Nationwide popularity poll-Sumo overtakes soccer!

[Kintamayama]

In the yearly nationwide sports popularity poll done by the Chuo survey company, some surprising results- sumo is now the second most popular sport after baseball, overtaking soccer for the first time in 7 years. Hakuhou was voted most popular Sumo figure for the third year running, and Baruto jumped from 13th to second. Most popular sports figure is Ichiro (baseball, 6th straight year). 2nd - figure skater Mao Asada, and third is golfer Ishikawa. Most popular baseball team-the Giants (since the beginning of this survey in 1993). Soccer team-Kashima Antlers, like last year.

Participants in the poll- 4000 people over 20 were targeted, and 1315 agreed to answer.

Edited June 4, 2010 by Kintamayama

[Umigame]

Yeah! This made my day. (Shaking head...)

But actually this is due to soccer suddenly losing a good deal of popularity, rather than sumo increasing in popularity. This is clear when you see the survey data on page 4 of the PDF:

18th annual sports popularity survey (in Japanese)

Sumo's absolute numbers actually went down a bit compared to the past two years -- but soccer's numbers went down more.

[Kintamayama]

But actually this is due to soccer suddenly losing a good deal of popularity, rather than sumo increasing in popularity. This is clear when you see the survey data on page 4 of the PDF:

18th annual sports popularity survey (in Japanese)

And golf is closing up on soccer-17.4 against 17.8. Hakuhou is the 10th popular athlete overall, up from 13th last year.

[Saruwatari]

That will all change when Japan takes the World Cup!

[ilovesumo]

Now that the School-fees are abolished for High Schools, I wonder if the number of Shindeshi will decline some more...

[kame]

Too bad they only published the top 5 athletes in the age group breakdown. I haven't met a single Japanese person under 30 with the slightest interest in sumo for quite a few years.

[igirisujin]

Has anyone seen anything else to suggest that Japanese soccer is declining in popularity?

I always thought Japanese sports fans were bonkers about soccer (okay not as much as baseball). Surely those figures wouldn't pan out in a bigger survey. Then again.......

Edited June 10, 2010 by igirisujin

[Asashosakari]

That will all change when Japan takes the World Cup!

On that note, I suspect soccer got a big boost from the 2002 World Cup which has slowly worn off as that generation of players has drifted out.

1998: 21.7%

1999: 18.9%

2000: 17.4%

2001: 19.4%

2002: 22.5%

2003: 28.6%

2004: 24.3%

2005: 22.8%

2006: 23.6%

2007: 22.8%

2008: 21.8%

2009: 21.6%

2010: 17.8%

Pretty drastic drop this year, of course, but the 95% confidence interval for that sample size is +/- 2%, so part of it may just be sampling issues and the real drop is more in line with the gradual decline of the last five years. Or perhaps there's a subtle shift in methodology...the summaries up to last year refer to it exactly as "soccer (J.League)", whereas the 2010 file simply lists it as soccer. Is it possible that part of the respondents in years past were listing it as one of their favourites only because it was marked as a specifically Japanese sport option?

[Sasanishiki]

I am almost certain the numbers for soccer would change if teh poll was done after the World Cup, especially if Japan puts in a good showing. I've always had the sense that support of soccer in japan came down to a group of die-hard fans that follow their teams in the J-League and that there are a number of casual fans who rally behind the national team. The former would remain constant from year to year, all being equal, while the latter would fluctuate depending on the profile of the national team, the number of games they play, the results they achieve in this, and whether there is a tournament or qualifying series for the fans to galvanise their support around. if there are just a series of firendlies for the national team, it may be hard for the causal fans to get excited, as opposed to a World Cup, Olympics or qualification matches for either.

I find it interesting that in the top ten for most popular sporting figure are two baseball legends (Nagahima Shigeo and Sadaharu Oh) but that popular legends of sumo such as Chiyonofuji and Terao, both huge fan favourites during their careers, are not able to garner the same support.