Building consensus among numerous stakeholders is an important yet difficult step in stadium construction projects. Understanding who the stakeholders are and their characteristics is necessary for the success of construction projects. Using archival materials and semi-structured interviews, we identified and characterized the most salient stakeholders associated with the subsidization decision for the stadium construction plan in Kitakyushu city. Stakeholder classification was carried out using a framework designed by Mitchell et al. (1997) that characterized salient stakeholders using attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency. Definitive stakeholders identified as having all three attributes included the J. LEAGUE, the Kitakyushu City Assembly, and the Kitakyushu City Public Works Evaluation Committee. Although these groups were classified into the same stakeholder categories, their detailed features or roles were different. The Giravanz Kitakyushu, the city’s professional football team, was considered a dependent stakeholder with legitimacy and urgency, but limited power. Our findings highlighted the importance of stakeholder analysis as a strategic tool, especially in the initial planning phase. Practical implications and ideas for further research were discussed.

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The purpose of this study was to analyze the features of J.League Division 3 (J3) spectators without a club to support by comparing them to home club fans. The questionnaire survey was conducted with stadium spectators of a J3 game. Data of 45 spectators who did not have a club to support and 324 home club fans were collected. The findings of this study show the characteristics of the spectators without a club to support to be : (1) little experience as J.League spectators : they are likely to be new customers or light users : (2) attendance at the game for passive reasons such as being invited by friends or family and getting free tickets : (3) different attributes from those of home club fans : in particular, 53.3% of them are women and 7.5 years younger than home club fans ; and (4) a positive intention to reattend future J3 games in the same season. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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Purpose : This study aimed to identify unique segments based on motivation for exercise among public sports gym users and to grasp their willingness to pay (WTP) admission fees for each segment by measuring their price sensitivity.
Methods : A self-administrated questionnaire survey was conducted at a public sports complex with a gym in December 2018 and February 2019 (n=165). Latent class analysis was used for segmentation, and Kishi's logit price sensitivity meter was used to estimate the WTP for each segment.
Results : The latent class model consisting of three classes was the most appropriate. Class 1 (latent class prevalence : 61%) was the group that was more likely to place importance on maintaining health, class 2 (28%) on controlling body weight, and class 3 (11%) on gaining a wide range of benefits from doing exercise. Regarding the admission fee, each of the four research items, too cheap, cheap, expensive, and too expensive admission fee, had a common threshold price among the three classes ; 100, 200, 500, and 1,000 yen, respectively. A point of estimate and interval estimation (price of marginal cheapness, expensiveness) of the WTP for each class were as follows : 365 (197, 624) yen for class 1, 401 (229, 665) yen for class 2, and 413 (219, 666) yen for class 3.
Conclusion : It was suggested that class 1 and 2 valued the health benefits gained from sport and class 3 valued sport itself. Class 1's WTP tended to be lower than class 3. The threshold price of "cheap" and the price of marginal cheapness of each class were approximate values of the actual admission fee of 220 yen ; therefore, it was suggested that the users perceived the actual fee as cheap, and that there was the anchoring effect of the actual fee on the WTP.

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This study aimed to compare the relationship between exercise experience from primary school to the present and current life skills among Chinese and Japanese university students. The participants were 331 Chinese university students (n=181 men ; n= 150 women) and 327 Japanese university students (n=156 men ; n= 171 women). The cross-sectional survey included a questionnaire with items regarding participants' exercise experience from elementary school to the present and the Daily Life Skills Scale (Shimamoto and Ishii, 2006). A t-test was used to examine the between-group differences in the scores of daily life skills between Chinese and Japanese students. The results showed that Chinese students reported higher scores in the life skills used mainly in personal situations, while Japanese students reported higher scores in the skills used generally in interpersonal situations. Further, the positive correlation between exercise experience and life skills was larger in Japanese students than Chinese students. Specifically, the correlation demonstrated that the number of exercise experiences during high school was positively correlated with the affinity, etiquette to others, and skills used in interpersonal situations, which is a subscale, and the total score of the Life skills. This result suggests that the extracurricular activities that target exercise in Japanese school have a beneficial impact on the development of daily Life skills.

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The purpose of this study was to develop a Japanese version of the Academic Athletic Identity Scale (AAIS-J), originally developed by Yukhymenko-Lescroart (2014) and to examine the relationship between academic athletic identity and grade point average (GPA). The participants were 251 student athletes who compete at the national collegiate level (male : 155, female : 96, age : M=20.33, SD=1.18). The Academic Athletic Identity Scale (AAIS) (Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2014) was translated into Japanese using the back-translation method, and the reliability and validity of the AAIS-J were examined. The results indicated the reliability (internal consistency) and validity (construct validity, criterion-related validity) of the AAIS-J and illustrated the scale’s usefulness. In addition, the result of examining the relationship between academic athletic identity and GPA showed that student athletes who have a higher academic identity indicated higher GPA, and higher athletic identity was also positively associated with GPA. These results indicated both similar and different results of previous studies about the relationship between student athlete identity and GPA, thus, this study provided new knowledge about Japanese student athletes. In conclusion, this study confirmed the reliability, validity and usefulness of the AAIS-J.

