Japan Basketball Association opportunities, tryouts, salaries, how can Americans play?
About Japan Basketball Association
The Japan Basketball Association, formed back in 1930, is the organization that governs basketball in Japan. JBA is responsible for the Japan Women’s National Basketball Team as well as the Japan National Basketball Team. It also manages the B League, which was started back in September 2016 (JBA, n.a.).
Back in 2014, JBA was suspended due to the inability to produce a functional organization as well as the emergence of two competing basketball leagues, primarily the National Basketball League and B. League. To make things more complicated, NBL and B. League had different regulations, which led to forbidding Japan to participate in the FIBA and FIBA Asia, which meant that the national teams could not play in the FIBA competition (JBA, n.a.).
Japan Basketball Association History
Back in the Asian Qualifiers of the World Cup, Japan had an embarrassing lost of 0-4 but now turned the tables with their new addition of power players such as Yuta Watanabe, Rui Hachimura, and Nick Fazekas famously known as The Akatsuki Five. With their line-up, they managed to beat Australia and were not defeated in the preliminary rounds, thus holding a place in the event (Nagatsuka, 2019).
JBA’s history
Taking a look at JBA’s history, they were never always in the spotlight and was dominated quite often by the NBA and other international leagues. Japan once finished 13th with one win to 7 losses record back in the 1963 tournament in Brazil, 11th with a 2 to 6 ratio back in Uruguay 1967, 17th with a 1 to 4 rate at the 2006 FIBA World Championship and 14th with 1 to 4 wins to losses in Greece back in 1998 (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Up until now, Japan was not able to beat any teams from the European League in the World Cup; however, it did manage to bag a win against Paraguay, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Senegal (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Rise of Basketball in Japan and Opportunities
Japan is one of the countries which did not recognize basketball as a major sport and for the longest time, showed little interest even though there were numerous shows devoted to them, specifically animes such as “Kuroko No Basket,” “Slam Dunk” and “Dear Boys” which aimed to increase citizen interests and have them engaged in the sport (Bhagat, 2019).
Some say that their lack of interest in sports may be due to the Japanese team not being established in western-based games but more on their native such as kendo. Others would also claim it was the lack of competence due to them being vertically challenged compared to their western counterparts. For whatever reason, Japanese basketball though, is already thriving, still did not claim their throne as their country’s favorite sport (Moore, 2019).
Prominent Japenese Players To Play in NBA
There may be some prominent players who helped and continue to support Japan rise to the top. Still, one such player who made international headlines is none other than Rui Hachimura after becoming the 1st and only Japanese player to go pro in the NBA after getting drafted. As of now, Rui Hachimura is the face of Japanese basketball and is getting coverage in all forms of the advertisement, be it in shoes, banks, cup noodles, and even 5G internet (Fitzpatrick, 2020).
Thanks to Hachimura’s and the rest of his crew, overall interest in Japanese basketball rose with an overall increase of 30% subscriptions in Rakuten. This company holds the Japanese basketball league’s broadcasting rights. Hachimura currently plays for the Wizard but was not doing well as most would think even though he ranked third in the team as the best offensive player, fourth in a rebound in the Toyama Prefecture and first in rebounds. The leading cause of this was him having to undergo a procedure in his groin after his teammate, Isaac Bonga, accidentally kicked him in the groin, which led him not to play the in the season, with no updates on when he can play again Fitzpatrick, 2020).
Over long months and their suspension back in 2014, the B. League tried to revamp the sport. Adding power players to the team was one of their steps, but one of the things which made them successful was the proper governance. This led to not only their growth of the game but also recognition internationally. With the Japanese promoting overall unity, a comprehensive evaluation of their quality of play was done, and a new era was born (Odeven, 2019). Not much is noted for opportunities in the Japanese basketball league led by B. League other than its boom thanks to the efforts of their power players and unity as of late.
