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The story
Ahead of the second anniversary of Nagasaki City’s mixed-use complex “Nagasaki Stadium City,” Japanet Holdings president Akito Takata held a press conference, revealing that this year’s visitor count is projected at 5.35 million — up 650,000 from last year — with an estimated annual economic impact of about ¥37.8 billion. However, this falls short of the 6.5 million target set for the facility’s second year, and it was also revealed that 86% of visitors came from within Nagasaki Prefecture. On 5ch, opinions were divided both on how to assess this missed target and on how visitor numbers and profitability compare with Hokkaido Ballpark’s Es Con Field (home of the Nippon-Ham Fighters), another well-known “privately built, privately operated” stadium.
Nagasaki Stadium City’s 2nd anniversary: visitors projected at 5.35 million, up 650,000 from last year… economic impact estimated at ¥37.8 billion
Ahead of the 14th, when the mixed-use complex “Nagasaki Stadium City” in central Nagasaki City marks its second anniversary since opening, Japanet Holdings (HD, headquartered in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture) president Akito Takata held a press conference on the 1st.
He revealed that the facility’s annual visitor count this year is projected at 5.35 million, 650,000 more than last year. He also announced an estimate that the annual economic ripple effect would reach approximately ¥37.8 billion.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Don't people have any other hobbies?
This basically means they've failed to draw in inbound tourists or soccer fans from outside the prefecture either.
In other words, it's underperforming expectations.
Well, baseball's such a drag to watch it doesn't even count as entertainment.
Nagasaki Stadium City
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/spv/2511/20/news020_6.html
Nagasaki Stadium City set a second-year target of 6.5 million visitors and full-year profitability.
Reality
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/f7d6486dbcaebecac059d64790ee7ad9f1d73bb2
[Nagasaki] Stadium City draws 5.35 million visitors a year, ¥37.8 billion economic impact
5.35 million, nowhere near the 6.5 million target
lol
Total failure, lol
They were targeting profitability, but with no profit in sight, looks like another year in the red
Missing the target by 1.15 million people — guess that figures
They always grade these things way too generously,
based on some sketchy rationale,
even though there's barely any real reason for the numbers to go up.
Cut it out — stop treating wishful thinking as reality
and dragging grandpa's favorite dying hobby through the mud.
other stadiums should copy that instead of gorging on tax money, right?
That's a pretty obvious, positive take,
but somehow people always show up to lose their minds over it.
How is it a success if it's running at a loss?
For reference, Es Con Field is massively in the black.
It's got more visitors than Es Con Field after all, lol
Es Con Field: baseball only
Nagasaki Stadium City: basketball, soccer, and more
Changing your tune because of Es Con's money?
One reason the Fighters used to be so tight with cash is that for years they had no stadium of their own — based out of Sapporo Dome, they paid steep facility fees and got none of the ad or concession revenue. After relocating to Es Con Field in '23, they started earning not just ad and sales revenue but event income too. In '25 the team itself ran at a loss, but Fighters Sports & Entertainment, the affiliated company that runs Es Con Field and related facilities, posted a profit of about ¥4.9 billion.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/782ca34a981b11a77f24c3b7d6f1f01b0c980a0f?page=3
Es Con Field: in the black
Nagasaki Stadium City: in the red
There's your gap.
Privately built, privately run — that's great.
The "tax league" (zei-league, a jab at NPB for leaning on taxpayer-funded stadiums) is no good.
Amu Plaza Nagasaki: 25.9 million visitors
Mirai Nagasaki Cocowalk: 7 million visitors
And sitting right along that same foot-traffic route, Nagasaki Stadium City: 5.35 million
Against Kitahiroshima City's normal annual municipal tax revenue (roughly ¥8-9 billion), about ¥14 billion was poured into infrastructure around the stadium — roads, water and sewage systems, and so on. On top of that, with construction of the new "F-Village Station" set to open in 2028, the city has committed to a further ¥4.4 billion in public funding (most of it municipal bonds, i.e., debt).
2. Rising municipal bond (debt) balance
While neighboring municipalities are paying down debt, Kitahiroshima has been issuing more municipal bonds to front-load infrastructure investment, raising the share of its roughly ¥28 billion general-account budget tied up in fixed costs like debt repayment. Critics say this is squeezing the "budget room" that should otherwise go to childcare, education, healthcare, and upgrading other aging infrastructure.
Kitahiroshima's a lost cause at this point.
