How would you repair sumo

[Gusoyama 105]

So, we know that Ozumo has its problems, yaocho being the latest and greatest one. Put yourself in the shoes of the Kyokai. You're running the show, and the task has been put forward to you that you must "clean up Ozumo!" How would you do it, what new rules and regulations would you put in place?

[Randomitsuki 2,900]

Stupid suggestion:

How about turning sumo into a fully professional sport? Regular salaries for everyone down to Jonokuchi.

This is what rikishi get per month (prize money not included; and the data for toriteki are really old, but I couldn't find newer figures):

Yokozuna: 2.8 Mio. yen

Ozeki: 2.4 Mio. yen

Lower Sanyaku: 1.7 Mio. yen

Maegashira: 1.3 Mio. yen

Juryo: 1.0 Mio. yen

Makushita: 60000 yen

Sandanme: 42000 yen

Jonidan: 37000 yen

Jonokuchi: 35000 yen

In contrast, a baker ears 150000 yen per month. Why shouldn't a Jonokuchi rikishi make as much money as a baker?

Currently the Kyokai spends about 17 Million $ per year on salaries and basho allowances.

Let's assume the sekitori salaries remain the same, and the toriteki salaries (per month, not per basho) are lifted to:

Makushita: 500000 yen

Sandanme: 300000 yen

Jonidan: 200000 yen

Jonokuchi: 150000 yen

This would rise the expenses for the Kyokai from 17 Million $ per year to 39 Million $ per year.

I know that this is a hefty amount. But it's a national treasure of Japan, and given that the Kyokai expenditures in 2009 were 165 Million $, the difference is not that big.

Dream over.

[Peterao 3]

1. I've said that they should just own up to yaocho as a part of the culture, and this whole problem would have gone away. But they can't take that option any more.

2. I've said that they should completely change sumo to eliminate all but the yokozuna's salary, and use that money to increase money earned for wins on the dohyo. Except for room and board, wins and yusho would replace salary as the means of a wrestler to earn money,

3. Otherwise, only option I see is to dissolve the Kyokai and create an entire new organization with an entirely new structure for professional sumo.

[kotoeikoku 0]

1. I've said that they should just own up to yaocho as a part of the culture, and this whole problem would have gone away. But they can't take that option any more.

2. I've said that they should completely change sumo to eliminate all but the yokozuna's salary, and use that money to increase money earned for wins on the dohyo. Except for room and board, wins and yusho would replace salary as the means of a wrestler to earn money,

3. Otherwise, only option I see is to dissolve the Kyokai and create an entire new organization with an entirely new structure for professional sumo.

I think that this kind of encompasses the two options as I see them (options 2 and 3 are one and the same to me), though I would replace 'own up' with 'cover up'.

Speaking personally, I think that the current incentive system encourages yaocho, so I agree that this needs to be changed (assuming that you believe yaocho to be a problem of course). Whether randonmitsuki's salary from top to bottom approach or peterao's cash for wins is better I don't know, but this is probably the most crucial area to get right to reduce (you can never eliminate) yaocho.

The other big area is governance, right? I'm curious as to how people think the riji should be reformed..

[Gernobono 467]

for me there is nothing to repair

i was telling my opinion about fixed bouts to anyone listening over the years....

and still i love sumo...

don't care about a fixered bout now and then or even frequently...

i take it as part of the game......in the end they are all employed by the same company (nsk)

my suggestion is, to let it be as it is (although i am afraid, it is too late for that)

[kotoeikoku 0]

If they are serious about stopping match-fixing, one way would be to set up a security unit in the following vein:

"...a well-resourced security department, which is standard in large companies and in all US sports. In these leagues the unit is specifically charged with protecting and policing the game.

It is run by former police officers or FBI agents who can gather information and help press charges against match-fixers."

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/3407740/How-to-stop-match-fixing.html)

It doesn't have to be police officers, but it should be run by people outside the regular hierarchy, and it should have the power to punish rikishi appropriately.

I doubt that it will happen, though.

[Flohru 178]

In contrast, a baker ears 150000 yen per month. Why shouldn't a Jonokuchi rikishi make as much money as a baker?

