Rikishi Career Income

[yorikiried by fate 2,038]

That's less than I thought. All 10 top paid football players receive more than 12 million euro per year (Eto'o gets 20 million euro/year -july/2013)

It's a little disturbing, actually. Breaking down what most of these guys make on average per career year and considering what they have to do to their bodies to get it definitely makes me appreciate my paycheck. Takanoyama for example - ouch. I assume at least the more popular among them will have additional sources of income - promoting Hakuho Rice, participating in those surreal TV shows and so on?

(Oh, and hi everybody, by the way. Soft spot for Sumo since the Eurosport years and arrived here mainly thanks to Kinta's videos.)

There were already a couple of comments concerning the "Is that it?!"

Summary: Yes, Hakuho's career income (from salary, prize money and basho bonus!) matches the cost of Christiano Ronaldo's most recent haircut. BUT, compared to what an amateur wrestler can earn anywhere in the world, he simply made a fortune. And that goes also for the guys further down the food chain.

Let's put it like this: Yoshikaze, a 32-year-old career Maegashira has earned (again: from salary, prize money and basho bonus) 1.1 million Euros. I agree, Wayne Rooney makes that much in a month, but Karol Whateverlov from a wrestling club in a suburb of Sofia doesn't. In his lifetime!

Sumo is a niche sport for most of the world. That is of course different for Japan. And here come the extra bucks. Kensho, sponsors, ads, supporter clubs, you name it.

[krindel 688]

And lets not forget the many rikishi who are never going to get money from doing this, but unlike virtually every other sport in the world, they get room and board and a "family" of sorts to live in.

For me, the dozens of Moriuraras of sumo are a very very big plus in my appreciation of the sport.

[Asashosakari 20,222]

What YBF said. To take another (on the global scale) niche sport which I'm familiar with - professional darts. Completely at the opposite end as far as physical effort goes, of course, but otherwise it matches up with sumo pretty nicely. (Except its popularity levels have taken exactly the opposite path over the last 15 years.) Highly concentrated on one country - the UK - with a rising influx of international players, and its sekitori equivalent is top 64 status in the rankings.

A steady juryo rikishi will make at least 14 million yen per year from monthly salary and basho bonuses, or around 100,000 €. Multiply that by 70 and you're at 7 million €, not even accounting for the fact that most of these 70 are earning more than the minimum. (But of course, only around 55-60 of them are actually steady sekitori.) The top 64 in darts had combined earnings from ranked tournaments of about 5 million € last year. Add in unranked (but official) tournaments and you probably get to around 7 million €, but the extra money is highly concentrated among the top 10 or 16 - which serves to highlight one of the major advantages of sumo (for athletes in the second tier at least) over nearly all other head-to-head sports: The available money is distributed in a much more even way.

In darts, the #10 guy earned at least five times as much in prize money as the #40 guy - in sumo terms that's about the difference between a steady joi-jin like Tochiozan and a makuuchi-juryo elevator guy like Tamaasuka, with Ozan only earning about twice as much in official money. There were only around 20 darts players whose 2013 winnings exceeded what a steady juryo rikishi made.

And, I hasten to add, pro darts is not only quite popular at the ticket gate in recent years, it's also actually live on TV in major markets (mainly Germany and Australia) outside of its "home base", something Ozumo can only dream of. (No, Mongolia doesn't count as a major market.)

All in all, I dare say sumotori in the top two divisions are doing very well by niche sport standards. How many sports can you name in which 60+ individuals are having annual (official) earnings of 100,000+ €? With a few minutes of thinking, I only got to 9:

Association football

American football

baseball

ice hockey

basketball

car racing

boxing

tennis

golf

Plus several maybes that I'm not sure about:

track and field (all disciplines combined, but probably only with sponsorship money counted)

rugby (all codes combined?)

cricket (I really have no idea here, but it's popular in several large markets)

motorcycle racing (not sure how much depth there is beyond the three Moto classes and what the going rate is for salaries)

cycling (road and track combined?)

handball (several reasonably popular national leagues in existence)

volleyball (same as handball, though at a somewhat lower level)

professional wrestling (please, no "it's not a sport" comments, it's athletic enough to be included here)

Which ones of these would you say are less popular or less well known globally than sumo? It's a short list, I reckon.

[Lost ballet fan 29]

Good point, thank you. Cycling and Track and Field definitely pay better, Volleyball (all markets combined) and Alpine Skiing probably too, especially if you look at the sport as a whole (including women). But the Sumo niche is small, that's true. I guess what makes me still cringe a bit is the harsh regime they're exposed to plus the way they have to blow their bodies up beyond all healthy parameters. I think I've read somewhere that the life span of a Sumo wrestler is nearly 20 years lower than average (can someone confirm this?) so the price they pay seems a lot higher than Dartists (or whatever they're called) or Snooker players have to.

