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The story
On November 12, at the “Asia Professional Baseball Championship 2026” held at the Tokyo Dome, Samurai Japan, led by new manager Tadahito Iguchi, cruised to a 5-0 win over Taiwan, giving the new skipper a winning start to his tenure. Tomoya Masaki went deep twice — including a leadoff home run — and drove in three, while Yuto Kanamaru turned in seven scoreless innings in a performance where both pitching and hitting clicked. But what actually caught fire on 5ch wasn’t the game itself — it was the stands. Despite the matchup between two baseball powerhouses, Tokyo Dome’s seats were strikingly empty, and commenters flooded in with surprise. Opinions were split over the fact that the day’s broadcast was Amazon Prime-exclusive, and over whether this tournament even needs to exist in the offseason at all.
Nov 12 (Thu), 9:36 PM — Nishi Sports Web OTTO!
◆ Lagzus Asia Professional Baseball Championship 2026: Chinese Taipei 0–5 Japan (Nov 12, Tokyo Dome)
Team Japan, “Samurai Japan,” cruised to a win, giving manager Tadahito Iguchi a winning debut.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
I'm watching the Asia Championship, but the dome's empty… If it'd been yesterday, I'd have stretched my business trip an extra night and swung by for a game on the way home 🙄
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The dome's seats are empty. Maybe I should've gone.
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Is the dome emptier than even a Giants game?
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Made it just in time — the dome's pretty empty, huh.
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Since the Tigers aren't playing this time I decided not to go to the dome, but maybe I should have. A little surprised how empty it is.
Korea vs. Australia was empty too.
Re: #3
Even for Samurai Japan they're pulling a bald-faced lie, claiming 26,000 showed up lol
The infield seats are empty, and midway through the game some guy who didn't look like he had money sat down right next to me — I asked "Is this seat taken?" and he bolted. Tokyo Dome is terrifying.
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Tokyo Dome is empty. #SamuraiJapan
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Tokyo Dome, empty. Only the outfield and the area near the first-base dugout are filled. pic.x.com/mKjIH2bmp8
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Tokyo Dome is insanely empty
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Tokyo Dome's way too empty lol
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#SamuraiJapan Still, isn't Tokyo Dome way too empty? Look how bare that outfield is
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Tokyo Dome's empty, lol
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Isn't Tokyo Dome empty? I guess that's to be expected on a weekday with mostly young players, but still
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Here's today's view. It's so empty even the vendor girls were sighing about it, so if you can make it, head to Tokyo Dome. Yo Dai-Kang (a Taiwanese-born outfielder who's a fan favorite in Japan) seriously has such a great build
Seats empty everywhere for the Iguchi Japan debut
We can compete against them with proper fair play.
We push each other to get better.
Not like some other country.
Both Taiwan and Korea used to be able to go toe-to-toe with Japan.
They had high-level major leaguers back then too.
Both countries' domestic leagues have dropped in level, so they've gotten weaker.
so they're not watching the Prime Video broadcast.
Actually, it's not even a single coin, so I canceled my subscription.
What's that about DAZN — the "lord" who tried to scam people with a dark pattern, advertising a monthly price when it's actually a yearly contract?
Zero baseball fanboys watched this game.
Because they have no money 😭
WBSC World Rankings
#1 Japan
#2 Taiwan
The top-of-the-world baseball showdown the whole planet is watching.
↑ A gem of wisdom from baseball fanboys, from before the Netflix Incident (when Netflix grabbed exclusive WBC streaming rights)
[Soccer] Broadcast rights fees may top ¥40 billion… negotiations stall for '26 World Cup coverage — "The day soccer disappears from free-to-air TV" [jinjin★]
https://hayabusa9.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/mnewsplus/1746974284/
Lol
What a boomerang.
Your own country's opener, the final, and the semifinal are always guaranteed to air, you know lol
Not like some exhibition game somewhere lol
Today it's Prime Video only.
Tomorrow it'll be on free-to-air TV.
Japan's soccer team: 8th in Asia, 32nd in the world.
