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The story
Japanese professional baseball wrapped up its 143-game 2026 season with combined attendance across all 12 teams reaching an all-time high of 27,177,247 fans. Attendance has climbed steadily since pandemic-era capacity limits were lifted, surpassing last season’s total of over 27 million. While the Hanshin Tigers claimed back-to-back Central League titles and SoftBank swept to a third straight Pacific League championship, reports noted that even the struggling, lower-ranked Chunichi Dragons set their own all-time attendance record. Reactions on the forum were split over how to read the fact that even underperforming teams can pack the stands, with some questioning the accuracy of the official attendance figures and others pointing out how much harder it actually is to get into games for some teams than others.
10/26 (Mon) 10:02 — 47NEWS
The boom continues. Japanese professional baseball wrapped up its regular season on October 8, with all 12 teams completing their 143-game schedules. The Hanshin Tigers won their first-ever back-to-back Central League pennants, while SoftBank showed championship form in claiming a third consecutive Pacific League title. Fans turned out to watch the fierce competition in record numbers, with combined attendance across all 12 teams reaching an all-time high of 27,177,247 this season. Since pandemic-era restrictions were lifted, attendance has climbed every year, and this season topped last year’s figure — which had already been the first time combined Central and Pacific League attendance broke 27 million. So why do fans keep coming out to the ballpark? (Kyodo News Pro Baseball Reporting Team)
[Photo] More diligent than the Japanese players, Giants’ Martinez… his reasons for not going to the majors, with his two most beloved people at his side
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Padded how, exactly? I'd genuinely like a straight answer.
This is only the first time in two years these numbers have topped the Ochiai era. From right after Ochiai left all the way up until Tatsunami took over four years later, attendance never even matched Ochiai's worst year (the Lehman Shock and the self-restraint that followed the earthquake the next year).
Ochiai always said drawing in crowds was the front office's job, not his.
He's probably just thinking, 'Finally, the organization is doing its own job for once.'
That works out to roughly 30,000 fans per game on average — doesn't that sound a little fishy?
[LOL] Es Con Field (the Fighters' stadium) handed out a bunch of free tickets, then told people not to post about it on social media lol
■ Notice
*Please refrain from publicizing the details of this promotion to an unspecified audience via social media, etc.
ps://i.imgur.com/wU1QjOh.png
It's the J.League that needs to raise its per-fan revenue. How much longer are they going to keep paying only a fraction of gate receipts while getting discounts on stadium usage fees?
If it's an all-time attendance high and record profits to match, who cares? It's not like they're losing money, right?
Maybe, but revenue figures would give it away to some extent, wouldn't they? I'm just wondering specifically how they'd be fudging the numbers.
The source only lists attendance figures — it says nothing at all about revenue going up. And the whole 'the Pokémon collab sold out!' angle is kind of a so-what anyway.
Re: #46
I see. So in the end, you can't really say anything for sure unless you check it with your own eyes.
Oh, so it's only the other teams padding their numbers, huh (lol)
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The attendance figures NPB announces after every game aren’t an actual headcount of fans in seats — they’re based on the number of tickets the home team issued. Because of this, it’s structurally possible for a game to be announced as a sellout while plenty of seats sit empty, and the ‘padding’ suspicion raised on the forum stems from a general critique of this reporting method itself. At the same time, some teams, like Hanshin, sell out every home game for the entire season before it even starts, meaning high attendance numbers don’t necessarily translate into ‘easy access to live games’ — a point that’s easy to get wrong. On the forum, opinions split between those who see rising attendance despite poor standings as proof of baseball’s appeal as entertainment in its own right, and those who chalk it up to a lack of other entertainment options in a given region — neither of which the raw numbers in the article alone can really settle.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “[NPB] Pro Baseball Attendance Tops 27 Million for the First Time Ever — Even the Can’t-Win ‘Dragons’ Set a Record; ‘Winning’ Is No Longer the Biggest Promotional Tool.”
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