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The story
Baseball commentator Takagi Yutaka spoke about his sense of crisis over the state of the sport on his YouTube channel on the 22nd, naming four candidates he’d back as the next generation of managers: Miyamoto Shinya, Tsuji Hatsuhiko, Ogata Koichi, and Kataoka Atsushi. On 5channel, opinions split over how Miyamoto’s coaching philosophy was viewed by players during his time as an active coach, while some praised Ogata’s handling of the team during his Hiroshima days by comparing it to the situation current manager Arai Takahiro faces today. The mention of Kataoka also dredged up past media coverage, making this a thread that also revealed differing views on just how much weight should be given to the opinions of baseball alumni.
Takagi Yutaka: “They call me an old fogey, but…” — Sounds Alarm on Baseball’s Future: “What Can Fix It Is…” Names 4 Managerial Candidates He’d Back
Sponichi Annex commentator Takagi Yutaka shared his sense of crisis about the state of baseball on his own YouTube channel.
As of the 22nd, he had posted a new video titled “[The Next-Manager Question] I Want ◯◯ to Take the Job!! Announcing the Managerial Candidates Takagi Yutaka Wants to Back!!”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
His family home's got a hinoki cypress bathtub, yo
Renovate, renovate!
Sloppy play just doesn't cut it
Boring games mean the fans stop showing up
The compliance scolds never show up to watch anyway, so just ignore them
Dragons games pull in plenty of fans every single game, though
Takagi, Furuta, Kakefu, Ochiai — all of them
Re: #11
Furuta's just avoiding it himself — he doesn't want to give up the cushy gig of saying whatever he wants from the safety of the booth
Just listening to his NHK commentary is boring enough
Being under him in the dugout must be seriously suffocating
He's probably not a fan of the fun-to-watch baseball style Shinjo's been spreading
I recall Yamada Tetsuto saying something like "I'd rather quit than get crushed by Miyamoto"
I heard from someone who works at a baseball-gear maker that Murakami won't even speak to him
I'm not that into baseball myself, but is Miyamoto really that off-putting?
I get that he's the nagging, nitpicky type, though
There's hardly a young player out there who could get away with saying "who's this Miyamoto guy"
The fact that Ohtani came out of Kuriyama's camp already tells you the answer
Suzuki Seiya's a product of Ogata, isn't he
Tatsu Kota — who Ogata let show up late to practice to prioritize his own routine even back as a rookie — has absolutely got what it takes to succeed in the majors, but now he's stuck doing middle relief and floundering
Well, in a 143-game season you need a roster full of solid average players more than you need one genius, so it's not really about who developed who
I don't really think of Nomura as the bullying type, though
NPB puts a crowd-drawing celebrity name in the manager's chair and has a head coach support him
To begin with, MLB (minors included) doesn't really do that hands-on, coach-glued-to-your-side style of instruction anyway
But on the flip side, it's kind of poignant that none of them made it as pro baseball players
Probably held back by the pro/amateur eligibility rules and the like
He said he steered them toward soccer because they weren't tall enough
Carp players are just rough around the edges by nature, so a bit of iron-fist discipline was necessary
Can't understand why they fired him
"Why" is because he punched Noma, that's why
You clearly know that already, lol
Back in Ogata's day, however you slice it, it was just a small-budget team that happened to be strong because a bunch of first-team-caliber players peaked at the same time
Noma: "That guy's no good either"
Punched Noma
Posted a notice targeting Maru
And it was the previous manager who actually built the roster that won back-to-back titles
https://www.sponichi.co.jp/baseball/news/2024/07/12/gazo/20240712s10001173196000p.html
It'd be comedy gold, lol
Nomura's a PL Gakuen grad but seems like a decent guy, though
Wonder how that squares
Pitchers like Obana or Kuwata never really came off as thuggish…
though wait, there was Maeka, lol
Nomura Hiroki coached for Yokohama, but I think he quit, saying he was too soft-hearted and it wasn't a good fit for him
Takagi Yutaka
"Japan and Taiwan are about the only ones really going all-out. Japan's the only one that keeps putting real effort into it."
"For the majors it's basically just spring-training vibes — even giving up runs is treated as mere tune-up work, so guys will pitch all the way to the 5th inning. They're not playing it seriously."
"I went there myself, and in America there was zero buzz. The vibe was more like, 'wait, is this tournament even happening in America?'"
"If Japanese players ever refuse to play, this tournament is finished. The temperature gap with other countries is enormous."
Assistant
"So the WBC isn't even a topic of conversation in New York?"
Takagi Yutaka
"Even in Miami for the final, nobody knew it was happening — so of course New York's the same."
i.imgur.com/DHtZh9s.png
Just looking at 13 teams: Clippers down 47%, Grizzlies down 66%, Thunder down 57%, Spurs down 51%
But the NBA can absorb it because its new $77 billion national TV deal covers roughly $142 million per team per year
MLB has the same problem — the real difference isn't "whether local TV is collapsing," it's "how much of that hole national rights fees and DTC (direct-to-consumer) can fill"
But that national rights deal just had its SNB (Sunday Night Baseball) package cut in half despite viewership going up, so the hole might just keep growing
That's conflating two different things: "SNB's rights fee dropped" and "MLB's national broadcast revenue got cut in half"
The old ESPN deal was $550 million a year, but starting in 2026 it's ESPN at roughly $550M + NBC at roughly $200M + Netflix at roughly $50M — so overall, national rights revenue actually comes out to around $800M
What's more, the 2025 ESPN version of SNB averaged 1.8 million viewers, up 21% year over year, and the 2026 NBC version of SNB is averaging 2.7 million — the highest since 2007
So you can make the point that "viewership went up but SNB's standalone rights value went down," but you can't really say "so the national-rights hole is going to keep growing"
If anything, for MLB the real question is whether DTC can fill the hole left by the old RSN revenue — national broadcast rights actually increased in total value under the 2026 deal
To fill the hole from that cut, MLB sold off one of its revenue streams to ESPN
The SNB broadcast rights themselves are still half of what they were
When I say the hole could widen, I mean the possibility that in three years FOX and TBS could see the same kind of steep drop SNB did
Background and Talking Points
Takagi frequently weighs in on managerial personnel moves as a sports-newspaper commentator, and this time he laid out his views on YouTube amid a wave of offseason managerial changes. Within the thread, opinions split over Miyamoto Shinya’s reputation as a coach, and an anecdote attributed to player Yamada Tetsuto was also raised — though it’s worth noting these are all secondhand accounts, not official comments from the players themselves. As for Ogata Koichi’s handling of the team during his Hiroshima Carp days, there was in fact a real incident in the past where his use of physical discipline with players became an issue within the organization, so it’s not a subject that lends itself to simple praise. By the thread’s later stages, the conversation had shifted to MLB’s local broadcast-rights revenue structure — a notable turn from NPB managerial debate to broader questions about the business side of the sport as a whole.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Takagi Yutaka Sounds Alarm on Baseball’s Future: “What Can Fix It Is…” — Names 4 Managerial Candidates He’d Back: Miyamoto Shinya, Tsuji Hatsuhiko, Ogata Koichi, Kataoka Atsushi.”
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