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The story
Game 4 of the 2026 Japan Series (SoftBank vs. DeNA), aired nationwide on Nippon TV on October 28, 2026, drew a household rating of just 9.2% in the Kanto region, with the individual rating at a mere 5.3%. In SoftBank’s home region of Kyushu, however, local broadcaster FBS (covering the northern Kyushu area) posted a household rating of 31.7% and an individual rating of 20.1%, with the household rating peaking at 44.0% (30.1% individual) at 8:37 p.m. On 5ch, the huge gap between the national and local numbers became a hot topic, with discussion splitting between confusion over what exactly “northern Kyushu area” covers and debate over how baseball’s current popularity stacks up against soccer and the J-League.
SoftBank Crowned Japan’s Best: Japan Series Game 4 Draws 9.2% Household Rating Nationally — a Stunning 31.7% in Home-Turf Kyushu, Peaking at 44.0%
It has come to light that “2026 Pro Baseball Japan Series: SoftBank vs. DeNA, Game 4” (aired from 5:53 p.m.), broadcast by Nippon TV on the 28th, posted an average household rating of 9.2% for the program. The individual rating was 5.3% (per Video Research, Kanto region).
The broadcast on local station FBS (covering the northern Kyushu area) marked a high average household rating of 31.7%, with an individual rating of 20.1%. The highest minute-by-minute rating came at 8:37 p.m., with a household rating of 44.0% and an individual rating of 30.1%.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Point
It's "local" Kyushu — but only the NORTHERN part
lol
Northern Kyushu area sounds like it'd be huge, but this is actually all it covers
Northern Kyushu area
s://i.imgur.com/vvvqQJb.jpg
Isn't "northern Kyushu" supposed to be the upper half of Kyushu?
This is just the northernmost tip of Fukuoka
It's popular content.
We've reached an era where it's not even unusual for rural areas to go over a month without a single pro baseball broadcast
A genuine, honest-to-god single digit lol
That's actually kind of brutal when you put it that way
Seriously? My hometown is rural too and the rating was low.
It didn't even make the ratings chart
With teams like Yakult, Yokohama (DeNA), Orix, Lotte, or Seibu, ratings go cold everywhere
Just like baseball ("yakyuu," a mocking baby-talk way of saying the sport), the J-League also pulls decent ratings in local markets lol
2024 Levain Cup Final
In the Niigata region, the broadcast aired on NST (Niigata Sogo Television) and posted an unusual 19.9% for a Saturday afternoon. What's more, the variety show "Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan" that aired right after scored 19.1%, and the evening news program "News It!" hit 21.1% — showing the excitement from the thrilling match lingered on.
About a year ago, people were saying it'd be a huge year for baseball thanks to the WBC — but it might end up being remembered as the year baseball died instead.
Both the pros and the amateurs had a non-stop string of scandals this year
So the once-a-year championship lost out to a soccer friendly?
Lost to an Under-21 soccer match
Comparing it to the national team isn't fair —
let's compare using data from a club-level "champion of Japan" decider instead
There's no club-level "champion of Japan" decider in soccer, so let's compare it to baseball's Under-21 instead
Oh… turns out even Koshien's ratings lose to that soccer U-21 match…
A cup competition? Baseball doesn't have one, so that's 0%.
Since it doesn't exist, you wouldn't understand how rough that is
No, streaming isn't included.
If it were, soccer's numbers would be even higher
The WBC was 0% too, huh
so you can't really call these figures statistically reliable.
You seriously think that "oink leisure" stuff (a mocking nickname thread posters use for soccer) is actually popular?
If the Giants made it to the Japan Series, the final game would easily clear 20%
44% is insane!
Next up is the U-17 Women's World Cup!
Knockout stage
Japan 🇯🇵 vs 🇬🇭 Kenya
https://www.dazn.com/ja-JP/home/tbb64bmthqj70sqz9ak7jjc200
Make a free DAZN account and you can watch it for free
Starts tonight at 27:00 (i.e. 3 a.m.)!
Baseball fanboys: "But soccer! But soccer!"
You guys are way too scared of soccer lol
Table tennis beats the "tax league" (J-League) landing its first prime-time slot in 25 years —
the old soccer fanboys have already forgotten about that one, lol
This is a level of dominance I've never seen before.
What's also wild is that manager Kokubo never touched the batting order (the hitting coach set it) — the team just ran with his one directive to score more than last year, and actually pulled it off
SoftBank swept the Giants for the second year running
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
TV ratings reported nationally are the Kanto-region figures measured by Video Research, while numbers from regional stations like FBS are tallied separately — and they tend to spike in areas with strong support for the local team. This pattern isn’t unique to pro baseball; it shows up in J-League regional broadcasts too, as seen in the thread’s own example of the 19.9% local rating for the 2024 Levain Cup final in Niigata. It’s also easy to overlook that these figures only reflect terrestrial broadcast viewing and exclude simultaneous streaming services like TVer, so as streaming viewership grows, judging popularity by ratings alone may be premature. Likewise, “northern Kyushu area” is simply the term for FBS’s broadcast coverage zone, not a reference to all of Kyushu — and it was this unclear definition that caused the confusion seen in the thread.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinosupo Sokuhou+) thread “[Ratings] SoftBank Crowned Japan’s Best: Japan Series Game 4 Draws 9.2% — a Stunning 31.7% in Home-Turf Kyushu, Peaking at 44.0%.”
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