[dingo 1,476]

What YBF said. To take another (on the global scale) niche sport which I'm familiar with - professional darts. Completely at the opposite end as far as physical effort goes, of course, but otherwise it matches up with sumo pretty nicely. (Except its popularity levels have taken exactly the opposite path over the last 15 years.) Highly concentrated on one country - the UK - with a rising influx of international players, and its sekitori equivalent is top 64 status in the rankings.

A steady juryo rikishi will make at least 14 million yen per year from monthly salary and basho bonuses, or around 100,000 €. Multiply that by 70 and you're at 7 million €, not even accounting for the fact that most of these 70 are earning more than the minimum. (But of course, only around 55-60 of them are actually steady sekitori.) The top 64 in darts had combined earnings from ranked tournaments of about 5 million € last year. Add in unranked (but official) tournaments and you probably get to around 7 million €, but the extra money is highly concentrated among the top 10 or 16 - which serves to highlight one of the major advantages of sumo (for athletes in the second tier at least) over nearly all other head-to-head sports: The available money is distributed in a much more even way.

In darts, the #10 guy earned at least five times as much in prize money as the #40 guy - in sumo terms that's about the difference between a steady joi-jin like Tochiozan and a makuuchi-juryo elevator guy like Tamaasuka, with Ozan only earning about twice as much in official money. There were only around 20 darts players whose 2013 winnings exceeded what a steady juryo rikishi made.

And, I hasten to add, pro darts is not only quite popular at the ticket gate in recent years, it's also actually live on TV in major markets (mainly Germany and Australia) outside of its "home base", something Ozumo can only dream of. (No, Mongolia doesn't count as a major market.)

All in all, I dare say sumotori in the top two divisions are doing very well by niche sport standards. How many sports can you name in which 60+ individuals are having annual (official) earnings of 100,000+ €? With a few minutes of thinking, I only got to 9:

Association football

American football

baseball

ice hockey

basketball

car racing

boxing

tennis

golf

Plus several maybes that I'm not sure about:

track and field (all disciplines combined, but probably only with sponsorship money counted)

rugby (all codes combined?)

cricket (I really have no idea here, but it's popular in several large markets)

motorcycle racing (not sure how much depth there is beyond the three Moto classes and what the going rate is for salaries)

cycling (road and track combined?)

handball (several reasonably popular national leagues in existence)

volleyball (same as handball, though at a somewhat lower level)

professional wrestling (please, no "it's not a sport" comments, it's athletic enough to be included here)

Which ones of these would you say are less popular or less well known globally than sumo? It's a short list, I reckon.

I'd add a comparison with another British niche sport -- snooker. For a long time snooker players came from the UK with only a few odd exceptions. Only recently has it been gaining more ground in China along with a few good Chinese players and a few other good internationals appearing. But anyway, one of the best (I'm not saying the best cause I'm partial to Ronnie O'Sullivan ;) ) and certainly the most consistent players -- Stephen Hendry, 7-time world champion along with many other titles in his 26-year pro career -- earned something like 10 million GBP during his whole career. Only the top 32, or maybe 64 snooker players earn enough money to speak of, and even most of them are not that well off. And there's no golden parachute for them like the oyakata positions in the NSK. So I'd say a decent sekitori who has a reasonably long career is quite well off and set for life.

In short, it's simply unreasonable to compare sumo earnings with sports that have global appeal and make their promoters huge wads of cash. I still agree that many big professional sports do have way too high salaries.

[Doitsuyama 1,259]

I think I've read somewhere that the life span of a Sumo wrestler is nearly 20 years lower than average (can someone confirm this?) so the price they pay seems a lot higher than Dartists (or whatever they're called) or Snooker players have to.

And I think the onus is on you to prove this ominous 20 year number. The average life span probably is shorter but 20 years is rather unlikely. And you have to compare that with the life span if sumo wouldn't be a career option - many of the rikishi might be lazy fat people without daily training instead, just look at the recruiting process.

Especially funny is the comparison with darts. My god, have you actually seen the average darts player? It's the same BMI as a sumo wrestler but without the training. I doubt they are a favourable comparison group. And I am a darts fan actually, a Darts Reference would be interesting. (Sigh...)

Edited January 29, 2014 by Doitsuyama

[ALAKTORN 346]

I think I’ve read before on Wikipedia that the average lifespan of a rikishi is in the sixties, so 20 years seems plausible (I think the average human lifespan is 80ish). Of course I don’t actually have any data for this…

How old are old retired rikishi still alive? I only checked Kitanoumi and he’s 60.

[Jakusotsu 6,387]

Stephen Hendry, 7-time world champion along with many other titles in his 26-year pro career -- earned something like 10 million GBP during his whole career.

Including sponsorship money?

