How would you have handled the yaocho situation?

[Randomitsuki]

As per request from Kintamayama, here is a new thread on the yaocho situation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to split his post from the other thread without creating some mayhem, so I copied the content of it. Here goes:

Just out of curiosity, how would you have handled this? Let's say you're the rijicho, damning mobile mails are found, no question about yaocho-black on white-what would you have done differently? Question goes out to all members, actually-how would you have handled this?

[yorikiried by fate]

I would have admitted that it's part of the whole game, top down, and that my organization would do everything possible to keep it invisible again in the future.

Then I would have resigned.

Am I joking? I don't even know.

[Peterao]

I would have admitted that it's part of the whole game, top down, and that my organization would do everything possible to keep it invisible again in the future.

That, too, would have been my first choice.

My second would be to shut sumo down for a whole year, then wipe the entire banzuke clear and hold a giant, random-draw tournament with everyone who was left, and make the new banzuke based on the result of that. In theory, Hakuho could fall to Jonokuchi, and a current Jonokuchi could rise to Sekiwake. That's fine. Just recalibrate everything and start completely fresh.

That's assuming that the current Kyokai structure has to remain the same. I would, of course, prefer to destroy the whole infrastructure and start anew with a decentralized for-profit model with no more oyakata kabu scheme.

[Keishikazawa]

I would have admitted that it's part of the whole game, top down, and that my organization would do everything possible to keep it invisible again in the future.

Then I would have resigned.

Am I joking? I don't even know.

My answer is also pretty similar. I'd have admitted that yaocho is, and has been, a part of sumo for as long as ranking and/or pay was based on performance. Then I would expel current rikishi/oyakata that there was solid evidence against. Any gray rikishi would have 2 choices. 1. start over from jonokuchi 2. retire. If they choose neither they get the boot.

I would then say that to pull yaocho out of sumo is next to impossible, but that I would introduce an independent panel of judges, none of whom are affiliated with the kyokai, to investigate and advise punishment for yaocho, or "limp-dick sumo" or whatever the hell they are calling it. I would say that this council would "vigorously ganbarize to keep sumo clean", and that the kyokai (however hypocritical this practice would be in reality) would not tolerate it from here on out. Any subsequent cases would be immediate expulsion with no pension.

I would warn that an overly thorough investigation of yaocho in the history of sumo would leave the sport without most of its officers, stable masters, coaches, elders, and rikishi and that it's best to leave the past well alone. Let the people caught show that we are serious about enforcing from now on. I would continue by saying that the kyokai is effectively failing in it's job by not providing the people with sumo, and that we would do our best to get things started as soon as possible.

After the dust settled (or before, depending on the presence or lack of public outcry at my statements) I would retire, open a chanko place (or something like that) and spend the rest of my days drinking whisky and smoking cigars. And they lived happily ever after.

[Sashohitowa]

I would have admitted that it's part of the whole game, top down, and that my organization would do everything possible to keep it invisible again in the future.

That, too, would have been my first choice.

My second would be to shut sumo down for a whole year, then wipe the entire banzuke clear and hold a giant, random-draw tournament with everyone who was left, and make the new banzuke based on the result of that. In theory, Hakuho could fall to Jonokuchi, and a current Jonokuchi could rise to Sekiwake. That's fine. Just recalibrate everything and start completely fresh.

That's assuming that the current Kyokai structure has to remain the same. I would, of course, prefer to destroy the whole infrastructure and start anew with a decentralized for-profit model with no more oyakata kabu scheme.

I cannot see how reshuffling the banzuke will guarantee thatthere will be no fixed matches in the future.

[Peterao]

I would have admitted that it's part of the whole game, top down, and that my organization would do everything possible to keep it invisible again in the future.

That, too, would have been my first choice.

My second would be to shut sumo down for a whole year, then wipe the entire banzuke clear and hold a giant, random-draw tournament with everyone who was left, and make the new banzuke based on the result of that. In theory, Hakuho could fall to Jonokuchi, and a current Jonokuchi could rise to Sekiwake. That's fine. Just recalibrate everything and start completely fresh.

That's assuming that the current Kyokai structure has to remain the same. I would, of course, prefer to destroy the whole infrastructure and start anew with a decentralized for-profit model with no more oyakata kabu scheme.

I cannot see how reshuffling the banzuke will guarantee thatthere will be no fixed matches in the future.

Of course it wouldn't. Nothing would.

[Kintaro]

Kintaro wakes up to pen...