Hmm that seems to be a lot of money for someone unskilled and unsuccessful (compared to the baker), who is performing in front of 50 or so spectators and is moreover already receiving free room and board.

I don't think you can turn sumo into a fully professional sport, because that would require much more audience (also TV audience) for lower division wrestlers than there is. And then of course there would be no room for any Morikawa's anymore... Not everyone doing a sport can and should be a pro.

You could very well argue about softening the (monetary) differences between Juryo/Makushita though, which seems to be the main cause behind the recent scandal.

But I'll go with Gernobono: change nothing and wait for the public to forget (which is bound to happen very soon).

[Jonosuke 28]

I suppose providing a salary to lower division rikishi will reduce yaocho for an obvious reason like one day you had your helper washing your back and the next day you are the one doing it for him if he is promoted to Juryo and you fall down to Makushita but as long as there is a difference in pay, it will not really eliminate yaocho.

They can make it more difficult though by radically changing the way the yusho winner is decided in a basho.

First 15 day basho is too long so they cut it to 7 day, competing on every other day (of course this will reduce their income but they will need to augment their lost income by going on Jungyo more - I have an idea for Jungyo set up) then on each basho day, they will switch to a tournament style to decide the yusho winner every day by elimination in each division. So Makuuchi rikishi will face other Makuuchi rikishi regardless of Heya or Ichimon. A Yokozuna will first face the bottom guy and the highest ozeki will face the second lowest guy etc and only the winner in each round advancing to the next round until the overall winner for the day is decided.

As the last round winners do compete for more bouts, they will likely get more exhausted so chances are there will be more yusho winners (Hakuho will unlikely win all seven days). This will also mean they need to win all their bouts, they must deal with all their competitors on the same day and individually it will be pretty difficult to arrange a yaocho as they are never sure who their next round opponent will be and not enough time to arrange the bout between the rounds. And having Torikumi based on the previous basho day from Day 2 onwards, it's also really difficult to figure out who your opponents for the next day.

Anyway on Day 7 (the senshuraku), all past six yusho winners (or five or four or two yusho winners) will meet in the elimination round. It's possible that by this time the yusho winner for the whole basho is decided as he could win all six days but even now Hakuho could decide the yusho on Day 13. The following basho banzuke will be decided by the record of each rikishi (based on winning percentage as a rikishi loses every bout, he will only have seven bouts, so injured rikishi can only show up seven times).

As for Jungyo, to maximize the revenue, they separate in four camps - one fourth going to Kyushu/Okinawa, another going to Chugoku/Shikoku area, another to an area between Tokyo and Osaka and the last going to Hokuriku and Hokkaido. They will do this four times a year, each time a different group is going to a different area. By cutting down the number of participants, they can reduce the cost so they can charge less to the promoters and fans and they can get four times more revenue by having four Jungyo at the same time four times a year. This way they will get more visibility in areas not served now and more people get access to completions and rikishi.

[Peterao 3]

Do you also advocate outsiders taking over the Kyokai, seeing as there is zero chance that the current crop of oyakata would come up with that on their own?

[Chankosan 0]

Wow Jonosuke, I really like your ideas! It reminds me of when I first saw overseas jungyos and those special short NHK events that utilize a tournament approach and wondering how cool those events would look like if everyone was really trying to win at all costs every match. I think changing the format of the basho would be easier than scattering the beya to the four winds so to speak...

[Jejima 1,495]

For what it is worth, I offer the idea of 'parachute salaries'. (This is similarish to what happens when teams drop out of the Premiership Division in football in England to the lower division, where revenue is very much different.) A Juryo rikishi dropping to Makushita would be given 100% of a Juryo salary for the first basho, then 80%, for the next and so on until getting 20% for the 5th basho outside Juryo. This way, there is less pressure to give away wins for those wanting to maintain the Juryo lifestyle - and also guaranteeing some reward for a year, for all those reaching the sekitori ranks.

Win-win scenario, I think?

[shumitto 419]

I like Jonosuke's idea better. Anything that makes their schedule more of an unpredictable thing, makes Ozumo better.

