Save corporate-sponsored sports teams

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Save corporate-sponsored sports teams
Akahata editorial (excerpts)
Corporations are withdrawing their sponsorship from various competitive sports teams.

In ice hockey, the Seibu Group team that has just won the Japanese championship will disappear at the end of the current season. In baseball, the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation team and Toshiba Corporation team will end their activities. Similar terminations have been announced by Nissan (table tennis), Tasaki Shinju (women's soccer), and Onward Holdings (American football). These are all top-ranked corporate teams.

Honda Motor, Suzuki Motor, Fuji Heavy Industries, and Mitsubishi Motor have already withdrawn from Formula One racing as well as various racing events such as the Dakar Rally. In addition, many corporate sponsors have been backing out of golf and tennis tournaments and even refraining from renewing professional players' contracts.

Cost-cutting

The reason these corporations give for disbanding their sports teams is the need to cut costs in order to cope with the present financial crisis and slump in business.

Such termination of corporate club activities comes without any prior notification to the coaching staff, managers, players, or their family members.

Corporations have used the names of their teams or players as corporate publicity and now they are unilaterally stopping funding when their financial positions worsen. Such arbitrary behavior is unacceptable because both the players and coaching staff joined the corporate team on the premise that they can continue sports activities under stable conditions.

Thus, if corporations scrap sports team contracts at corporate convenience, it will undermine the foundation of competitive sports, causing declines in athletic abilities, and even hampering athletes' participation in international competitions, including the Olympic Games.

System needed to support corporate clubs

Japanese corporations have little awareness of the importance of the role of society in assisting sports. It is necessary for sports associations to take an initiative in protecting players and coaching staff from such corporate highhandedness.

At the same time, the need is to urgently establish a system to protect their status and support them so that they can focus on the improvement of their sports abilities without anxieties.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports should utilize its funds earmarked for sports promotion to subsidize players and coaches in order for them to continue their sports careers. It is also necessary for us to increase social support by encouraging the government and companies to contribute more money for sports.

- Akahata, February 22, 2009