抄録
The Nihon Sumo Kyokai has been making local tours in addition to holding its regular tournaments. Until 2001, the tours were sponsored by companies and operated by the Kyokai itself. In 2002, the Kyokai lost the sponsors and it became difficult to maintain the business model of the tour. So, from 2003, the Kyokai decided to change the business model and began to sell each event of the tour to local promoters.
In this paper the background and purposes of the change of the business model are examined, and the influence of this change is considered.
As the result of the change, the Kyokai became free from the financial risk of the tour. But at the same time, the number of events of the tour decreased because the number of local promoters who had ability to take the financial risk of the event was not enough.
The Kyokai has a philosophy of trying to popularize sumo, and local tours are one of the means to attain it. But it seems there is a trade-off between this philosophy and financial risk of local tours. If the Kyokai wants to hedge the risk, the number of events of the local tours will decrease, so the Kyokai will not be able to attain the philosophy. If the Kyokai has a strong will to attain the philosophy and to hold more events, its financial risk will become larger.
