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The story
On September 27, the Japan-Korea final of the Asian Games baseball tournament kicks off at 6:30 PM at Toyohashi Citizen Stadium in Aichi Prefecture. It’s a match with Japan’s first Asian title in 32 years — since the 1994 Hiroshima Games — on the line, but there’s no terrestrial broadcast; the only live coverage is on the streaming service “U-NEXT.” Since the roster is centered on corporate-league players for Samurai Japan’s amateur (industrial-league) squad, including Arata Higuchi (Oji) and Motoki Mukoyama (NTT East), reactions on 5ch were split: most took it in stride with comments like “no terrestrial broadcast is understandable,” while others questioned the decision, asking “shouldn’t finals across all sports get broadcast at least?” and “there’s a medal on the line, though.”
On September 27, the Japan-Korea final of the Asian Games baseball tournament — held in Japan for the first time in 32 years — will take place at Toyohashi Citizen Stadium. The highly anticipated Japan-Korea showdown is set for a 6:30 PM first pitch that same day, with live coverage airing on the streaming service “U-NEXT.” No terrestrial live broadcast is planned.
Facing off against Korea, which is aiming for the incredible feat of a fifth straight title, Japan enters with Samurai Japan’s industrial-league (corporate amateur) representative squad, built around top corporate-league players such as left-hander Arata Higuchi (Oji), outfielder Motoki Mukoyama (NTT East), and catcher Yuki Tsujimoto (NTT West). The goal: Japan’s first Asian championship in 32 years, since the 1994 Hiroshima Games.
It’s truly a historic match, but since the team is centered on corporate-league players, most reactions showed understanding toward the lack of a terrestrial broadcast. Still, some viewers and fans online raised questions about it.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Fairly popular sports do get terrestrial coverage.
But yeah, baseball with no pros in it not getting broadcast is pretty normal.
Another 5-0 and Korean fans are gonna be crushed all over again.
Unlike soccer, baseball's a minor sport, so it can't be helped.
Just found out Taiwan's even at the Asian Games.
■WBC 2023 Tokyo Round
Japan, Korea, Australia, Czech Republic, China
■WBC 2026 Tokyo Round
Japan, Korea, Australia, Czech Republic, Taiwan
How long did baseball hog the airwaves for, exactly?
They're literally in the final playing Korea again right now lol
If you exclude North/Central America, it's just Japan, Taiwan, and Korea — so a medal's basically guaranteed.
There is a streaming option though.
Japan didn't even need to host the Asian Games in the first place.
What a waste of money.
Probably just people desperate to skim off the top who pushed hard to host it.
For some reason though, Korea takes it dead serious — winning gets you exempted from military service.
1st: Japan
2nd: Taiwan
3rd: USA
4th: Korea
This 'world ranking' that baseball forced together out of soccer envy is hilarious lol
That's boring leisure-time 'yakyuu' (a mocking pun swapping the kanji for 'baseball' with one meaning 'dung') for you.
Japan's roster doesn't have a single pro, let alone an Ohtani, lol
In soccer terms it'd be like fielding a JFL (Japan's 4th-tier league) squad as the national team.
Average height of Japan's Asian Games squads:
Soccer national team: 182.2cm
Baseball national team: 178.6cm
Even comparing the full national teams, soccer's average height keeps climbing higher — it's really not the era anymore where the most physically gifted athletes go for baseball. Baseball's about to become the short guys' sport.
It's basically become common knowledge now that baseball is the sport for the 'physically weak.'
Background and key points of this discussion
The main reason no terrestrial broadcast was arranged is that the roster isn’t built around NPB/MLB stars like Shohei Ohtani, but around corporate-league players such as Arata Higuchi and Motoki Mukoyama, forming the “Samurai Japan industrial-league representative squad.” Unlike international tournaments featuring pros, ratings are hard to guarantee, and broadcasters sticking to streaming instead isn’t unique to baseball. On the thread, the dominant view leaned less toward “neglect” and more toward the reality that “baseball is now being treated as a non-pro, non-major sport.” The points of contention were the asymmetry in stakes — since winning the Asian Games exempts Korean players from military service, making their side’s motivation different from Japan’s — and doubts about the tournament structure itself, given that with essentially only Japan, Korea, and Taiwan competing, a medal is nearly guaranteed regardless of outcome. The weight of Japan’s potential first title in 32 years doesn’t fully come across, and that gap traces back to just how unevenly popular the sport is across the region.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “[Baseball] Asian Games final Japan-Korea match has “no terrestrial broadcast” — voices say “we’re being neglected,” “there’s a medal on the line…”.”
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