Baseball huddles around their manager after losing to
Cuba in the
2006 Intercontinental Cup.
Baseball is historically the most popular team sport in Japan. It was introduced to Japan in 1872 by
Horace Wilson, who taught at the Kaisei School in
Tokyo. The first baseball team was called the Shimbashi Athletic Club and was established in 1878. Baseball has been a popular sport ever since. It is called in Japanese, combining the characters for "field" and "ball". Hiroshi Hiraoka, who was in the
United States studying engineering, introduced the game to his co-workers at Japan's national railways in 1878. He and his co-workers created the first baseball team, the Shimbashi Athletic Club, and dominated other teams which popped up in Japan. However, it was not until 1896 that a team from Ichikō, the elite
University of Tokyo preparatory school, defeated a team from the
Yokohama Country & Athletic Club 29 to 4 that the sport took a dominant hold in Japanese popular culture. The match was the first recorded international baseball game in
Asia. After that victory, several other universities in Japan adopted the sport, and it quickly spread throughout Japan. Since then, teams from Japan have traveled to learn from their American counterparts.
Waseda University was one of the first teams to cross the ocean to improve their skills. In 1905, the team traveled to the United States, where it played college teams from around the country. Other universities in Japan made similar trips, and U.S. teams traveled to Japan to play. From 1913 to 1922, American
MLB stars visited Japan and played against university teams. They also held clinics on technique.
Herb Hunter, a retired major league player, made eight trips to Japan, from 1922 to 1932 to organize games and coaching clinics. Baseball is also played in Japan's junior and senior high schools. Each year in March and August, two tournaments are held at Koshien Stadium for senior high school teams that win a prefecture tournament. References to
high school baseball () generally refer to the two annual baseball tournaments, played by high schools nationwide culminating at a final showdown at Hanshin Kōshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Japan. They are organized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation in association with Mainichi Shimbun for the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring (also known as "Spring Kōshien"), and Asahi Shimbun for the National High School Baseball Championship in the summer (also known as "Summer Kōshien"). These nationwide tournaments enjoy widespread popularity, arguably equal to or greater than professional baseball. Qualifying tournaments are often televised locally and each game of the final stage at Kōshien is televised nationally on NHK. The tournaments have become a national tradition, and large numbers of frenzied students and parents travel from hometowns to cheer for their local team. It is a common sight to see players walking off the field in tears after being eliminated from the tournament by a loss.
Association football Association football is the second most popular team sport in Japan, behind Baseball. The
Japan Football Association (JFA) is the governing body of Japanese football. The JFA organizes the
men's,
women's, and
futsal national teams. Association football was introduced to Japan during the
Meiji period by
O-yatoi gaikokujin, foreign advisors hired by the Japanese government, along with many other foreign sports, like
baseball. The first Japanese football club is considered to be
Tokyo Shūkyū-dan, founded in 1917, which is now competing in the Tokyo Prefectural amateur league. In the 1920s, football associations were organized and regional tournaments began in universities and high schools, especially in Tokyo. In the 1930s, the
Japan national football team was organized and drew 3–3 with
China to win their first title at the
Far Eastern Championship Games. The Japan national team also competed in the
1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the team had a first victory in an Olympic game with a 3–2 win over powerful
Sweden. The Japan national team is very successful at an international level, and has competed in the
1998,
2002,
2006,
2010,
2014,
2018,
2022 and
2026 FIFA World Cups. Its best result was reaching the Round of 16 in 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022. The Japanese national team has also competed in six AFC Asian Cups, with the team being the Champions in
1992,
2000,
2004 and
2011 AFC Asian Cups. The team's highest ranking was 9th in the world in February 1998. Japan has competed in many other footballing events including the
Confederations Cup, the
East Asian Football Championship, and the
Copa América. The
J.League is the most popular football league in Japan and has grown rapidly in just a few decades-with teams such as
FC Tokyo and
Kashima Antlers regularly competing in continental competition and the league drawing the talents of
Andrés Iniesta and
Fernando Torres. The women's national team has enjoyed major success at the
World Cup, winning the
2011 edition in Germany and finishing as runner-up in the
2015 edition in Canada. The national team's colors are blue and white, Japan's main colors in most international sporting competitions.
Basketball Especially since the emergence of
Yuta Tabuse and
Takuya Kawamura, basketball has received a recent revival and become a popular sport in Japan. The
Japan national basketball team won the
FIBA Asia Championship twice and has qualified for the event 25 out of 26 times. Japan was host to the
2006 FIBA World Championship which was played in the host cities of
Hamamatsu,
Hiroshima,
Saitama,
Sapporo and
Sendai and on 9 December 2017, Japan was announced as co-host the
2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup with Philippines and Indonesia some matches will be in host city of
Okinawa City. The prime basketball league in the country is the
B.League. In 2010 the
Japan Basketball Association recognized
Takehiko Inoue, the creator of
Slam Dunk, for the series' role in popularizing the sport in Japan as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations. In 2019,
Rui Hachimura was selected ninth overall in the draft by the
Washington Wizards of the NBA. He is a son between a Beninese father and Japanese mother. ==Other team sports==