And yet even with all that, the baseball fanboys are still cheering "Es Con's in the black!" — it's kind of depressing.
So it's got more visitors than Es Con Field? Impressive.
Hokkaido Ballpark F Village sees 4.59 million visitors in 2025, up 10% year-on-year | Doshin Sports | DOSHIN SPORTS
https://www.doshinsports.com/article_detail/id=23850
Honestly it's hard to believe, if anything.
Baseball should have the edge on attendance no matter how you slice it,
because the number of games is completely different.
What exactly are they counting?
Maybe it includes the attached hotel, shopping, stuff like that.
Probably the hotel, restaurants, the hot spring facility.
If there's a brewery or an onsen (hot spring bath), the people who like that kind of thing will keep coming back.
Es Con Field: baseball only
Nagasaki Stadium City: soccer, basketball, volleyball
That's one sport against three, no matter how you look at it — shouldn't Nagasaki Stadium City have the advantage?
Nagasaki Prefecture's population is only about 1.2 million.
Isn't setting a target of 6.5 million kind of nuts?
It's probably just that they can't pencil out a profit unless they set the bar that high.
Japanet went in with their eyes open, but it's still gotta be hell.
Yeah, probably.
This thing's gonna take over 40 years to pay off.
It's probably a target worked out from average spending per visitor, but
with visits from Nagasaki residents already over 4 million and tough to grow further,
they'd need a big target of over 2 million visitors from outside the prefecture.
Still, it's good that the challenges are visible, so I guess that's fine.
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/spv/2511/20/news020_6.html
Nagasaki Stadium City set a second-year target of 6.5 million visitors and full-year profitability.
Reality
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/f7d6486dbcaebecac059d64790ee7ad9f1d73bb2
[Nagasaki] Stadium City draws 5.35 million visitors a year, ¥37.8 billion economic impact
5.35 million, nowhere near the 6.5 million target
For reference, Es Con Field's visitor numbers by year:
2023: 3.46 million, 2024: 4.18 million, 2025: 4.59 million
Isn't this ¥100 billion facility about to get overtaken by a baseball-only stadium, lol
And Es Con Field only cost ¥60 billion
Ehhh…
I'll jump in since it's right above this post — you're comparing Hokkaido to Nagasaki? The market sizes are way too different to begin with.
Then why is Nagasaki in the red while Es Con is ¥5 billion in the black?
Kitahiroshima City population: 50,000
Nagasaki City population: 370,000
Even though baseball has way more games?
The baseball fanboys must be in tears.
Nagasaki Stadium City: J.League, B.League, SV League (volleyball)
Es Con Field: NPB only
And they're neck and neck on attendance?
Same goes for the cost:
Nagasaki Stadium City: ¥100 billion
Es Con Field: ¥60 billion
Grandpa's beloved baseball looks like it's dying out…
Nagasaki's original estimate was also around ¥60 billion,
but it ballooned to ¥100 billion once COVID sent materials and labor costs soaring.
Since they couldn't just pull the plug,
the bank must have signed off on it.
Why doesn't anyone copy it?
Starting a project now would be tough given how construction costs have shot up.
Nakano Sun Plaza's redevelopment also got scrapped once and had to go back to the drawing board,
and who knows what's happening with the National Theatre rebuild.
Background and key points of this discussion
“Economic ripple effect” estimates are figures that municipalities and companies often publish to demonstrate a facility’s significance — they’re projections worked backward from visitor numbers and average spending, and are a separate metric from the facility’s own profit-and-loss performance. It’s worth noting that in the thread, the ¥37.8 billion impact estimate, the actual visitor count (5.35 million against a 6.5 million target), and the facility’s profitability tended to get conflated. Nagasaki Stadium City and Hokkaido’s Es Con Field are frequently compared because both are held up as leading examples of “privately built, privately operated” complexes led by a sports team or club, though differences in construction timing should be factored in too (Nagasaki’s cost rose from an initial estimate of around ¥60 billion to ¥100 billion amid pandemic-era spikes in materials and labor costs). Opinion in the thread split over whether the fact that 86% of visitors came from within the prefecture should be read as “a failure from setting an overly ambitious target” or as “solid, locally focused management” — a question the numbers in the article alone can’t settle.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisokuho+) thread “[Soccer] Nagasaki Stadium City’s 2nd year since opening: visitors projected at 5.35 million, up 650,000 from last year… Economic impact estimated at ¥37.8 billion.”
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