Let’s start with a quiz: What national sports teams in Japan are shown live on terrestrial television in Japan? Soccer is the easy answer and baseball gets plenty of air time for its international tournaments, but that’s about it … except for volleyball. Somehow, volleyball has been able to maintain its status as a premier TV sport while it doesn’t always get the same amount of media coverage that soccer and baseball and other sports get in mainstream media outlets. Volleyball is still a staple of school sports and around 4 million people say they play the sport (compared to 7 million for baseball and 5.3 million for soccer), so it has a strong participation rate in Japan. And if you still doubt its popularity, check out the figures for “Haikyu,” a manga, anime and movie series featuring volleyball. In May 2020, Haikyu was the second best-selling manga in Oricon’s Top 10 Weekly Chart, selling nearly half a million copies a week. It was only beaten by “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.” The manga series ran for eight years and has sold over 70 million copies. The anime was reportedly among the top 10 streamed anime in the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and other countries in 2020 and the movie version – “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” released a year ago – has grossed over $100 million at the box office! Not surprisingly, the organizations running volleyball in Japan are keen to exploit the sport’s popularity and its appeal for both domestic and international audiences. Commentator Clayton Lucas, the “voice of volleyball” for TV and other broadcasts, told Japan Today, “Volleyball in Japan is unlike anything anywhere in the world due to the incredible defensive abilities of its players and with the speed of play, you have one of the most exciting leagues on the planet to watch.” Those who have been paying attention will know that Japan’s volleyball leagues were revamped this season and the top competitions are now known as the Daido Life SV Leagues, with the lesser V League just below. The aim is to make the SV Leagues the best in the world. And they’ve got off to a good start. The SV League has just announced that a total of 1,034,667 spectators attended matches across the just-completed regular season, marking an increase of 528,389 from the previous year. The men’s division saw a 75 percent year-on-year increase with 664,709 spectators, while the women’s division recorded an impressive 195 percent growth, drawing in 369,958 fans. “In terms of attendance, our men’s league is now comparable to the top leagues in Italy and Poland,” League Chairman Masaaki Okawa said. “I believe we’ve taken a strong first step in this inaugural year.” Some of the men’s games have attracted more than 10,000 spectators – the top attendance was 11,599 fans at a game between the Suntory Sunbirds and Tokyo Great Bears on November 3 – and is proving to be very popular among female fans. A report in The Japan Times stated: “It's easy to mistake a men's volleyball game in Japan for a concert featuring the latest idol pop group, especially since many superfans follow their favorite players as religiously as J-Pop fans support their favorite idols.” The report says up to 80 percent of fans at men’s games are women in their 20s, 30s or 40s. While the Japan men’s team hasn’t won an Olympic medal since 1972, it’s on the rise and the national team is currently ranked sixth in the world. It won the bronze medal in the 2023 Volleyball Nations League and silver in 2024. It has a number of genuine stars, headed by Yuki Ishikawa (who plays in Italy), Ran Takahashi and Yuji Nishida. In a multimedia world, volleyball has been able to exploit its talents. The Japan Times article quotes Japan Volleyball Association President Shunichi Kawai – himself a former star player and TV star – as saying: “When I was an active player, my media appearances were limited to televised games and postgame interviews. We weren’t allowed to be on entertaining TV shows. Newspapers and magazines helped make us popular. National team players today do what we weren’t able to do, like be on variety shows and use personal social media accounts to express themselves.” Curiously, the women’s game is trying to catch up to the men’s popularity. Curious, because more men follow sport than women and the women’s national team has had more recent success than the men’s team, taking the bronze medal in the Olympics as recently as 2012 and the silver medal in last year’s Nations League. However, attendance at SV League games has seen a huge boost, with a 195 percent increase over the previous year’s V League figures. The people behind the SV Leagues have seen the success of other professionalization in other sports, such as soccer and basketball, and are moving forward to raise the level of Japan’s domestic leagues. “Japan already fields men’s and women’s teams with Olympic-medal potential, world-class stars and a nationwide fan base, yet volleyball has never been fully professionalized as a business,” an SV League spokesperson told Japan Today. “Seeing how football’s J.League has grown over 30 years and how basketball’s B.League has surged ahead, we felt a real risk of being left behind if we stayed with the traditional company-team model.” The SV League is the first step in making Japanese volleyball more professional, including the professionalization of both players and clubs, greater commercial opportunities, broader media exposure and raising the overall level of the players. The aim is to make SV League the world’s premier volleyball league by 2030 and to help boost the level of the national teams as the players get to play with high-level foreign stars in the domestic league. “Our first season already featured players from 25 countries, including Olympians from the Paris 2024 Games,” the SV League spokesperson said. “We view competitive excellence as the outcome of stronger governance and business foundations, and the accelerated foreign-player quota will raise the league’s standard even faster.” The SV League is already looking ahead and has decided that by the 2026-27 season at least half of the players should be under professional contracts (the men’s league already qualifies on this score), more foreign players will be allowed to play and clubs must establish themselves as independent corporations. The future looks bright and volleyball fans in Japan can enjoy top-class games over the next few months, starting with the SV League Finals in Tokyo this week. The best-of-3 women’s final between Osaka Marvelous and NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki will take place on May 2, 3 and 4 (if necessary), while the men’s final between Suntory Sunbirds Osaka and JTEKT Stings Aichi will be on May 3 (a double-header with the women’s match), 5 and 6 (if necessary). While the domestic season ends there, there are international games to follow. Suntory Sunbirds and Osaka Bluteon will represent Japan in the AVC Men’s Volleyball Champions League that takes place in Osaka and Kyoto from May 11 to May 18. In July, Japanese fans will be able to support their national teams in the Volleyball Nations League in Chiba. The women’s team will be up against Brazil, South Korea, France and Poland, while the men will be competing against Brazil, Argentina, Germany and the United States. SV League Finals Women – Best of 3 May 2, 3, 4 (if necessary) Ariake Arena Men – Best of 3 May 3, 5, 6 (if necessary) Ariake Arena (May3), LaLa Arena (May 5, 6) AVC Champions League Group Stage May 11-13, Panasonic Arena, Osaka May 15-18, Shimadzu Arena, Kyoto Volleyball Nations League July 9-13, Chiba Port Arena July 16-20, Chiba Port Arena © Japan Today