Fans and supporters. All Blacks v Japan rugby union test match. Lipovitan-D Challenge Cup, Nissan Stadium in Yokohama, Japan Saturday 26 October 2024. © Mandatory photo credit: TSUTOMU KISHIMOTO/ PHOTOSPORT
There were 10,000 unsold tickets at Yokohama Stadium, but those empty seats, contrary to what it may be tempting to think, indicated rugby and the All Blacks’ growth story in Japan.
In 2013 the All Blacks played Japan in Tokyo for the first time, managing to just about sell out the slightly decrepit 27,000-capacity Chichibu Stadium.
The game was struggling for profile in Japan a decade ago but the relatively small and declining rugby fraternity had some idea that the All Blacks were the world’s best team and so they turned up to see players such as Richie McCaw and Daniel Carter – players whose names they knew but only from afar.
Things could hardly have been more different this last week. A decade ago, the All Blacks wouldn’t have got anywhere near filling the Nissan Stadium in Yokohama (where the World Cup final was played).
The Japanese Rugby Union would never have dreamed of playing there in 2013, but in 2024 that was the only available venue big enough to cope with demand, and while it didn’t sell out, 61,000 people still turned up, which means it will end up the fourth largest crowd the All Blacks play in front of this year, behind London, Paris and Sydney.
But Yokohama will be the only place the All Blacks play this year where local fans turn up wearing mix-and-match ensembles – to show their support for their own team but also respect for the opposition.
As the hordes poured through the Shin-Yokohama train station in the hours before kick-off, it was common to see couples split – one wearing a Japan shirt, the other an All Blacks jersey.
There were some people even wearing both, a sign that in Japan, reverence for the game itself comes first and that there is recognition that the All Blacks are in some way the anointed guardians of the sport, protecting and enhancing all its cultural values.
And it’s at this intersection where rugby’s values meet the All Blacks’ consistent excellence that the Japanese have amassed in numbers.
Not everyone buys into the All Blacks’ mythology, but in Japan, they can’t get enough of it.
The haka is a point of deep fascination. The way the All Blacks train, how they think, how they work together, how they find ways to innovate – these are questions that pervade deep into Japan’s psyche, its own economic strength having been built on the same values of loyalty, honesty, unity and integrity.
The All Blacks, then, aren’t just entertainment, or a rugby team – in Japan, they are effectively a learning tool for a country that understands the sort of long-term investment that has to be made to deliver long-term excellence.
Both England and the Wallabies have played relatively recently in Japan, but neither generates anywhere near the same local interest as the All Blacks.
Mark Egan, an Irishman who played for Kobe Steel in the 1990s and then became a strategic adviser to the Japanese Rugby Union before joining its board this year, says: “For the game overall it is fantastic having the All Blacks here.
“The players are very popular here. There is an aura about them and there is a respect for the All Blacks players that is very special. It creates news, it generates profile – a big burst of news for rugby.
“It will more than wash its face for us commercially at the end of the day and it is a huge challenge for our players to get their heads around the challenge of playing the All Blacks.”
That burst of news was evidenced by the volume of local journalists who covered the test.
In 2013, there were a handful of locals at Chichibu, but at Yokohama it was a veritable phalanx – easily 150-plus reporters (New Zealand’s largest media operators probably don’t have 150 journalists working across their entire news operations).
All this growth hasn’t happened by chance. When New Zealand Rugby sent the All Blacks to Japan in 2013 it was with a long-term strategy in mind.
The plan was to grow the profile of the All Blacks, win a larger fan base, and then use that to entice commercial agreements with the array of Japanese financial heavyweights who see the value in sports associations.
“Japan has always been interesting, and it then it became important,” says All Blacks commercial manager Megan Compain.
“The big shift came when it was announced (in 2009) that the 2019 World Cup would be played in Japan.
“It has always been important for Adidas, but the value really came into its own around the 2019 World Cup.
“And for AIG (former key All Blacks sponsor between 2012 and 2021) this was the second most important market for them outside of Western Europe and they leveraged here.”
Having come in 2013, the All Blacks were back in 2018 to play a Bledisloe Cup test and then Japan in consecutive weekends.
They also returned for another test in 2022, but what elevated the All Blacks to an entirely new status in Japan was the 2019 World Cup.
That was the moment that both rugby and the All Blacks captured the imagination of the Japanese public.
The All Blacks didn’t win the tournament, but they won the hearts of the Japanese – the cultural values of the team, the legacy and the haka all being elements that people wanted to learn more about.
“When we talk about the growth in 2019 it was the growth of eyeballs on rugby in Japan and while it may still be a little way down the list of most popular sports, it had its moment in the sun,” says Compain.
“And what we have seen post World Cup is that there is still a real desire to see the All Blacks brand in market. And so companies are interested in connecting with that brand value the All Blacks bring.”
One of those companies that has connected with the All Blacks is pharmaceutical giant Taisho, which put on a major welcoming ceremony when the team arrived in Tokyo.
The All Blacks also have a partnership with Mitsui Fudosan and the fact the All Blacks have Japanese sponsors, is a strong indication in itself that the brand has recognition and cut-through in the world’s third-largest economy.
Japan is home to some of the largest and best-known corporations, but cheques don’t just get written because teams ask.
It is a wildly competitive sports market in Japan, where baseball, football and basketball rule and for the All Blacks to have built a direct commercial partnership with a major pharmaceutical company, has only happened because the team has won a major following.
But there has been a secondary, unplanned element driving the All Blacks’ brand growth in Japan.
Since the 2019 World Cup, a litany of New Zealand’s best players have enjoyed club stints in Japan, and within the current squad, there are six – Patrick Tuipulotu, Ardie Savea, Sam Cane, TJ Perenara, Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie – who have played in League One.
And by playing here, these players have built cult status. They are brands in their own right in Japan, much in the same way that the foreign footballers and baseballers who come, end up being revered by the fans.
“The Japanese fans want to see the best players, and that is one of the other outcomes of having the 2019 World Cup here, the Japanese fans have seen the best players,” says Egan.
“And they expect them to be here. That’s what happens in baseball and football and any sport here needs to have that foreign presence.”
Just how big a star McKenzie is in Japan was evidenced by the post-match media interest he gathered, and by the way he was greeted when the team arrived.
“There is that level of respect and adulation,” says Compain of how the Japanese public interact with the All Blacks.
“We showed up for a team welcome and everyone was standing respectfully behind the line waiting for the team.
“There was polite clapping when the team arrived but as soon as the players came close, that was when the reserve and conservatism dropped and they were just all in, clamouring over people grabbing Sam [Cane] and TJ.
“They love the haka and the culture and then there is that pure superstardom – they go crazy over the individuals because they are superstars in their minds and that is the same in other sports as well.
“The players who have stints in Japan are absolutely huge. DMac is a celebrity over here.”
Gregor Paul travelled to Japan with the assistance of a grant provided by the Asia NZ Foundation. Gregor is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
Veteran Sam Cane is given his farewell test appearance.