Grandpa,
there was no free-to-air broadcast — so I guess the WBC wasn't "world number one" either, huh?
Including qualifiers, Japan baseball ranked 8th out of a grand total of just 24 participating teams.
A 2.91 ERA these days is like a 3.91 from a generation ago.
These days, 6 innings with 2 runs allowed is like a 4th or 5th starter's level.
First, Gen Z (25 and under). It's trending slightly upward, but still nowhere close to 10% either way. Interest in baseball seems pretty low in this generation.
The core demographic (ages 13–49) isn't high either. It's trending slightly upward, but it's more than 5% below the overall population average.
By age, it's the middle-aged and older crowd keeping this sport's popularity alive. Those in their 50s–60s run 7–8% above the overall average. And for those 70 and up, it's nearly double the overall average. Baseball really is a sport propped up by its older fans.
https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/rock1963roll/imgs/1/9/1982bc18.jpg
Honestly there's no need to keep Samurai Japan running as a standing team either — couldn't they just run it as a short, concentrated thing only the year before a WBC?
Feel bad for the players getting dragged into this.
Japanese pro baseball players' contracts run through the end of November, and the next one doesn't start until February, so that's their window off.
Same as a sweatshop company lol
So then what's the actual reason they have to go out of their way to play this game?
It's not like they're facing tougher opponents — it's the same predetermined weaker countries every time, with zero productivity in it.
They're just needlessly burning out their pitchers.
It's a complete waste, plain and simple.
It runs November 12–15, 2026 at the Tokyo Dome, sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). Key features:
1. Participating countries/regions (4 teams)
Japan (Samurai Japan), South Korea, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), and Australia face off.
2. Eligibility (youth-focused rosters)
To give players international experience, the following age/career restrictions generally apply:
• Players 24 or under, or within their first 3 years as a pro
• Over-age slots (OA slots): up to 3 players aged 29 or under
Australia counted as "Asia," a mysterious age limit, three over-age slots — it's like they took soccer's whole format and pushed it to the extreme.
Maybe they slapped a weird age cap on the over-age slots just to give baseball its own original spin on it.
They're dressing it up with a plausible-sounding purpose, but really — since they can't call up MLB players — they probably just wanted an age-restricted tournament like soccer's Olympic squads, to drum up interest among younger fans.
With these conditions, of course Kanamaru's going to run wild lol
Just between us, treating Australia as part of "Asia" is actually something baseball's been doing all along — soccer's the one that quietly "pugged" it (a typo for パクった/"copied," but "pug" also means the dog breed, hence the joke below)
Ah, so soccer copied it, you mean.
What's "pugging" it mean?
Do you happen to have a pet pug?
Baseball and soccer are the type where TV networks pay huge broadcast rights fees and then recoup it by selling commercials.
Those rights fees got so expensive that foreign streaming services (DAZN, Netflix, etc.) scooped them up instead.
Golf is the type where a title sponsor buys out the whole package — the prize money AND the TV broadcast slot.
From a network's perspective, it's a dream deal: money comes in with zero risk.
It's also easy to predict the runtime and easy to slot in commercials.
You could call it the best of both baseball and soccer.
Background and key points of this discussion
The “Asia Professional Baseball Championship 2026” is a WBSC-sanctioned tournament featuring four countries — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia — built around a development-focused format: mainly players 24 or under or within their first three years as pros, with a cap of three over-age slots for players 29 or under. As pointed out in the thread, NPB players’ contracts run only through the end of November, leaving organizers little choice but to schedule the tournament during the offseason. Many commenters reacted with surprise just at the sight of empty seats at the Tokyo Dome, without realizing this was a weeknight, development-focused event rather than a true showdown between powerhouse nations fielding their best. The fact that opening day streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime, with no terrestrial broadcast, also likely dampened attendance and how much buzz the event generated.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Baseball] Japan 5-0 Taiwan — Tomoya Masaki opens with a leadoff shot and finishes with two home runs and 3 RBIs; young Samurai Japan gives manager Iguchi a winning debut; Yuto Kanamaru dazzles with 7 scoreless innings.”
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