When Rui Hachimura was drafted into the NBA by the Washington Wizards, to most observers, Hachimura wasn’t more than a promising basketball prospect averaging 13.5 points and 6.1 rebounds. But Rui’s presence in the world’s best basketball league has changed the history of Japanese basketball. His impact on the Japanese basketball community has been immeasurable. 

Unprecedented value of the rising star

Since joining the NBA and showing out in the Tokyo Olympics, Hachimura has signed a number of big sponsorship deals.

Rui’s brand endorsement deals include Nike’s Jordan Brand, NEC, NBA 2K, Casio, Nissin Foods, SoftBank, SMBC, Taisho Pharmaceutical, Makita. On top of his $4.5 million playing salary, Hachimura’s off-court earnings are estimated at over $10 million. In particular Hachimura also has a signature shoe collaboration with the Rui Hachimura x Air Jordan 8.

Having ads featuring Japanese basketball stars has been uncommon in his home country and the chances of basketball leagues or players being featured in the Japanese media are overwhelmingly small compared to soccer and baseball. Basketball is one of the three major high school sports of Japanese men, equivalent to baseball and soccer. The number of registered domestic basketball players is around 620,000, which is the second largest after soccer. Despite this, the popularity of professional basketball leagues and players remains low.

Basketball is 7th place among the most popular pro sports in Japan, according to the latest domestic survey. 

Keeping the dream alive for the Japanese basketball community

Few Japanese had imagined a Japanese NBA player who signed a deal with the Jordan brand would make a huge street ad before Hachimura made an appearance. Having a Japanese pro-basketball player on local billboards undoubtedly has a significant impact on the development of the sport. 

“Currently, the fact that Japanese teams do not have the ability to compete with teams of foreign countries has a lot to do with its popularity. Like soccer and baseball, if they cannot compete with the world, it is hard to make it popular as a sport”, basketball commentator Kazuhiko Shimamoto explains. In other words, to make basketball a major sport in Japan, it requires Japanese basketball players to become as competitive as foreign players in the future. 

Japanese pro-league’s ambition

The Japanese B-League has been driven by the idea of revitalizing Japan with basketball. However, the public interest has not increased as much as expected in the past years and its world ranking remains low. The B-League now has a plan to commence a bold structural reform after 10 years of its history, with a big ambition of becoming the second largest league in the world after the NBA. Currently, there is no basketball betting option for Japanese other than international bookies like bet365. However, an amendment to the sports lottery law was made last year and basketball will be included in the Japanese local sports lottery scheme in the coming year. This is expected to boost the promotion of the B-league as well as to secure financial resources. 

The Okinawa Arena, which is comparable to the scale of NBA arenas, has recently been completed in Okinawa, and more arena construction are underway throughout Japan. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, home games at popular clubs were full, and ticket revenues steadily increased. The B-league is aiming at increasing the business scale to 50 billion yen with the 5 million visitors per season, in order to reach the same level as the Euro league and the China league.