Yaocho has so many shades of gray.

1. Gentlemen

[Haruibono]

"I cannot see how reshuffling the banzuke will guarantee thatthere will be no fixed matches in the future."

I agree. Unfortunately that seems to be a recurring issue with most professional sport.

Edited April 17, 2011 by Haruibono

[Peterao]

How about kaiko punishment for any rikishi that loses by yorikiri? They obviously have given up on waging a fair fight by refusing to dig their heels into the tawara for an utchari attempt...

[Kintaro]

I think a salary-restructuring would help. Something that is revenue-neutral, but rewards wins, and punishes losses.

Straw Man:

Let's say 70% of the Maegashira salary pool is fixed and distributed evenly.

The remaining 30% of the salary pool should be split based on wins.

If you get kachi-koshi you get more of that 30% pool than a make-koshi guy gets.

Additionally, a 10-5 performance gets more of that pie than an 8-7 performance.

This approach could inspire an 8-6 fighter on Senshuraku to fight harder for one more win.

I think this could work.

[Asashosakari]

Let's say 70% of the Maegashira salary pool is fixed and distributed evenly.

The remaining 30% of the salary pool should be split based on wins.

If you get kachi-koshi you get more of that 30% pool than a make-koshi guy gets.

Additionally, a 10-5 performance gets more of that pie than an 8-7 performance.

This approach could inspire an 8-6 fighter on Senshuraku to fight harder for one more win.

My thinking (now) mirrors something Doitsuyama pointed out at the start of the yaocho scandal - what's to stop rikishi from splitting such a win bonus behind the scenes? Or even handing it over outright - the needy rikishi gets the win, the opponent gets the money afterwards.

As long as there are major discontinuities in base salary when falling from maegashira to juryo to (especially) makushita, it's always going to be worthwhile to give up a win here and there to buy positional security for a later date. That doesn't mean I've come around to Peterao's notion that base salaries should be completely dispensed with and everything be handled as fight purses (you just need to look at the kensho distribution to realize how top-heavy that would become over time), but I think the discontinuities have a much larger effect than the possible lack of incentive caused by having too much money tied up in the base salaries.

The expensive way of fixing that would be to keep the "everyone in a division gets the same money" thing intact, but (as I mused a while ago) instituting at least one more small-sized division, and arguably at least two, to cut down the difference between the last salaried rank and the first unsalaried one. Something like: maegashira base salary 1.3 million yen, juryo 1.0 million yen, makushita-A 0.7 million yen, makushita-B 0.4 million yen, makushita-remainder and below stay as is. You could make it so that certain perks (kesho-mawashi, tsukebito) are still only available for those who reach juryo proper, although I suspect some of those aspects will be on the way out anyway if the relationship between Kyokai and stables gets restructured in the next few years as expected.

The less expensive way would be to make the salaries completely rank-dependent without discontinuities, e.g. M1/2 = 1.6m yen, M3/4 = 1.5m yen, ...., M15/M16 = 0.9m yen, J1/2 = 0.8 yen, J3/4 = 0.7m yen, ..., J13/14 = 0.2m yen, so that giving up a win would have a significant effect on your upcoming earnings, but without the money being tied directly to the win-loss records (and thus specific opponents). That might also stop rikishi from coasting once they're makekoshi at a "safe" rank, e.g. being content to finish 5-10 after 4-8 because they can expect a softer schedule with the big makekoshi, as the difference between 5-10 and 7-8 could be several 100,000 yen in that scenario. Of course, all that assumes that when rikishi cheat to stay in a higher division they're doing it mainly for the money, not to avoid a hit to their reputation (which no amount of financial fiddling could overcome), or other non-monetary reasons.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Asashosakari

[Doitsuyama]

Let's say 70% of the Maegashira salary pool is fixed and distributed evenly.

The remaining 30% of the salary pool should be split based on wins.

If you get kachi-koshi you get more of that 30% pool than a make-koshi guy gets.

Additionally, a 10-5 performance gets more of that pie than an 8-7 performance.

This approach could inspire an 8-6 fighter on Senshuraku to fight harder for one more win.

My thinking (now) mirrors something Doitsuyama pointed out at the start of the yaocho scandal - what's to stop rikishi from splitting such a win bonus behind the scenes? Or even handing it over outright - the needy rikishi gets the win, the opponent gets the money afterwards.