Edited February 13, 2011 by shumitto

[Asashosakari 20,253]

For what it is worth, I offer the idea of 'parachute salaries'. (This is similarish to what happens when teams drop out of the Premiership Division in football in England to the lower division, where revenue is very much different.) A Juryo rikishi dropping to Makushita would be given 100% of a Juryo salary for the first basho, then 80%, for the next and so on until getting 20% for the 5th basho outside Juryo. This way, there is less pressure to give away wins for those wanting to maintain the Juryo lifestyle - and also guaranteeing some reward for a year, for all those reaching the sekitori ranks.

Win-win scenario, I think?

I don't know if that would really work. If getting to juryo just for one basho immediately qualifies you for four full juryo salaries (100%+100%+80%+60%+40%+20%), you're just moving the yaocho boundary down to around Ms10 instead of J14, in my opinion, and with even bigger incentives for cheating than exist right now because it's not just a restricted club of rikishi maintaining the flow of money to themselves (at the expense of others), but a potentially open-membership club being able to create additional money out of thin air by getting everyone to juryo in turn for a basho and then back down to makushita so the next guy can make his claim.

I did see the idea of parachute salaries mentioned once very early during the scandal, called "ranking adjustment allowance" in the article (as usual with untested stuff it was credited to "unnamed Kyokai insiders" and without any details). My suggested approach: For every 5 sekitori basho, a rikishi gets credit for one basho of continued pay if he drops back to the lower ranks, and these can be used at any time. So if you're a 20-basho sekitori who just dropped back to makushita for two tournaments you've used up two of the four credits you've earned, but the remaining two will stay with you for later in your career and you can keep adding on to your "account" after you've returned to the sekitori ranks. I think that's more fair than a blanket credit to every random guy who bubbled up to juryo for one or two basho. Potential issues to hash out:

1) Whether five would be a good factor, or rather a different number; perhaps make it six so that one year as sekitori -> one basho credit?

2) how much the continued pay would be - my preference would be something between 50 and 75%, not full juryo salary;

3) whether a maximum credit limit might be desirable, so that some very long-tenured sekitori such as Tosanoumi don't end up with 3 years worth of credit.

Though perhaps #3 would be a feature, not a bug? A renewed jun-toshiyori system of sorts, just with the rikishi still active instead of being a "temporary" oyakata. If it's seen as a bug, perhaps it could be amended by making the continued pay lower than the entry-level oyakata salary, but I suspect you'd have to go below 50% then: juryo 1,036,000 yen, toshiyori oyakata 784,000 yen, and from what I've read the going rate for renting out your kabu is 200-300,000 yen, so as long as you made about 500,000 yen while in makushita, you'd be better off staying active.

Or perhaps another (partial) solution would be to pay out credits unused at the end of the career as a lump sum, so if somebody already knows he won't stay in the Kyokai (or doesn't want to drop all the way to makushita before retiring) he's not forced to just idle around on the banzuke, and he's not disadvantaged compared to rikishi who frequently dropped back to makushita and used up their credits or who have no qualms about spending their waning days with a black mawashi.

[Asashosakari 20,253]

As the last round winners do compete for more bouts, they will likely get more exhausted so chances are there will be more yusho winners (Hakuho will unlikely win all seven days).

I dunno. That's 35 bouts in seven days assuming makuuchi still has more than 32 rikishi and the best-ranked ones get a bye for the first round, and given the vagaries of knock-out scheduling a lot of his semifinal and final opponents might not be ozeki, but Goeido/Kotoshogiku types. I can totally see him - or any other strong, single yokozuna - sweep tournament after tournament in that system.

BTW, even at the recent high point (45 events in 2008) jungyo exhibitions only contributed about 5% to the Kyokai's revenue base. Even running four times that many events is unlikely to come anywhere close to covering the shortfall of cutting the honbasho length in half, especially as jungyo tickets would probably have to become much cheaper than they are now if you only get to see a quarter of the stars every time they swing through.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Asashosakari

[Kintamayama 47,236]

1. Don't change anything inherent. Steroid abuse didn't cause baseball to shorten the game to seven innings or to have only three bases now. The Italian soccer scandal didn't shrink the goalposts. Yeah, yeah, sumo is a different type of sport etc., but it doesn't mean we have to throw out the baby with the water.

