世論 What Japan Thinks

With both the 2007 Japan Professional Baseball and the 2007 US Major League Baseball seasons underway, and with wall-to-wall Japanese television coverage of the exploits of the local players in the Major League, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, performed a survey that looked at reformation of the professional baseball draft system in Japan. This article contains just the highlights of the fuller survey that they conducted.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of March, members of goo Research’s online monitor group were randomly selected and 1,089 of them successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire.

As well as the US careers of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka, the other big baseball-related topics are plans to reduce the length of time before becoming eligible for Free Agency from the current nine years, and to reform the draft system to prevent, or at least reduce, problems occuring from cases such as amateurs receiving dodgy handouts from the Seibu Lions.
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Over one week in the middle of December infoPLANT gathered responses to a survey on baseball. 5,272 people, 57.4% female, successfully completed a self-selecting survey through DoCoMo’s mobile phone iMode menuing system.

In Q2, almost a quarter of all men and a sixth of all women questioned said they attended a professional baseball match at a stadium last year, a figure I find a little hard to believe, quite frankly, making me suspect there might have been a lot of self-selecting bias going on. I shall have to investigate other surveys to see how the numbers compare.

In Q3, not surprisingly the team most people saw was the season’s champions, Nippon Ham Fighters, but perhaps surprisingly they were the only team with more female than male viewers, no doubt helped in part by the biggest Ham of them all.
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NTV did a survey on a number of hot topics in the news right now – a lot of questions, but not much detail, so the exact meaning of some of the answers is up for debate. They carries out the survey from the 14th to 16th of this month, asking 1000 people but only getting 479 sets of replies, so it’s a bit of a small sample.

Q11: The Food Safety Commission presented a report that USA beef imports were basically safe, and would want to see imports restarted. Do you support resuming USA beef imports?

Support	43.0%
Don’t support	49.3%
Don’t know, no answer	7.7%

Q12: Rakuten has been buying TBS shares, and has proposed management integration. What do you think about TBS and Rakuten’s management integration?

By combining broadcast and (internet-based) transmission, I have expectations of new growth	20.5%
TBS’s side says it’s sudden, but I want to see change in the future	28.4%
I worry whether public (free-to-air?) broadcast will continue	28.8%
Others	4.6%
Don’t know, no answer	17.8%

Q13: Yoshiaki Murakami, against the wishes of the Hanshin Railways management ranks, in order to raise the company valuation, has proposed to float the subsiduary Hanshin Tigers baseball team on the stock market. Do you support this proposal?

Support	21.7%
Oppose	55.3%
Don’t know, no answer	23.0%

This is a question that frurstrates me a bit – I know the majority seem opposed to the idea, but why? Is there a general opposition to the idea of floating sports teams on the stock market, or is there opposition to Murakami personally, or is it just reluctance in the face of rapid change?

Q14: Tatsunori Hara has been appointed the new manager of the Giants baseball team. Do you think baseball will become interesting next year?

I think it will become interesting	49.7%
I don’t think it will become interesting	34.2%
Don’t know, no answer	16.1%

There seems an implication in this question that this year’s weak Giants automatically made the season dull. Although they are the top team in terms of support in Japan, the question seems loaded to me.

Q15: Do you think the Japanese economy will continue to improve?

I think so	36.5%
I don’t think so	55.7%
Don’t know, no answer	7.7%

Finished! A bit of a mixed bag there, but interesting opinions on quite a few of the burning issues. Thanks for reading all the way through.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Read more on: baseball,beef,economy,merger,ntv