Right - the important thing is that the total value of the bout for both rikishi should be the same regardless which rikishi wins. If there is a system established which achieves that the yaocho opportunities here would be cut. I like the last suggestion from Asashosakari, but it still doesn't do much to prevent kachi-koshi ozeki from giving away wins (as a win from such an ozeki has no value).

Another idea would be to combine a continuous salary structure with lower salaries and giving out part of the salary based on wins, giving more emphasis to each bout outcome. The money on the bout should be continuously higher with higher ranks too.

All this isn't doing much against a juryo yaocho circle though, with three or more rikishi deciding to split the bouts between them, in order to prevent injuries and accumulate some secure wins. The best measure against that seems to be a comitee of experts (like oyakata who were longtime juryo rikishi themselves) who are able to spot "uninspired sumo" and immediately deal with the offenders.

[Asashosakari]

I like the last suggestion from Asashosakari, but it still doesn't do much to prevent kachi-koshi ozeki from giving away wins (as a win from such an ozeki has no value).

Right, the top of the banzuke probably remains troublesome in almost any alternative scenario. Even the incentive for already-makekoshi rikishi might not be there, given the huge dropoff in opponent quality from ~M3 to ~M6, especially considering that any loss in salary from an "excessive" makekoshi might be more than made up with a sansho win in the next tournament. Not sure how to deal with ozeki specifically, short of changing ozeki into a super-sekiwake type of rank, which is something I'm not fan of. As long as ozeki banzuke movements are so completely different from everyone else's, there's always going to be some distortion.

Another idea would be to combine a continuous salary structure with lower salaries and giving out part of the salary based on wins, giving more emphasis to each bout outcome. The money on the bout should be continuously higher with higher ranks too.

And perhaps also based on the combined number of wins of the two rikishi going into the bout? E.g. a 4-8 vs. 4-8 bout would carry half as much of a bonus as an 8-4 vs. 8-4 bout, an 8-4 vs. 4-8 would have 75% of the latter value, etc.

Hmm, maybe ozeki should be paid the same base salary as sekiwake and komusubi, just with much higher win bonuses at stake...

I'll hopefully be looking into something in support of my "more divisions needed" notion later today.

[Stelios]

I think I would be going for more rank-dependent salaries, together with increased volatility between the ranks and especially between Jurio and Makushita. Also more "guest visits" from lower ranks would be welcome. Without the bottleneck on the high Makushita, there would more incentive to be gachinko.

[Asashosakari]

Okay, here goes. My reason for thinking that a third "professional" division is needed: Makushita no longer serves the purpose it once did. A little statistical breakdown of who's inhabiting the upper ranks of the division may help illustrate that.

Age|Basho	201001	200001	199001	198001	197001	196001
30+	12 (8+1)	6 (4+0)	2 (2+0)	4 (2+0)	0	3 (2+0)
28/29	9 (4+0)	5 (2+0)	5 (2+0)	9 (7+0)	3 (3+0)	3 (2+1)
26/27	11 (4+3)	9 (4+2)	4 (1+1)	5 (3+0)	5 (0+1)	5 (1+1)
24/25	12 (3+1)	19 (6+7)	22 (3+7)	10 (2+2)	9 (1+5)	9 (3+2)
22/23	9 (0+4)	15 (1+9)	13 (2+6)	19 (2+9)	20 (1+8)	23 (3+10)
20/21	4 (0+2)	5 (0+2)	10 (0+8)	10 (0+9)	19 (1+9)	9 (0+9)
-19	3 (0+1)	1 (0+1)	4 (0+3)	3 (0+3)	4 (0+4)	8 (1+7)
Avg Age	26.3	25.3	24.2	24.6	23.0	23.5

The above shows an age breakdown of the upper half of makushita (= the top 60 rikishi) for particular tournaments 10 years apart. The numbers in brackets are how many of these rikishi have already had sekitori experience, and how many achieved sekitori experience later on. (The second number is very understated for the rikishi from 201001, of course, as many of them will still become sekitori in the future.)

The reason I've gone back to 1960 is twofold. For one, the birthdates for lower-rankers become very incomplete when going back further; even for the data above I've had to estimate the ages for 10 of the 60 rikishi, but it doesn't change the numbers much. (The average age for the 50 rikishi alone was 23.4 years.) But more importantly, salaries for the two sekitori divisions were introduced only in 1957. Prior to that, sekitori only received their career performance-based basho bonuses. I'm not sure how these compared to average Japanese salaries back then, but in modern terms they're quite modest, and even moreso when compared to the base salaries: A fresh juryo rikishi will receive in excess of 2 million yen for his two months ranked in juryo, while his basho bonus will only amount to 160,000 yen, only about as much as he received as his basho allowance while ranked in makushita before (150,000 yen). Needless to say, even if we allow for much lower base salaries in 1957, it still means the financial difference between makushita and juryo must have been much, much smaller before 1957's restructuring than it was afterwards, and it's even more dramatic now.

As can be seen in the table, the average age of a top makushita rikishi has risen quite a bit in the 50 years since. While back in the 1950s (upper) makushita might have been "just another" trainee division along with the three divisions below it, it's clearly more than that now. Almost nobody who has failed to break through by age 25 is quitting now, ex-juryo who might have dropped back around age 26/27 now typically fight on for several years trying to reclaim their status, and even being 30+ no longer means that you're on the way out soon. (When you look up those handfuls of ex-sekitori aged 28+ for 1960 and 1970, typically they had been demoted from juryo just a few basho ago and most of them were less than a year away from quitting.)

What's also interesting when comparing the 2010 data to earlier years: For each older age group, the proportion of rikishi who have already experienced juryo is roughly the same as it was in earlier years, there are just more rikishi in those groups now. So it's not the case that makushita is now full of aging no-hopers, but rather with rikishi who either were promoted young and have decided to fight on after getting demoted, or they were simply promoted at a later age than the rikishi of times past. (Looking up the individual rikishi, my impression is that it's more the second reason than the first.)

And on top of that, if you look at the actual rikishi from those 2010 rankings, I'm sure you'll discover quite a few among those aged 26+ who still have a good chance to reach juryo (four of them already did in the last year), something that was very rare in prior decades - for those five basho from 1960 to 2000 combined, rikishi aged 26+ who had yet to reach juryo numbered 33, only 6 of whom still achieved a juryo promotion later. Just for the one year since 201001, we're already at 4 out of 16. Perhaps that's just a statistical artifact of looking at those particular tournaments, but I think the trend is still unmistakable. (And all this was before the current yaocho scandal has suddenly opened lots more spots for those older rikishi to earn a juryo debut...)

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at in my usual longwinded fashion: Just going back to the 1980s, only about 1 in 4 rikishi was 26+ years old, now it's more than half, and the older rikishi have a better career outlook than they used to do. Consequently upper makushita is largely not just a training ground for rikishi in their first decade of doing Ozumo (i.e. being aged 25 and under) any longer, but also a proving ground for many older rikishi who are barely outside of juryo in quality, either talents having fallen down from above (and fighting on) or late bloomers still slowly forging a path to the top. And I think it's time to acknowledge that change in its nature and treat its inhabitants as what they are, not trainees but "almost professionals". That includes closing the salary gap between juryo and upper makushita, and preferably also bringing them more in line competition-wise, e.g. by splitting off the top 15 or 20 makushita ranks into their own division and giving them 15 bouts per basho, to make it official that this area of the rankings is a sort of "pre-juryo".

Edit: One last comment - If, as many of us likely assume, stricter enforcement of anti-yaocho regulations will soften up the glass ceiling between juryo and makushita by making juryo rikishi fail to reach the necessary wins to stay in the division more often, the incentive for older rikishi to keep fighting on in makushita will only become even stronger because they will have more opportunities to move (back) up.

Edited April 19, 2011 by Asashosakari

[Doitsuyama]

As can be seen in the table, the average age of a top makushita rikishi has risen quite a bit in the 50 years since.

I wanted to make such an age analysis too, but also for sandanme/jonidan and for the purpose to make an argument that Randomitsuki's rikishi prospectus tool might not be that useful after all since the age distribution throughout the banzuke has gone massively older in the last years. And not only in high makushita, it's going down all the way to the shin-deshi.*

And that's a reason why your age argument alone isn't totally convincing to me - if the average age is going up all the way to jonokuchi, what's so special then with the age rise in top makushita? Even your 26 years old prospects which didn't exist previously - that might just be because not enough younger talent is coming up from below.

Finally, I don't quite agree with a third sekitori division as there is no real reason that juryo is smaller than makuuchi anyway. Prospects need much more time to travel through makushita compared to juryo (often years compared to a few basho), so why not just increasing juryo from 28 rikishi to 58 instead of another division? Salaries must be lower than of course, they are too high anyway now, much closer to maegashira salaries than they should be, especially compared to the public attention to juryo. I suggest juryo salaries can be half as high as maegashira salaries, this is still much better then makushita basho allowances. Actually, maegashira salaries could be a lower too in my view if not enough money is there for the bigger number of sekitori.