2. Contrary to what some people have written, subtle yaocho is unspottable (unless done by clumsy foreigners or are so out there it's pathetic)- not by looking at hands or knees or whatever. If the two guys decide to make an effort, you will never spot it. They have years of experience doing it at jungyos , keiko etc. so deciding "we will stamp out yaocho" is like deciding "rikishi will stop drinking" after the instances of drunken breaking of restaurant glass (who remembers that now..). Whoever admits to doing yaocho or the evidence is overwhelming should be thrown out immediately. The Kyokai bylaws should be changed to reflect the gravity of this transgression and should stipulate in no uncertain words what the punishment is. Till now there was no written law, since yaocho did not exist for all intents and purposes so why have a punishment? Well, that ship has sailed so on with it.

3. Cut the number of rikishi to 600. A newbie who can't get a KK in one year should respectfully either become a yobidashi or something or look for employment elsewhere. Sumo should not be a welfare state, with all due respect. It's the only form of sport I know where a totally useless athlete gets room and board for free for as long as he wants without doing anything in return except cleaning up, cooking and mounting the dohyo every now and then. Yes, poor guys and all, but seriously? And if the Kyokai needs a list of these superstars, they can ask Asashosakari to send them a copy.

4. Take the administrative aspects out of these ex-rikishi's totally incapable hands and let some corporate people run it. I'm pretty sure there are quite a few corporate cats out there who have a shrewd business mind AND love sumo to death, that are capable of mending the problems without destroying the ceremonial and historical part.

5. Voluntarily give up the the Ministerial subsidy, which in itself is one of the direct contributors to sumo wallowing in the mire. Go out and fight for sponsorships. Get off your collective butts and do some PR to bring in the crowds instead of sitting on your hands waiting for the next paycheck from the Ministry of etc.. Let's hear the shaking of your balls before every basho because you are afraid the fans won't come and that may cost you your job. I'm pretty sure they will be scrambling like jackrabbits on heat to put those butts in those seats. I understand there is the question of the KKan not belonging to them anymore if the subsidies subside-rent it for 45 days a year. They won't have to care for it 365 days a year for who knows how much. Be like any other martial arts group -rent the place and hold your bashos.

6. Drop the out -of -Tokyo bashos to one a year, alternating between the three current ones every year. 4 bashos a year will do wonders for everyone-time to heal, time to long for the basho to come around to Osaka once in three years-filled to capacity daily, I'm willing to bet. The chihos were all doing embarrassingly poorly these last years anyway.

7. Bring on naked women instead of the gyoji- really cut down on the cost of the expensive garments and younger people might come.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Kintamayama

[Asashosakari 20,253]

5. Voluntarily give up the the Ministerial subsidy, which in itself is one of the direct contributors to sumo wallowing in the mire. Go out and fight for sponsorships. Get off your collective butts and do some PR to bring in the crowds instead of sitting on your hands waiting for the next paycheck from the Ministry of etc.. Let's hear the shaking of your balls before every basho because you are afraid the fans won't come and that may cost you your job. I'm pretty sure they will be scrambling like jackrabbits on heat to put those butts in those seats. I understand there is the question of the KKan not belonging to them anymore if the subsidies subside-rent it for 45 days a year. They won't have to care for it 365 days a year for who knows how much. Be like any other martial arts group -rent the place and hold your bashos.

Do they actually get any direct financial assistance from the Ministry? My impression is that it's all in the tax break for the Kyokai itself, plus the fact that the Kyokai's favoured status allows their private benefactors to claim tax deductions on their donations/contributions. And I don't think the tax break is really all that important to them, it's the second issue their survival depends on. Or maybe I'm totally out to lunch here...guess I'll have to delve into their financial statements a little deeper sometime.

IINM if they actually make it past the November 2013 deadline intact and successfully, the tax break will become even better (currently 22% instead of 30%, afterwards zero).

[Vulch 3]

4. Take the administrative aspects out of these ex-rikishi's totally incapable hands and let some corporate people run it.

I work for a Cambridge College which has traditions and ways of doing things that date back in some cases to before the University was founded 800 years ago. Nominally there's a Fellow (Academic researcher/lecturer/tutor member of the College) in charge of each aspect of the College. In practice there's a staff Librarian runs the library, I'm one of three IT staff and so on. Some staff are elected as Fellows to satisfy requirements of the College Charter or to give weight to their input into policy, I'm sure the NSK could come up with a similar model.

