The purpose of this study was to clarify what kind of roles and activities the association of sporting-goods distributors have conducted in postwar Japan. This study was based largely on articles of the 'Nihon Undogu Shinpo (1948-1956)', which is a sporting-goods trade newspaper. The 'Nihon Undoyogu Oroshi Shougyoukai', the national association of sporting-goods distributors, was established in 1948. This association took over the functions of the 'Nihon Taiikuyohin Haikyu Kabushikigaisha', which was established in 1943 when the material allocation and distributive route was controlled by the government, owing to the war. After the end of World WarII, Japan's government had to operate a controlled economy because of the lack of materials. Many sporting-goods became controlled commodities. The dominant role of the 'Nihon Undoyogu Oroshi Shougyoukai' was to increase the efficiency of the sporting-goods allowance. The 'Nihon Undoyogu Oroshi Shougyoukai' undertook four active roles. (1) They started a movement to remove the controls. They called for decontrol of sporting-goods and reduction and exemption of taxes. As a result, their demand came true by degrees since 1949. (2) They organized commodity fairs and the merchandise fairs for sporting-goods since 1950. These fairs increased in size and were popular every year, and it turned out that industry-wide profits rose on a grand scale. (3) They embarked on enterprise that exported a variety of sporting-goods. In 1956, distributors of sporting-goods set up the organization, the 'Nippon Yushutu Undoyohin Kyoudoukumiai', for new market exploration in foreign countries and the quality control of exported sporting-goods. (4) They attempted to preserve the order which was absolutely necessary for the mutual harmony and benefit of the manufacturers, the retail distributors and the distributors.

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Slap skates became popular after the Nagano Winter Olympics and came to be one of the main factors in shortening time records. There have not been enough studies on slap skates but recently they are becoming more popular. The purposes of this study were to measure the strain applied to the skate blade, and to investigate characteristics of the blade reaction force to ice surface and their relationships to the skating place. The experiments were carried out at the M-wave skating arena, where speed skate competitions were held in the Nagano Winter Olympics. In the experiment, first a strain gage was attached to the blade, then data was collected with a compact recorder. The position of the strain gage was the outside of the blade. The gages were attached at four places (Front, Hinge, Middle, and Rear) of both sides of each blade. Two of these places were selected arbitrarily from the eight places when measuring. The results are summarized as follows.•At each of eight places of measurement positions, dynamic strain showed plus or minus values with the progress of time. It was found that the strain of the Hinge (under the axis) became greatest.•The strain at the Hinge of the left blade showed minus value while skating the straight section. The strain during the curve section showed plus value.•The strain at the Hinge of the right blade always showed minus value.•Differences in skater's strokes in the straight and curve sections clearly appeared in the interval of wave patterns. This was confirmed by the relation between strain and time.

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Japan's unique corporate sports system has greatly contributed to the development and promotion of sports in Japan. However, due to the worsening economic development, the environment surrounding corporate sports organizations has been changing drastically. Especially, that of ball sports, among corporate sports, is very difficult. Given the change, it is necessary for sports organizations to understand behavioral and psychological characteristics of their spectators in order to set out significant marketing strategies for effective provision of sports products. In terms of understanding the characteristics, many previous researchers discuss the importance of finding and choosing an appropriate target market through segmentation of spectators in sports. Consequently, this study focused on the motivation of sports spectators. The purposes of this study were to understand the behavioral and psychological characteristics, segment by segment, and to compare and contrast the characteristics of spectators among everal sports leagues in Japan top ball sports. Scales based on the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) were used in this study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted first to detect the motivation factors of sports spectators, and then non hierarchical cluster analysis, using mean scores of each motivation factor, was conducted for classification of the spectators. The findings of this study reveal the existence of 10 factors regarding sports spectators' motivation, and be able to classify sports spectators into 5 clusters; "Fixed Fan" "Social Fan" "Potential Spectator" "Normal Spectator" and "Active Fan" according to the tendency of the mean scores and the demographic characteristics. Some implications were suggested from the study for further development of Japan's top sports.

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This study was designed to develop a service quality assessment model to evaluate the service quality of fitness clubs in China. Based on a review of literature, field observations, interviews with specialists, and two pilot studies, a 5 dimensions service quality conceptual model was proposed. The 5 dimensions are related to the club staff, facilities, programs, security, and pricing. The development of the service quality assessment model was carried out in two stages: (1) Screening of the subscale items. Using exploratory factor analysis, the data were collected from two pilot studies, and the subscale items of service quality were reduced to 24, while maintaining a 5 dimension structure. (2) Evaluating the proposed model with a new data set. Data were collected from a sample of 376 members from three different fitness clubs in Shanghai and Guangzhou in China. The results of confirmatory factor analysis of the proposed model showed that the overall fit was good (CMIN=580.83, CMIN/DF =2.40, P=.00, GFI=.89, AGFI=.86, SRMR=.04, IFI=.94, NFI=.91, CFI=.94, RMSEA=.06, AIC=696.84). After a few modifications of the proposed model were made, the final model, which uses 5 dimensions 20 subscale items, was developed and evaluated. The overall fit of the final model (CMIN=298.80, CMIN/DF =1.87, P=.00, SRMR=.04, GFI=.93, AGFI=.90, IFI=.97, NFI=.94, CFI=.97, RMSEA=.05, AIC=398.80) was confirmed to be better than that of the original model. The reliability and validity of the final model were confirmed. Management implications and suggestions for future research were discussed.

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The Urawa Red Diamonds is a representative "big club" in J1-league. It not only won the championship of the J-league 2006 season for the first time in the club's history, but also had an average of 45, 573 attendance per game in that year, which was the league record in the J-league history. Its annual income was 5.8 billion yen. But it was not an easy task for the club to realize this position. The management of the club had been strongly affected by the parent company. Because of the failure of the parent company, the team was demoted to the J2-league in the year 2000 season. The team's success came after the club gained autonomy in management and implemented active reforms. This paper reports on how the Urawa Red Diamonds increased the team performance, the attendance, and the revenue, leading to success.

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In this paper, we discuss the relationship between players'wages and club performance in Japanese professional sports clubs. In foreign countries, as one of the important themes of sports industrial study, many researchers have examined the relationship between players' wages and club performance. Nevertheless, in Japan the study of players'wages and club performance has not been done. This paper examines by single regression analysis the relationship between wages and performance in the J.LEAGUE club, making use of the data from 1997 to 2006. As a result, R-square was found to be 0.558 in the long term. It became clear that player wages were the primary factor to explain club performance in the J.LEAGUE. In addition, even in the short term, R-square was 0.304. It became clear that player wages explained 30% of club performance. Clarifying whether player wages are related to record should be of significance to the success of professional sports business in Japan.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the needs of those want to learn gymnastics and/or sports, and to clarify the transition of those who provide them with opportunities to do so. Thus, I studied the transition of faculties, departments, and courses of Japanese universities whose titles include either "gymnastics, " "martial arts, " or "sports". Then I analyzed the numbers of such faculties, departments, and courses of Japanese universities, and also investigated the limited enrollments and applicants of such departments and courses. The number of such departments, the number of limited enrollments, and the number of applicants for these departments have reached 2.75 times, 1.99 times, and 1.72 times those of 1987, respectively, in 20 years. This data indicates increase both the needs of people who want to learn gymnastics and!or sports and the opportunities for them to do so. Furthermore, it became clear that the main reason for such an increase was the increase of sports-related departments. It also became clear that, in the five years from 2003 until 2007, although the number of applicants for "gymnastics-related departments, " "martial arts-related departments "fractionally decreased, and that of applicants for "sports-related departments"was unchanged, that of "sports management-related departments" increased steadily. The increase in the number of "sports business management-related departments" was also evident. The increase in such faculties, departments, and courses proves that groups of people who learn sports-related studies at universities have appeared and that their number has increased. This study has also helped clarified part of the history of the cultivation of human resources and its connection to physical and sports education as well as the sports industries in Japan.

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