TOKYO -- Childhood participation in sports in Japan is becoming increasingly linked to parental income, as prices for lessons and team memberships rise.
Meanwhile, ticket prices for sporting events are surging, and watching games on TV is becoming more exclusive. Professional baseball games, along with many soccer matches featuring Japan's national team, are now primarily available for viewing on fee-based platforms instead of free broadcasts.
These trends are raising concerns that fewer children will have chances to learn essential skills through sports, including social development and respect for rules.
Gone are the days when a child could simply buy a ticket to a professional game at a stadium using their allowance money. According to Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, the average ticket price for a live professional sporting event in 2024 was 4,527 yen ($31.22), a 44% increase from a decade ago.
For the 2025 Major League Baseball season opening game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs at Tokyo Dome in March, ticket prices ranged from 5,500 yen for an outfield seat to 150,000 yen for a seat behind the plate. DAZN, a sports streaming and entertainment platform, set its standard plan at 4,200 yen per month in 2024, more than double the price from three years ago.
Even for adults, viewing professional sporting events has become a luxury, as teams and leagues push new commercialization policies.
Fewer teenagers are watching sports, despite Japan's professional baseball and J. League soccer games achieving record spectator numbers last year. According to a Sasakawa Sports Foundation survey, 30.5% of young people between the ages of 12 and 19 watched live games or matches in 2023, down over 10 points from 2011. Among those aged 18 and over, the attendance rate was 26.2% in 2024, down 5.5 points from 2012.
"Some people have been discouraged from sports viewership as more events require fees, especially when other inexpensive and convenient leisure activities are readily available," said Yosuke Mizuno, a senior policy officer at the foundation.
This decline in viewing rates was smaller among adults than teenagers.
Meanwhile, the costs for children to participate in sports have also gone up. "I get bigger bills when I let my kid get absorbed by soccer," said a mother of two sons in her 40s in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan. A local soccer club that her younger son, who is in the sixth grade, plays for raised its monthly fee by more than 1,000 yen in April. Total yearly expenses, including travel, are now almost 200,000 yen. Although the family would like to see more live events, "I'd hesitate on splurging for that," she said.
A retail price survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications found that monthly fees for swimming lessons in Tokyo's 23 wards averaged 9,079 yen in 2024, nearly 2,000 yen higher than a decade ago. Equipment for baseball, tennis and other popular sports are also going up.
All of this, combined with growing household income gaps, is amplifying an inequality in opportunities for kids.
A survey by Chance for Children, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children in poverty, found that in 2022, 63.5% of parents with annual household incomes of less than 3 million yen reported that their children's level of participation in sports, such as through club activities or lessons, was less than once a week. This rate was over 20 percentage points higher than that of children from families with an annual income of 6 million yen or more.
"Only families with financial means can provide their children with opportunities to participate in sports, leading to a widening gap," said Norihiro Shimizu, a professor at the University of Tsukuba near Tokyo and author of the book "Sports Inequality Among Children." If the operation of middle school extracurricular sports club activities shift from volunteer teachers to private businesses, the burden on parents will increase even more.
Sports also provide opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds to interact with one another. "Sports have historically helped children learn social order," Shimizu stated. "I have no objection to the pursuit of economic rationality, but at the same time, I would like to request that we work to ensure that children are not deprived of opportunities."
According to The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, 33% of British athletes who competed at the 2024 Paris Olympics came from private schools, which educate only 9% of the school population.
In urban areas, spaces where children can play freely are limited. The sight of children playing baseball in vacant lots -- an image found across Japanese pop culture, such as in the manga series "Doraemon" -- is disappearing. The question is whether Japan can keep the dreams of talented young athletes alive.
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