I also like the idea from elsewhere of having a kensho-like payment on every bout. Cut salaries and adjust per basho allowances over time so there's a smoother rise in basic income from bottom to top, but in order to get a "full" salary again you need to get at least KK. To encourage the upper ranks the threshold for Ozeki could be cranked up to needing 10 wins, and to discourage cosy agreements half the payment goes to a retirement fund and the other half is paid electronically. Set the kensho according to the higher ranked rikishi and you've also got incentives for the lower ranks to try harder.

[Kintamayama 47,236]

IINM if they actually make it past the November 2013 deadline intact and successfully, the tax break will become even better (currently 22% instead of 30%, afterwards zero).

I think you are correct in assuming it's not direct, but given the amount of money rolling around, a 10% tax deduction is a lot of money. I think the whole 2013 deadline thing and its importance being rehashed over and over again by the elders before the scandal broke out proves that it is (was?) bordering on critical. I personally would like it to cease so we stop hearing these Mini-sters playing the Pope every time something happens. In Hebrew we have a saying "Not their honey and not their sting", meaning we don't want anything from them, good or bad. I firmly believe distancing sumo from "the man" is good for both sides.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Kintamayama

[Asashosakari 20,253]

I also like the idea from elsewhere of having a kensho-like payment on every bout. Cut salaries and adjust per basho allowances over time so there's a smoother rise in basic income from bottom to top, but in order to get a "full" salary again you need to get at least KK. To encourage the upper ranks the threshold for Ozeki could be cranked up to needing 10 wins, and to discourage cosy agreements half the payment goes to a retirement fund and the other half is paid electronically. Set the kensho according to the higher ranked rikishi and you've also got incentives for the lower ranks to try harder.

I just don't think ozumo (currently) lends itself to winning bonuses very well. It works as a rare treat, e.g. when a rikishi lucks into having Takamisakari as his opponent, or goes up against the yokozuna, but if there's significant prize money on every bout the effect will be diluted, and as was pointed out in the other thread, if wins are traded around on a 1-to-1 basis, the prize money evens out for all participants over time anyway.

There are two related reasons winning bonuses work in other, roughly comparable sports (besides simply cultural acceptance), in my opinion: There are a lot fewer opportunities to fight, and the path to the top narrows a lot more quickly. Lose an important #1 contender bout in boxing, and you might not get another chance to fight for a title for years unless a champion decides to pick you for a non-mandatory defense. Lose any of your early career bouts and you might not make it to that point in the first place. And in centrally organized competitions such as UFC and K-1, losing too much could even mean you're not going to be invited back for more appearances altogether. So in those sports every win matters a lot more and provides an incentive in itself, and the prize money is simply a bonus (boxers who are trapped in journeyman hell excepted, perhaps). That's not true in sumo...not only does each individual bout matter a lot less, but you can also go 4-11 at komusubi and two months later you still fight for exactly the same thing as the guy who took your komusubi spot (i.e. the yusho and sansho), and you might well be taking your spot right back another two months later. I don't think throwing more money at the bouts will solve that fundamental issue.

Something like Jonosuke's tournament structure might work but only if the base salaries are practically eliminated as somebody (Peterao?) suggested a little while ago, because as long as significant base salaries exist, winning only matters in as much as it guarantees you future access to that salary. And in the opposite scenario we can probably kiss goodbye to sumo as a comprehensive professional sport with hundreds of participants: Just look at other niche sports with well-financed professional tours such as snooker or darts where maybe just the top 30 or 40 players are able to earn a living wage from prize money and players outside the world top 100 are essentially amateurs - and even in a much bigger and richer setting like the tennis ATP and WTA tours things don't look that great for those consistently ranked outside the top 100. (Probably golf, too, I don't know enough about that sport except that sumo isn't anywhere close to it in financial power.)