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Opposing clubs involve not only sports competitors but also economic partners that are likely to influence fan behavior. Therefore, it is important to understand rivalry in team sports to ensure the financial viability of the leagues and teams. However, much of the study on rivalry in sports has focused either on professional or high-level men’s collegiate team sports in the US. The research in this study explored the perceptual rivalry of a Japanese professional sport club’s supporters against other clubs and the reasons for the rivalry. Data were collected via an email survey of the official fan club members of Alvark Tokyo, a Japanese professional basketball team in the B.League (N=377). Respondents were asked to rank up to five of the biggest rival clubs in the B.League first division and assess their subjective intensity of rivalry on a 100-point direct rating scale (RP). Next, they were asked to answer the reasons for their rivalry perception, based on 17 rivalry element items. The intensity of the rivalry against each club was calculated as the average value of the RP. A Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess the differences in the reasons why each club was recognized as the biggest rival. The Chiba Jets was selected as the biggest rival team (RP=84.0), followed by the Tochigi Brex (RP=82.1), the Ryukyu Golden Kings (RP=61.2), the Kawasaki Brave Thunders (RP=56.0), the Seahorses Mikawa (RP=27.4), and the Sunrockers Shibuya (RP=16.9). The Kruskal-Wallis test indicated that the reasons for supporters’ perception of rivalry differed significantly across the six clubs. The empirical results suggested that the rivalry against other clubs may be amplified by the overlapping of conditions such as comparable competitiveness, geographical proximity, and historical relationships. Some practical implications are provided.

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The purpose of this research note was to examine relationships between ideal positive affect and repurchase intention among professional sport event spectators based on the affect valuation theory. This research note focused on spectators of Osaka Evessa, which actively promotes high-arousal entertainment at home games, and tested the hypothesis that “Osaka Evessa spectators’ ideal high-arousal positive affect will positively relate to their repurchase intention.” A questionnaire survey was conducted for the Osaka Evessa spectators who were 18-years old and older, and 142 spectators provided useable data. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that age and ideal high-arousal positive affect positively predicted repurchase intention, and these results supported the hypothesis. Additionally, the results indicated that adding ideal positive affect, after controlling for sociodemographic variables (i.e., age, sex, marital status, household income), significantly increased the coefficient of determination (R²). After the Golden Sports Years (the 2019 Rugby World Cup, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the 2021 Kansai World Masters Games), evidence-based promotions will be needed to promote sustainable professional sporting event development in Japan.

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This research focuses on the “Encourage Japan through Fair Play” campaign of the Japan Sport Association and aims to compare the frequency of occurrences of “Shake hands, Greetings, Thank you” in collegiate martial arts as compared to other collegiate sports. The participants in this survey were 309 first-third year students (57 participated in martial arts events and 252 in other sports) who belonged to a university athletic club. Participants were asked about the frequency with which they shook hands with opponents before or after a match. They were also asked about the frequency with which they greeted opponents both before and after a match. Finally, they were asked how often they engaged in a thanking behavior with either the referee or a cheering spectator. As results of these analyses, a significant difference was found in the items related to handshaking, with handshaking frequency being low in martial arts, both before and after the match. It was thus confirmed that those who participated in martial arts did not often perform handshake actions with opponents before and after the match.

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The Olympic theme songs (TOTS) play an essential role in providing dramatic effects for TV programs, as well as a legacy transmission to hand on to the new generation the excitement that sweeps through the nation during the worlds’greatest sports event. We investigated the origin of the Japanese Olympic theme music. In our study, three official theme musical compositions and the Olympic theme music employed by the Olympic broadcasters during the three Olympics held in Japan (Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagano) were included. We reviewed papers regarding the theme music for the Olympics and interviewed the composers of the official Olympic theme songs and the program producers of Olympic broadcasting channels. We found several common points between each TOTS. Firstly, all of the official theme songs were released more than a half a year before the Olympics opening ceremony. Furthermore, these songs were broadcast on the music programs of the Japanese national broadcasting station (NHK) of the games, such as “Minna no Uta (English title : Songs for Everyone)” and “NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen (English title : NHK Red and White Song Battle)”. Additionally, during these times the composition competitions of the theme compositions were held, and multiple artists participated in this competition and covered the theme compositions. On the other hand, TOTS of the news broadcasting was first introduced in 1988. In a quarter of the cases, the implementation of TOTS was linked to the employment of news casters, as they employed publicly well-known and experienced celebrities as both casters and performers of TOTS. It has been speculated that, since the private news broadcasters have fewer slots available to cover Olympic games compared to NHK, this was a measure taken to enhance the opportunity for TV appearances by engaging theme songs with Olympic coverage.

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