[dingo 1,476]

Stephen Hendry, 7-time world champion along with many other titles in his 26-year pro career -- earned something like 10 million GBP during his whole career.

Including sponsorship money?

Well, probably no. But then again I don't think the amounts referring to Hakuho in this thread include all of the material support from his koenkais etc.

And really, I think Hakuho or Hendry or any other tremendously popular leader of their field is not a good point of reference because they are always the exceptions. We should rather be talking about the average sekitori or equivalent in other sports (Premier League player to come up with a simple example).

Double edit: There was a good article on BBC recently about the trials of becoming a pro tennis player. Gives a good insight to how the lower ranked players survive. Compared to that the average low ranked rikishi doesn't seen to be too bad off, at least in terms of livelihood worries.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25806355

Edited January 30, 2014 by dingo

[Asashosakari 20,222]

And I am a darts fan actually, a Darts Reference would be interesting. (Sigh...)

Already done. ;-) For anyone clicking the link, be aware that the prize money listed is for two years. (And for comparison, the same in snooker.) Edited January 30, 2014 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari 20,222]

Double edit: There was a good article on BBC recently about the trials of becoming a pro tennis player. Gives a good insight to how the lower ranked players survive. Compared to that the average low ranked rikishi doesn't seen to be too bad off, at least in terms of livelihood worries.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25806355

A couple more articles about tennis journey(wo)men: one focussing on the lifestyle and one about the financial side.

And a rather weird one about a Moriurara-type player with aspirations for more.

Edit: And another one focussing on a specific journeyman player.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Asashosakari

[shumitto 418]

"With expenses so high, the men and women ranked outside the top 100 often struggle to scrape by on tour." (forbes article)

That's exactly what a tennis coach told me about some 15 years ago on a flight. Things haven't changed too much on that front, I guess.

Comparing any other sport with Association Football is nonsense. Even in countries like Spain clubs can rely on money from some suspicious sources like betandwin (R. Madrid) and Qatar Foundation (Barcelona). They run up high debts with local and national governments they don't intend to pay and don't have to. If clubs worldwide and specially in the English Premier League were treated by authorities as regular companies most of them would have gone bust ages ago, a former Tottenham director once wrote (and players would make less money, too).

This case has made the headlines in the past few days. I always supposed it was common place in football, what has turned this into a matter of attention from the authorities has probably to do with politics.

Edited January 30, 2014 by shumitto

[Asojima 2,874]

I think I've read somewhere that the life span of a Sumo wrestler is nearly 20 years lower than average (can someone confirm this?) so the price they pay seems a lot higher than Dartists (or whatever they're called) or Snooker players have to.

I just read that the average life span for NFL players is 55 years. The number comes from an extensive study by Harvard Univ. It has, of course, been questioned by the NFL owners and their lawyers. Edited January 30, 2014 by Asojima

[Benevolance 2,534]

Do sumo wrestlers continue to receive some sort of pension after retirement?

[krindel 688]

Do sumo wrestlers continue to receive some sort of pension after retirement?

AFAIK, no, their association with the NSK and the sumo world ends upon retirement.

That's unless they become oyakata or get hired either by the NSK or a stable in another capacity (sewanin, wakaimonogashira, coaches or just odd-job men), but even then they get wages for working, not a pension.

[krindel 688]

I think I've read somewhere that the life span of a Sumo wrestler is nearly 20 years lower than average (can someone confirm this?) so the price they pay seems a lot higher than Dartists (or whatever they're called) or Snooker players have to.

I just read that the average life span for NFL players is 55 years. The number comes from an extensive study by Harvard Univ. It has, of course, been questioned by the NFL owners and their lawyers.

I have been trying to track down an original source for this oft-quoted number for years and have never found anything but a very large number of online and printed articles that circle-point to each other but not an actual study showing that number. Do you by any chance have a link or a citation of the original study where that number was found?

I think I've read somewhere that the life span of a Sumo wrestler is nearly 20 years lower than average

The thing with that kind of seriously ominous numbers for reduced lifespans (for NFL and for sumo both) is that to get an average that low (at mid 50s) you would need to have a very serious number of outliers. Roughly speaking that means that for every guy who lives to be 70, you would need someone who died at 40.

A look at the oyakata (who were all guys with long and intense sumo careers) shows that the cases of those that die before retirement age are much rarer than those who just retire at 65 and go home in one piece. Imagine that someone like ex-Takanosato (who died at 59) would increase the average, not lower it. You would need a very early death like ex-Kushimaumi's just to offset one oyakata who reaches retirement age (and it wouldn't even be enough).

So I find it very hard to believe all those numbers that float about claiming "20 years reduced lifespan".

Having said that, I have no doubt that their lifespan is probably less than the average Japanese male, but I am extremely skeptical about whether the gap is that big.