I think you are correct in assuming it's not direct, but given the amount of money rolling around, a 10% tax deduction is a lot of money. I think the whole 2013 deadline thing and its importance being rehashed over and over again by the elders before the scandal broke out proves that it is (was?) bordering on critical. I personally would like it to cease so we stop hearing these Mini-sters playing the Pope every time something happens. In Hebrew we have a saying "Not their honey and not their sting", meaning we don't want anything from them, good or bad. I firmly believe distancing sumo from "the man" is good for both sides.

I think the new regulations are supposed to achieve that on their own, no? From what I've read the 2008 revisions came about in part because such special organizations and their supervising agencies often were too connected to each other (i.e. Ozumo and MEXT were far from the only case). Under the new rules the Kyokai would be more like the Red Cross, I understand, an organization whose business conduct has to satisfy a general set of rules for non-profits, but the constant threat of meddling from a particular arm of government would no longer exist.

In any case, I agree that for the Kyokai as the central entity it might be more about the tax break than financial contributions, but in my previous post I was thinking more about all the donations that go to individual heya and don't show up in the Kyokai's own books. If those contributions crater because the Kyokai is no longer considered a charitable organization, Ozumo is dead in its current form, no matter if the tax rate is 22% or 30%. I think that's also why they're even considering the possibility of centralizing all heya operations under the Kyokai's roof after 2013 - if the tax rate drops all the way to 0% they might be able to finance that, even if they lose a lot of contributions that currently go directly to the stables. (I'm assuming that somebody who's financially supporting, say, Shibatayama-beya because he used to be a fan of Onokuni is less likely to donate directly to the Kyokai even if the tax deduction possibilities were the same.) At 30% tax all that will be impossible.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Asashosakari

[Peterao 3]

In the interests of those who wish to keep sumo as much like its current state as possible, I think that the only hope would be if Takanohana becomes Riji. While I don't think that he can actually fix the problems, I think that he is the only person within the current structure whom the public could get behind to support as a person who might actually clean up sumo, moreso than the current Riji that few people remember for anything outside of his current duties.

Like I said, this wouldn't fix any problems, but it would help buy time for the public and the Ministry to forget about them. Then knock on wood that no other skeletons come tumbling out of the closet and that the LDP returns to power, and maybe everything works itself out.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Peterao

[nomadwolf 8]

For what it is worth, I offer the idea of 'parachute salaries'.

3) whether a maximum credit limit might be desirable, so that some very long-tenured sekitori such as Tosanoumi don't end up with 3 years worth of credit.

Though perhaps #3 would be a feature, not a bug? A renewed jun-toshiyori system of sorts, just with the rikishi still active instead of being a "temporary" oyakata. If it's seen as a bug, perhaps it could be amended by making the continued pay lower than the entry-level oyakata salary, but I suspect you'd have to go below 50% then: juryo 1,036,000 yen, toshiyori oyakata 784,000 yen, and from what I've read the going rate for renting out your kabu is 200-300,000 yen, so as long as you made about 500,000 yen while in makushita, you'd be better off staying active.

Considering your critique of Jejima's idea & item #3, you can have the credits toward the parachute salary. Then even with 3 years built up, you still have to get back up to Juryo to continue using them...

Or even if it's not a declining salary, you can say that only 3 or 4 months can be used before you must get back to juryo. On the other hand, that can open itself up to more yaocho since a 1 basho trip to Juryo can get you 4 or 5 basho salary, but the population that can make use of that would be quite small...

[Fizmoyama 0]

Anyway on Day 7 (the senshuraku), all past six yusho winners (or five or four or two yusho winners) will meet in the elimination round. It's possible that by this time the yusho winner for the whole basho is decided as he could win all six days but even now Hakuho could decide the yusho on Day 13. The following basho banzuke will be decided by the record of each rikishi (based on winning percentage as a rikishi loses every bout, he will only have seven bouts, so injured rikishi can only show up seven times).

As much as I like the sumo tournament and ranking rules but they are in my opinion the major reason for yaocho. A cascade of qualification rounds/tournaments (Makushita and lower ranked rikishi) followed by the Finals in elimination rounds (Juryo, Makuuchi + the best from the qualification rounds) seems to me a possible way to solve this. Because every single fight is important for the progress in the tournament. Qualification and Finals could be alternate monthly. For the elimination rounds in the finals I would prefere a Best-of-Three instead of a single fight between the rikishi. Might give an extra excitement.

