The Impact of the Rugby World Cup in Japan

by Toby Amos

One of the most common general associations with the country of Japan is the institution that is sumo wrestling. If asked about sport in Japan; it would almost certainly come to mind. However, despite sumo still being considered the national sport, there are others which are actually far more popular- some of which you may not expect.

Historically, the country’s most popular sport is Baseball which, since it was introduced in 1872, has experienced huge growth at amateur and professional level alike. In fact one of the most watched sporting events in the entire country is the Japanese Highschool Baseball Championships. This is comparable to the large following which college football has in The United States. Japan is one of very few countries outside of the Americas to play Baseball competitively at all.

However, more recently, Japanese sport has followed the example of the country’s large corporations, such as Mitsubishi and Yamaha, which produce anything from cars to washing machines. It has diversified. Rugby Union has been a sport in Japan since the late 19th century but, despite a few notable performances throughout the decades, did not start to really grow until much more recently. Japan won the right to host this year’s Rugby World Cup in 2013 and at the time, they were ranked 15th in the world. Naturally, since then, both investment and interest in the sport has increased massively. In 2015 the ‘Cherry Blossoms’ pulled of the single biggest in world cup history when they beat the then number 3 ranked South Africans 34-32. The following year, The Tokyo based ‘Sunwolves’ became the first Asian team to compete in Super Rugby (the top league for southern hemisphere club sides). This all leads us to the tournament which is now well under way.

Hosting any major sporting event can provide a huge boost to an economy. This proved true for the UK when the London Olympics helped us to narrowly avoid a double dip recession. However, the opposite can be true if costs begin to spiral out of control. When preparing for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Japan was at little risk of this as it already had a supply of relatively new stadiums after co-hosting the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In fact all 12 where games are to be played were pre-existing. Stadiums and other infrastructure would normally represent a large part of the cost to a host nation so this tournament was unusually inexpensive. Given that there is little cost for the success of the tournament to mitigate, it can only be beneficial to the Japanese economy. Organisers project the benefits to be worth around ¥440 billion or around £3.3 billion during the 6 weeks from September 20th to November 2nd. This figure is mainly as a result of a huge boost in tourism and the thousands of yen that will be spent locally each day. The 12 cities across the nation which are hosting matches will reap the benefits of greater consumption and more jobs will be created to meet demand. However these are unlikely to be sustainable. In order to continue to maintain benefit off the back of the World Cup, Japan must continue to invest in sport. The Government has made their intentions in this regard clear as they have set a target of expanding the sport-related sector to be worth ¥15 trillion or £114 billion by 2025. 

Perhaps even greater is the potential cultural impact of this year’s World Cup in Japan. The hosts have started strongly recording wins over Russia, Samoa and, most impressively, Ireland. This places them at the top of their pool and in a strong position to reach the quarter finals.  The longer their success continues, the more the country will get behind them and the sport will only continue to grow. One of the key factors in the growth in popularity of any sport is star players. Japan has just that in Newzealand-born captain Michael Leitch, and younger talents Kazuki Himeno and Kotaro Matsushima. All of whom will play a vital role in Japan’s success going forward.

While the World Cup will have a notable economic impact in Japan, this will be dwarfed by next years Olympics in Tokyo. However, the cultural impact of the former will likely outweigh that of a far bigger event - particularly if Cherry Blossom’s current form of  persists. Regardless, we can expect sport to become an even more important part of the rich culture which is Japan’s. If by some miracle, Japan were to win a home World Cup then would we would no longer associate Japanese sport with sumo wrestling but with rugby? Perhaps not, but everyone’s second favourite nation at the World Cup (at least) has already caused 2 major upsets in the past 4 years, all they need is 3 more.