Salaries
Japanese basketball continues to grow thanks to the rising stars such as Rui Hachimura, thus earning them a spot in the Olympics and maintains signs of growing even further. Therefore, it is apparent that their progress reflects in their salaries (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Based on the financial report by B. League, Japanese basketball was able to generate a revenue of ¥30.8B, which sums up to $283M during seasons 2018 to 2019. The figures were a combination of JBA’s, B. League, and B. League clubs’ revenues, which is three times the former ¥10.5B revenue from 2015 and 2016 combined (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Increase Japanese Basketball Revenue
Thanks to the increase in overall revenue of the league, Japan Basketball Association is now two years ahead of its estimated $32M set to be achieved by 2021. As per each team’s performances, some of the teams which contributed most to the overall revenue of the JBA during the first division of the 2017-2018 season were Chiba Jets with an income of ¥1.76B being the first in their division to exceed with a rate of 23% from the expected commission mentioned above. SeaHorses Mikawa later followed this with revenue of ¥1.62B, then Alvark Tokyo with ¥1.38B and Utsunomiya Brex with ¥1.37B.
For their second season, revenue was led by Hiroshima Dragonflies with revenue of ¥475M and then topped Chiba’s by overtaking them with ¥433M worth of revenue tickets (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Japanese Basketball Players Make Solid Salaries
With an overall increase in the league’s revenue, B. League chairman Masaaki Okawa urged their clubs to increase their market value by capitalizing on their favorite Japanese basketball players. With this, there were also improvements in the base salaries of Japanese players (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Now, the base salaries for Japanese players was ¥16.1M or $147,000 in the 2018-2019 season which was ~23% higher than their 2016-2017 campaigns and last 2019; players were able to bag ¥45.4M for those who competed in the FIBA World Cup in China such as Yudai Baba and Nick Fazekas (Nagatsuka, 2019).
Tryouts and how Americans can play
The B. League has three divisions with 18 teams, each both in Divisions 1 and 2 and 9 teams in Division 3. Divisions 1 (Known as their best division) and two are divided further into the Central, Eastern, and Western conferences, and each conference has six teams.
Each team in Division 1 can have three foreigners, and those who were born and finished in elementary school in Japan are considered their native citizens. Their teams can have a naturalized player; moreover, these three cannot play simultaneously but rather, two at a time in all the quarters of the game (Hughes, 2020).
As for the elaborate tryout for the B. League, there is not much information other than a form needed to be submitted though there was a source that there is a height requirement, it was dated back in 2009.
References:
Bhagat, V. (2019). Kuroko no Basket: Anime which galvanizes you to indulge in sports.
Medium. Retrieved on March 19, 2020 from
https://medium.com/theloquacioussquad/kuroko-no-basket-anime-which-
galvanizes-you-to-indulge-in-sports-ea065617dda0.
Fitzpatrick, J. (2020). Basketball: History maker Rui Hachimura fuels the NBA boom in Japan.
Kyodo News. Retrieved on March 18, 2020, from
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/01/51b7839f3e9c-refiling-feature-
basketball-history-maker-hachimura-fuels-nba-boom-in-japan.html.
Hughes, M. (2020). Pro Basketball in Japan B. League. Japan Visitor. Retrieved on March
18, 2020, from https://www.japanvisitor.com/japan-sport/basketball.
Japan Basketball Association (n.a.). Japan Basketball Association About. Retrieved on
March 16, 2020, from http://www.japanbasketball.jp/
Nagatsuka, K. (2019). Japan’s history in the global basketball tournament. Japan Times.
Retrieved on March 18, 2020 from
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2019/08/27/basketball/japans-history-global-
basketball-tournament/#.XnN56IgzZPY.
Nagatsuka, K. (2019). Japanese Basketball Generates Record Revenue as B. League’s
Growth Continues. Japan Times. Retrieved on March 18, 2020 from
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2019/11/25/basketball/b-league/japanese-
basketball-generates-record-revenue-b-leagues-growth-
continues/#.XnN6L4gzZPY.
Odeven, E. (2019). With its recent revamp, Japan’s B. League could make the Reiwa Era
Its own. Japan Times. Retrieved on March 19, 2020, from
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2019/05/17/basketball/b-league/revamp-b-
league-make-reiwa/#.XnOLP4gzZPY.
Moore, S.M. (2019). Japanese Basketball On the Rise? Medium. Retrieved on March 18,
2020 from https://medium.com/@shotarohondamoore/japanese-basketball-on-the-
rise-d0d9e9b5b5f9.