These costs sets each team back from \200-400 million a year. Two years ago, the Orix BlueWave and the Yokohama BayStars came up with solutions to help ease the headaches caused by the major budgets of minor league operations in the Eastern or Western league.
Orix found a sponsor willing to pony up a minimum of \100 million a year, while Yokohama opted to turn its Yokosuka-based farm team into a nexus for baseball in the Shonan region in Kanagawa Prefecture.
After two years at it, both franchises are giving their new-age farm clubs passing grades.
Should you go to a weekday game between the EL's Marines and Swallows, who train near each other in Saitama Prefecture, you'll be part of a hundred or so fans who generate almost none of the organized noise found at CL and PL games. Instead, you hear coaches shouting at the umpires and players, and the players in the field calling to each other and chattering at the batter.
But despite the fact that many of the players have never played in the PL or CL, you see teams which appear otherwise to be the Yakult Swallows and the Chiba Lotte Marines.
If you catch Orix's or Yokohama's farm teams in action, however, you'll see players in uniforms that don't look like any others.
"It (Orix's sponsorship deal) puts the team in a different uniform," said Jun Nakamura, an official with the WL's Surpass Kobe, by telephone on Monday.
Surpass is a condominium development company located in Takamatsu that has given its name to the former BlueSplashes.
"Having a different uniform gives the players a lot of motivation," said Nakamura, and not because their new labeling makes them want to fight harder for the greater glory of the Surpass company.
"It's natural that they want to get into the Orix uniform as soon as possible. In America, there's Rookie League, Single-A and so on up, so there's always another level to try and shoot for. But in Japan, the players wear the uniform of the parent club and get paid a really good salary. It's hard for them to stay motivated since they can make a very good living (on the farm team)."
Sueo Kurata, director of the EL's Shonan Searex, echoed Nakamura's sentiments.
"Our players don't want to be branded as minor leaguers. The uniform helps them stay motivated," said Kurata on Tuesday.
While the Surpass connection provides a massive boost to the team's budget, Nakamura admitted that little had changed at the box office. "You are not going to get that many people at a weekday game."
Minor league clubs draw their biggest crowds when they host games in cities without pro teams of their own, and Surpass pays the cost of sending Orix's farm squad to cities where the condo maker is making a marketing push--and where the team will hold clinics and draw the biggest crowds. This year, fans in Toyama and Kanazawa will get extra baseball thanks to Surpass' sponsorship.
"It's good publicity for Surpass, and the fans in those cities really enjoy it," said Nakamura--and it also gives Orix's future players a little more exposure.
Orix has every incentive to put on a good show while its minor leaguers wear the Surpass brand--this is the final year of their three-year sponsorship contract.
"We are going to do our best so that we can extend the deal," said Nakamura. "We think its been a good arrangement for everyone involved."
For the Searex, however, it's a completely different story. Instead of landing a heavyweight sponsor, the club has gone heavily into local promotions. And this has had an impact on home town ticket sales, where farm profits are typically at their lowest.
Attendance at Yokosuka, where the Searex play two thirds of their home games, has improved by about 67 percent and, at over 1,000 a game, is the best at any of the EL clubs' main parks.
Still, Searex total attendance is less than half that of the EL Yomiuri Giants. In 2000, the Giants attracted just 633 fans per game to their tiny hilltop park in Kawasaki, third in the league behind the Searex's 1,025 and the 673 averaged at the Nippon Ham Fighters' beautiful facility in Kamagaya, Chiba Prefecture.
The Giants make up for the inaccessibility of Giants Stadium by taking their show on the road. The EL Giants drew 7,427 in their "home games" away from Kawasaki.
These Giants games are well attended for the same reason that some people flock to tourist attractions where the great buildings of the world are depicted in miniature--it looks like the real thing, but it's more accessible. The Giants minor leaguers are replicas of the guys who wear the same uniforms on TV every night.
But what works for the Giants is not going to work for everyone else. After all, how many people are going to line up to see Dragons duplicates or Fighters facsimiles? That's like paying good money to see a replica of Yokohama Stadium.
But if you live in Yokosuka, you have your own team. And though the title EL teams play for is pretty meaningless, the games are accessible and the local club is making every effort to get you into the park.
The club's best promotion so far has been the Yokosuka Kaigun Curry Game. The team targets the nearby Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force base at Yokosuka and surrounds the stands with different curry vendors.
"A lot of our promotions don't have anything to do with baseball, but the atmosphere is very good," said Kurata. "People enjoy it."
The Searex have just 10 small local sponsors and Kurata doesn't expect that total to increase any time soon. However, the transformation from BaySatellites to a team with a local identity has been a great success: Annual team revenues shot from 54 million yen in 1999 to 134 million in 2000. Last season with the team finishing in the EL's upper division for the first time in 10 years, revenues hit 151 million.
Should the Searex's local sponsorship deals evaporate tomorrow, the team would still have something concrete to show for its efforts. The only surprise is that more franchises have been so slow to take similar action.
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .