プロ野球産業の経済効果

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Japanese professional baseball industry on the regional economy. In the 21st century, the shift from political centralization to decentralization seems to be promoted, and local governments are expected to bear a large responsibility for the regional economy. On the other hand, many kinds of sports are regarded as encouraging regional economic growth. This paper shows, by input-output analysis, that the Japanese professional baseball industry makes a significant contribution to the regional economy. In this paper, we investigate four issues in the Japanese professional baseball industry and estimate the effect of each on the economy; the strike, new establishment of team, interleague play between the Pacific and the Central leagues, the economic impact of the victory of Hanshin Tigers. First, the economic loss of the strike is estimated at 3.3 billion yen for two days, and 10.3 billion yen for one month. Second, the economic gain of the new establishment of a team in Miyagi Prefecture is about 13.6 billion. Third, the earnings from the interleague play between the Pacific and the Central leagues is about 5.9 billion in total. According to our calculation, the Pacific league will earn 2.8 billion, and the Central league will lose 0.2 billion. Lastly, the economic impact of the victory of Hanshin Tigers team on the Kansai economy is estimated at 148.1 billion yen in 2003, and 64.3 billion yen in 2005. This economic impact of the Hanshin Tigers team on the regional economy is much bigger than that of other teams. Many local governments are eager to attract many kinds of enterprises to encourage economic growth. Nevertheless, we showed that attracting baseball teams and other kinds of sports clubs is also useful to encourage economic growth in the region.