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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