Big in Japan: Hedge Fund Sees Growth in Hoops
SENDAI, Japan—Seven-footer Robert Swift, a former first-round NBA draft pick, has enjoyed the perks of playing at professional basketball's highest level—the seven-figure salaries, the five-star hotels and spacious charter flights to and from road games.
On the way to his first game for his new team, Tokyo Apache of the fledgling Japan Professional Basketball League, he and his teammates and coaches boarded a crowded local train in northeastern Japan. They stood for the entire hourlong ride, arriving in a rural town with a gym bordered by rice fields.
Welcome, Mr. Swift, to pro hoops, Japanese style.
Mr. Swift, who last played in the National Basketball Association in 2009, is part of a high-profile roster assembled by the Apache's new owners, U.S. hedge fund Evolution Capital Management. The group bought the team in June for a price it didn't disclose and signed Mr. Swift, ex-NBA coach Bob Hill and 19-year-old Jeremy Tyler, who left high school early last year to turn pro and play basketball overseas.
At an "unveiling" ceremony for fans on Monday, the team plans to show off its brushed-up 4,000-seat home court and give a taste of the NBA-style perks it plans to introduce.
The team sells seats for as little as 2,500 yen (about $30), but it plans to offer a premium courtside package with a red-carpet entrance area, padded seats and access to a VIP lounge with a spread of food and drinks. The plan is to charge up to 50,000 yen ($600) a game—about five times the cost of the priciest tickets offered by any other teams in what is commonly known as the "bj-league."
The initiative, overseen by two onetime Evolution traders, is ambitious in a country where basketball plays second string to baseball, soccer or sumo. The bj-league started only in 2005, as an alternative to the corporate leagues where Japan's top talents played, and now draws about 2,200 fans per game.
In seeking to take the league to the next level, Evolution is pretty much on its own.
"We have tried to explain to the new Apache owners that basketball is still minor here compared to the NBA, but they are determined to challenge things," said Toshimitsu Kawachi, the bj-league's commissioner and a former Japan national team coach. "We welcome that spirit."
The Los Angeles-based hedge fund, which specializes in investing in Asia, tends to employ former Ivy League athletes to work its trading desks. Evolution officials said the chance to own a Japanese basketball team was an opportunity to break into pro sports management.
"We have a Field of Dreams mentality—if you build it, they will come," said general manager Conor Neu, formerly an Evolution derivatives trader.
Japan's global basketball track record hasn't exactly helped the sport's popularity at home. Whereas China has proudly sent Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian to the NBA, Japan contributed 5-foot-9 point guard Yuta Tabuse, who played four games with the Phoenix Suns in 2004. In the 2010 Asian Championships, Japan's national team finished 10th of 16.
While a handful of ex-NBA players have played in the bj-league, mostly at the end of their careers, Apache has signed players looking to use Japan as a launching pad to the North American pros.
Mr. Tyler, a 6'11" forward, is looking to fulfill the potential he displayed as one of the best high-school players in the U.S. while lifting his potential draft value. Mr. Swift is still only 25 years old and is back with Mr. Hill, who coached him during the best season of his injury-marred NBA career.
Not everything has gone smoothly for the Apache, which lost its season opener and has gotten off to a 2-4 start. Mr. Neu says the players and coach are still getting used to Japanese play and officials, and to playing on a squad with a hodge-podge of foreign and local talent.
"They're committed," Mr. Hill said of his Japanese players. "But they're all about the same size and there's nothing I can do about that."
For Mr. Swift, there are constant reminders this isn't the NBA. His team practices at different hours and facilities around Tokyo. One recent Friday, the team shared a court with a women's volleyball team.
The standing-room-only train ride in October took Tokyo Apache's players to its season opener against the Sendai 89ers in the rural city of Tome. The game was played in a gymnasium that also hosts calisthenics for local senior citizens. The court was tiled in bright red and blue—instead of the NBA-standard hardwood—that Mr. Swift said caused his feet to slide and reminded him of his backyard court.
Local businesses pitched in to offer the game's most valuable player his reward—a tub of miso paste weighing 10 kilograms, or, by the NBA's standard of measure, 22 pounds.
