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Professional Sports Teams as Advertisements: The Case of Nippon Professional Baseball

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The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim

Part of the book series: Sports Economics, Management and Policy ((SEMP,volume 10))

Abstract

Many firms advertise by sponsoring sports activities. Team names, however, remain off-limits in the major North American sports. While teams serve owners’ outside interests, they are not a part of that outside interest. In contrast, most Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) teams are subsidiaries of larger corporations that treat them as a form of advertising. We study whether owning a sports team is a profitable investment for a Japanese corporation by evaluating the impact of the purchase and sale of NPB teams on the profits of their parent companies. To do so, we perform an event analysis using stock-market data for the five NPB teams that changed hands after the 2004 season. Our findings show that the purchase or sale of an NPB franchise has little long-run effect on the profits of the parent companies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The community-owned Green Bay Packers are specifically exempted from this requirement.

  2. 2.

    The militaristic nature of schools at the time affected how players and fans approached the game, that is still felt in NPB.

  3. 3.

    See, for example Guttman and Thompson (2001, pp. 135–136).

  4. 4.

    We Anglicize all Japanese names by putting the family name last. For a good treatment of the tour, see Reaves (2002, pp. 66–76).

  5. 5.

    The “only” negative point of the tour was a nearly-successful attempt on Shoriki’s life by a far-right fanatic who was offended by the presence of foreigners on the “holy ground” of Meiji Jingū Stadium.

  6. 6.

    In this way, Japanese baseball teams resembled early British soccer teams, many of which were sponsored by railroads as well. See, for example, Goldblatt (2006, pp. 53–54). See also Guttman (2001, p. 137).

  7. 7.

    Whiting (2004, p. 90). For a first-hand account of the tensions between the baseball and business sides of the teams, see Fitts (2005, p. 149).

  8. 8.

    NPB has been relatively stable since that time. Only one franchise, the Yokohama DeNa Bay Stars has changed hands since the flurry of activity following the 2004 season.

  9. 9.

    See, for example, Miyazaki and Morgan (2001); Cornwell et al. (2001); and Leeds et al. (2009).

  10. 10.

    Such brief euphoria was found in China in the wake of Beijing’s being named the host of the 2008 Summer Olympics. See Leeds et al. (2009).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Eva Marikova Leeds for her helpful comments and suggestions. Garry Poluan and Alican Aytac provided valuable research assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Temple University, 19122, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Michael A. Leeds

  2. 9200 Topeka Street, 20817, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Sumi Sakata

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  1. Michael A. Leeds
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  2. Sumi Sakata
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Correspondence to Michael A. Leeds .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Young Hoon Lee

  2. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Rodney Fort

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Leeds, M., Sakata, S. (2015). Professional Sports Teams as Advertisements: The Case of Nippon Professional Baseball. In: Lee, Y., Fort, R. (eds) The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10037-1_9

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