Hmm, well, means that Sumo would be become from structure pretty much like Tennis, Golf, etc.

Fizmoyama

[Asashosakari 20,253]

Or even if it's not a declining salary, you can say that only 3 or 4 months can be used before you must get back to juryo. On the other hand, that can open itself up to more yaocho since a 1 basho trip to Juryo can get you 4 or 5 basho salary, but the population that can make use of that would be quite small...

Yes, a limit on the number of consecutive payments might work, even if the amount of possible credits to be earned wasn't capped. I'd favour something relatively high like six basho - it can take a bit of time to return if your first post-demotion record is 2-5 or worse (not unusual if the demotion itself was triggered by an injury), even if you're back to posting steady KK afterwards. To address your concern, I suppose one could make it so that the number of payments is additionally capped by the length of your last sekitori stay, so going back up to juryo for just one basho would also get you only one parachute salary afterwards (assuming you still have credits available after your first makushita stint). That's probably juryo yaocho-inducing again, though...

In the end it probably wouldn't need to be made all that complicated. As you've said there would be relatively few rikishi with really large credit accounts anyway, and I think they'd be unlikely to use 'em up completely. I don't see a Tosanoumi type veteran spending two+ years hanging around in mid-makushita just to use up such credits if he could get them paid out as part of his retirement bonus instead. But as temporary coverage for Jumonji types who have put in years of sekitori service, and who aren't that old yet and expect to be able to return to the sekitori ranks I think they could work quite well. And the other group would be Asofuji/Kyokunankai types who are clearly too strong for makushita but who, in a yaocho-free juryo division, might have an occasional basho where they fall one or two wins short of avoiding demotion. Giving them some coverage for the couple of basho it would take them to reclaim their spot would be nice.

Unfortunately, I suspect the Kyokai isn't ready to give up its "one division, one salary" approach even for such a limited (and IMHO justified) number of cases. We'll see...

[Peterao 3]

Hmm, well, means that Sumo would be become from structure pretty much like Tennis, Golf, etc.

Other than it being much different than what we have now, would that be a bad thing?

[Asashosakari 20,253]

Stuff I forgot to bring up earlier:

As the last round winners do compete for more bouts, they will likely get more exhausted so chances are there will be more yusho winners (Hakuho will unlikely win all seven days).

Would anybody think of those daily winners as "yusho winners"? I sure wouldn't. They'd be winners of seven qualifying rounds, nothing more. So perhaps Hakuho might actually not win all seven, but in the end his real yusho victory would only depend on dispatching the one or two guys who managed to win a qualifier that he didn't. That feels no less anti-climactic than the current system.

I also doubt it would reduce the potential for yaocho and/or lethargic sumo...after a few such tournaments it's going to become clear what aggregate results are needed to finish with an above-average winning percentage, and somebody lucky or good enough to post a few good results early - say, a semifinal and a quarterfinal appearance during the first four days - might well be able to coast through the remaining days. (Especially entertaining if it's an ozeki...) Add in that the draw for each day would be set from the start and will likely feature many lopsided bouts and thus easily predicted winners in the early rounds, and it shouldn't be too difficult for a determined yaocho'er to find an opponent he particularly wants to lose against. Repaying debts might be more difficult than it is today because there will be (I think...) fewer repeat bouts from basho to basho, but as we've seen in the current scandal it doesn't always take a direct matchup to repay a debt, and settlements through third party rikishi will still be possible. (Even worse, meatgrinder-quality rikishi could probably afford to sell bouts for money against lesser rikishi who need the wins to stay in makuuchi. Right now those types almost never meet on the dohyo.)

The fundamental problem of Ozumo scheduling remains that there are just too many bouts, and short of a decline to university amasumo levels with perhaps half a dozen one-day tournaments per year that's not going to change no matter how the tournaments are organized. Well, giving up the banzuke altogether might work... go to a tennis-style ranking points list and redo the rankings after every single tournament day (not just after all 7/15 days have been fought). But of course you'd have to do that for the entirety of Ozumo, not just makuuchi. (In which case you start running into another problem...a knock-out tournament for the current-size makushita would take 119 bouts, instead of the current number of 60 bouts split across two days.)