Reporter Han Bing reported that the "one-size-fits-all" mandatory implementation of neutral names in the Chinese Super League has caused great controversy, which has exacerbated the economic crisis of the Chinese Super League to a certain extent. After all, with the exception of the Japanese J-League, most leagues in Asia allow corporate naming of clubs. However, in October 2021, the Japanese media widely reported that the J-League was considering opening up corporate naming clubs, setting off an uproar. Although J League Chairman Murai Man issued a statement denying it on the same day, when the J League released its 2021 annual report at the end of December last year, Special Director Masaaki Kimura also stressed that the league had considered the club's naming matters but did not include it in the future plan, however, before the start of the new season of the J-League last week, Japanese media reports on the opening of club titles began to appear again.
Club neutrality was once a fundamental principle of the J-League for 29 years, but it has begun to waver as the covid-19 pandemic hit the Japanese football industry. Because of the Internet age and the development of globalization, the J League has partially liberalized the basic principle of "community-oriented" at the end of last year, opening up the club title like the Japanese Professional Baseball League, even if it is opposed by local fans and clubs in the short term, it is difficult to stop the shortcut to income in the crisis of this club in the long run.
The epidemic has shaken the "neutral name"
At the end of July last year, the J-League announced its 2020 club operation report. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the total revenue of the J1 League has dropped sharply by 20 billion yen (about 1.1 billion yuan) compared with 2019, a decrease of 22%. 12 of the 18 clubs lost money, including as many as 500 million yen (27.5 million yuan) in losses. Kobe Victory, the largest decline in revenue, plummeted from 11.4 billion yen to 4.7 billion yen, a 58.8 percent drop. Big clubs such as Urawa Red Diamonds, Kashima Antlers, Nagoya Whales, Kawasaki Striker and FC Tokyo all lost more than 1 billion yen in revenue.
The J-League can only come up with more measures to help clubs open source and reduce expenditure. It is not surprising that the Japanese media in October last year exposed the explosive news of the abolition of the "community-oriented" principle and the consideration of opening up the naming rights of clubs. The J-League has signed a new TV rights agreement with DAZN Group, "community-based" has led to sponsorship and matchday revenue restrictions, and club naming is the last possibility of revenue open source.
With the aging of Japan's society and the long-term downturn in the economy, not only can the clubs in the Tokyo metropolitan area not get the source of income that radiates the whole country, but the clubs in small and medium-sized cities have no room for increase in commercial income and the number of fans due to their operations in local communities. A large number of well-funded Internet companies have entered the J League, which is also pushing clubs to adapt to globalization and the Internet era. Expanding from the community to all of Japan, the commercial returns of club naming will far exceed those of the corporate league era 30 years ago.
However, the J-League opened up corporate title clubs, and the real resistance encountered was not small. Because the club name is neutral, it is one of the eight necessary conditions for participating teams when the professional league was founded in 1993. Japanese football, which was still in the form of a corporate league at that time, had a lot of controversy about this. Yomiuri News boss Tsuneo Watanabe spearheaded the opposition, defining Saburo Kawabuchi, president of the Japan Football Association, as an arbitrary man.
The club's neutral name is closely linked to the club's philosophy of "community-oriented", because at that time the club needed a lot of money to build and maintain a stadium with lighting equipment, and "community-oriented" was to hope that the government where each community was located would be involved. As long as the club has the community at its core, it cannot be named after the company. Because Japanese sports leagues usually regard the investment of the parent company as advertising revenue to fill the club's deficit, but if the parent company does not have the naming right and cannot carry out advertising, it is naturally unable to get the investment of the parent company. This, in turn, has forced clubs to open up to more local businesses for sponsorship and shareholding, which in turn has increased their dependence on the local community.
30 years of tradition also has to succumb to reality
More popular than soccer, Japanese professional baseball leagues, corporate title clubs are common. 10 of the 12 professional baseball clubs are named, including well-known companies such as Yomiuri Shimbun, Toyo Industries, Orix, Rakuten, Seibu Group, SoftBank Group, Nippon Ham, Yakult and so on. But neutral names and the "community-oriented" philosophy have been the cornerstones of the J-League's 29 years of great success, and clubs without a parent company title can get more support from local businesses. Because "community-oriented" has cultivated at least two generations of local club fans, reopening the naming rights of clubs will inevitably encounter resistance from many local fans.
However, the Japanese women's professional football league, which began last year, has also received naming rights support due to weak working capital, such as Urawa Women's Football Team (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), Tokyo Beauty (NikKO NTV), Sendai Women's Football Team (Mynavi), and Sagamihara Women's Football Team (Nojima Group). The J-League is considering reopening the naming rights of clubs, which is also due to the heavy blow of the new crown epidemic on the Japanese football industry, and corporate naming clubs is the most direct way to increase revenue. The Japan Professional Baseball League, which has opened up corporate naming clubs, has only 12 clubs, and its annual revenue is 2.5 times that of the J1 League, which has 18 clubs, although there are objective factors such as a longer history, the brand value of the league and the larger market size, but the income method of more corporate naming clubs than the J League is one of the important reasons.
In addition, club stadiums in the J-League have been universally named, with Ajinomoto in Tokyo, Nissan in Yokohama, Panasonic in Osaka, and Yamaha Stadium in Iwata being the most famous, and 14 of the 18 clubs in the J1 League have stadium titles. Ainosin titled FC Tokyo home 230 million yen (about 12.5 million yuan) per year, Panasonic Group named Osaka Gamba home stadium 216 million yen (about 12 million yuan) per year, Nissan Motor naming Yokohama Mariners home stadium 150 million yen (about 8.25 million yuan) per year. The J-League, which has been accepting stadium titles since 2003 to increase club revenue, is now also facing the possibility of receiving corporate title clubs. The opening of club naming rights will bring clubs a higher income than the stadium title, which is of practical significance for the J-League to tide over the current difficulties.
Of course, with the comprehensive lifting of the ban on epidemic prevention measures in Japanese society, the operational difficulties of J-League clubs will improve after the recovery of matchday income. Japanese society, which is known for its conservativeness, will most likely postpone the time to accept corporate naming clubs, but the reality always has to be accepted. The J-League is going to go from the local to the whole of Japan and even the world, and it is an inevitable trend to open up the source of income as much as possible.