[Randomitsuki 2,898]

I think I’ve read before on Wikipedia that the average lifespan of a rikishi is in the sixties, so 20 years seems plausible (I think the average human lifespan is 80ish). Of course I don’t actually have any data for this…How old are old retired rikishi still alive? I only checked Kitanoumi and he’s 60.

In 2006, I spent three full days trying to answer that question. I read about the intricacies of life expectancies and cohort life tables and whatnot, searched for census data, and compared that to an extremely sparse set of birth and death dates of rikishi (this was pre-Doitsubase, I guess). FWIW, the difference in life expectancy for the very small sample was about seven years. I am almost tempted to repeat these analyses on the current set of available data...

[torquato 1,075]

Do sumo wrestlers continue to receive some sort of pension after retirement?

AFAIK, no, their association with the NSK and the sumo world ends upon retirement.

Don't know about any payments directly after retirering from active sports.

But with their wages the Rikishi should pay into the national old age pension insurance system. Sometimes at the age of 60 through 70 then they can claim a pension from what they've earned during their active career.

Depending on bilateral international agreements foreign Rikishi can have this claim beeing converted in their homecountry after returning home. Among those countries who have such an agreement with Japan are Korea, USA, Brasil and Czechia.

Don't know if this also covers ranks below Juryo, since that isn't said to be a proper salary but rather an allowance. Mhh..

Part of the Kensho prize money is put into a pension fund. I guess this is an extra fund run by the NSK.

[Masumasumasu 902]

Hakuho's career income (from salary, prize money and basho bonus!) matches the cost of Christiano Ronaldo's most recent haircut.

I predict a severe decline in the popularity of football in Europe over the next 50 years.

Ball games aren't popular with Islam.

[shumitto 418]

Hakuho's career income (from salary, prize money and basho bonus!) matches the cost of Christiano Ronaldo's most recent haircut.

I predict a severe decline in the popularity of football in Europe over the next 50 years.

Ball games aren't popular with Islam.

You are reading/hearing too much in the way of conspiracy theories, but as far as I can tell, football is very popular in some of those countries (Tunisia and Saudi Arabia comes to mind).

[bettega 433]

Hakuho's career income (from salary, prize money and basho bonus!) matches the cost of Christiano Ronaldo's most recent haircut.

I predict a severe decline in the popularity of football in Europe over the next 50 years.

Ball games aren't popular with Islam.

Yes,they are. SAudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt - all of them very strong presences in World Cups :)

I think that sumo pay little (for a lifetime) - the football comparision was an extreme one, for contrast

I think that the rikishi should earn more, at last three times the current values.

[krindel 688]

I think that the rikishi should earn more, at last three times the current values.

"Should earn more" makes the rather large assumption that there exists a significantly larger market interested in watching sumo than the current one. After all, in order for anyone to get paid more, someone has to pay it, no?

The NSK is already making losses as it is, and I seriously doubt they can keep paying even the current salaries for much longer if they can't turn the tide around.

[yorikiried by fate 2,038]

I don't know if "market" is an appropriate concept here, anyway. Until most recently (like, yesterday?), sumo was under public guidance. The rikishi salaries therefore have to be compared to the income of civil serviceman and -women in Japan. At least if you follow the line that it's less a business than a matter of wrestlers being state sponsored sportsmen.

Edited February 1, 2014 by yorikiried by fate

[bettega 433]

I think that the rikishi should earn more, at last three times the current values.

"Should earn more" makes the rather large assumption that there exists a significantly larger market interested in watching sumo than the current one. After all, in order for anyone to get paid more, someone has to pay it, no?

The NSK is already making losses as it is, and I seriously doubt they can keep paying even the current salaries for much longer if they can't turn the tide around.

well... only in my job (here in Brazil) at least 5 would watch and maybe pay for good quality sumo videos (subtitled if commented, sure). I was showing them some videos (most Kintamayama's) in lunch time and they really enjoyed them.

Sumo is a very likeble sport (as is his history), but is more and more difficult, in the last 3 years, to watch it. :(

Edited January 31, 2014 by bettega

[Masumasumasu 902]

I predict a decline in the popularity of football in Europe over the next 50 years.

Ball games aren't popular with Islam.

Yes,they are. SAudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt - all of them very strong presences in World Cups :)

Sure, those countries play footie but they aren't fanatical about it like most European countries are.

Is 'soccer' at all popular in England? Germany? Ireland? Belgium? France? Scotland? Denmark? Spain? Italy? Sweden? The Netherlands? Austria? Greece? Finland? Norway? The Czech Republic? Hungary? Poland? Bulgaria? Etc.?

That's my point. Futbol appears to be (from my point-of-view) more popular in Europe than it is in the fifty-seven-or-so Islamic countries.

Rikishi earn plenty, by the way. It's the athletes from other sports who are grossly overpaid.