how personable (or not) they come across, whether they have sponsorship deals, and the structural issue that golf and tennis themselves are struggling to capture younger audiences’ interest in Japan. At the same time, as the conversation drifted into comparisons asking ‘why do athletes from other sports get hyped up instead,’ some posts veered into inappropriate remarks touching on race, and those replies have been excluded from this article.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Question] Why don’t people talk more about guys like Hideki Matsuyama and Kei Nishikori?”
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