* My prospectus arguments on the side for another topic: The relatively new age distribution might mean that (for example) a lower makushita rank nowadays is a bigger achievement than a few decades ago since there are much fewer retirements here giving way for weaker/younger talent. Another thing is that reaching the mid banzuke mark for an 18 years old with three years experience really has another meaning in 1994 then now as back then with each Haru more than 100 15 years old shin-deshi entered Ozumo and the 18 years old rikishi gets big banzuke pushes (percentage wise). Being 18 years old in mid banzuke was just fitting in your place, while now it's already proving you can beat older and more experienced rikishi.

[Kintamayama]

IIRC, at some point, a suggestion was made to have an age limit for Makushita. Wasn't it?

[Asashosakari]

And that's a reason why your age argument alone isn't totally convincing to me - if the average age is going up all the way to jonokuchi, what's so special then with the age rise in top makushita? Even your 26 years old prospects which didn't exist previously - that might just be because not enough younger talent is coming up from below.

Two thoughts:

1) The focus of 15-year-old shindeshi really only came about after 1973. There's a lot more heterogeneity in the shindeshi ages for the 1950s and 1960s, with the rare 13-year-old among them, but also quite a significant number aged 18+, who (unsurprisingly) were often strong enough to qualify for a shinjo start. Even so, the average upper makushita rikishi was much younger than he is now, and I don't think it's all just due to the relatively modest number of collegiate entrants of the past decade.

2) The rising trend is there even if we exclude the latest data point. The 200001 banzuke includes a ton of guys from the massive recruiting drive of 1992/1993 (who would be about 22-23 there if they started out of middle school), but the upper makushita age has still increased compared to 10 years earlier even though one would expect such a strong talent influx to be reflected there.

Finally, I don't quite agree with a third sekitori division as there is no real reason that juryo is smaller than makuuchi anyway. Prospects need much more time to travel through makushita compared to juryo (often years compared to a few basho), so why not just increasing juryo from 28 rikishi to 58 instead of another division?

That's another option. It's just my personal preference that divisions of about 30 rikishi seem to work well in providing competitive balance, and that extends to makuuchi, too - looking at the way the scheduling works out, I much prefer today's 16-17 maegashira ranks (subtracting those pressed into sanyaku opponent duty, it's effectively about 13-14) over the 12-13 they had in the 1970s or the 22+ we see back in the 1950s.

I don't really want it to be a "third sekitori division" anyway, unless we narrowly define "sekitori = monthly salary". What I'm looking for is a place that provides a bit more ranking stability (unlike today's upper makushita where a fluky 2-5 can send you from a single-digit rank to outside the top 20 and you might need half a year just to get your spot back) to get prospect rikishi accustomed to the competitive atmosphere of the sekitori divisions, and to provide veterans with a stronger safety net against injuries than they have now (i.e. none at all)...basically, 15-day schedules without most of the perks of being a sekitori such as tsukebito, but with a living wage, let's say on average 2-300,000 yen per month (assuming we do go with continuous instead of fixed salaries). They can even keep that division in tiny print on the banzuke if they prefer. (Clapping wildly...)

I feel that that would help balance juryo, too. I don't really find it interesting that talented rikishi spend excessive amounts of time in the volatile makushita division because it's so hard to break through the glass ceiling, and then when they're practically over-prepared they finally make it, only to burst through the juryo division in two more tournaments. I'd rather see more steady career patterns once a rikishi has proven he's among the top 100 in skill. Perhaps that could also be achieved by doubling juryo in size, but I like having the current level of exclusivity to the sekitori ranks. To draw a baseball analogy, Ozumo needs a Triple-A division of sorts, which is a role that IMO isn't really served by today's juryo because it's too high-profile in salaries and perks. (I have a feeling you feel the same way, hence your suggestion that the juryo salaries are too high.)

Edited April 19, 2011 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari]

IIRC, at some point, a suggestion was made to have an age limit for Makushita. Wasn't it?

More an experience limit, I think, and in any case it wasn't more than idle insider talk that was leaked for some reason. I'd be surprised if something like that was seriously on the table anytime soon. In that vein, I'm more wondering about what's going to become of the governance committee suggestion to (re-)integrate younger athletes into the Kyokai by having "associate" (or whatever) status for rikishi who haven't finished middle school yet, to provide a sumo counterpart to football academies and the like.