Skip to main content

AGU's Coach Hara Talks About Behind-the-Scenes Financials of University Ekiden World

Aoyama Gakuin University long distance head coach Susumu Hara, 53, appeared on a sports news TV show last week alongside Kansai University American football head coach Hideaki Toriuchi, 61. Under Hara's leadership AGU won January's Hakone Ekiden for the fifth time, while Toriuhi led KU to its twelfth national collegiate title in late December. Representing the best of east and west Japan, the two coaches dissected the state of collegiate sports in the Reiwa era.

Right after Hakone this year, men's marathon national record holder Suguru Osako, a Hakone star during his years at Waseda University, tweeted, "Even if we won Hakone, there was not a cent of return for the athletes." With viewership ratings of 27.5% for its first day on Jan. 2 and 28.6% for its second day on Jan. 3, as a broadcast product the Hakone Ekiden is a titan. With regard to the distribution of funds from broadcast rights coach Hara said, "Whether you win or come last, the amount doesn't change. It was 500,000 yen [~$4,650 USD] per university in the form of funds to support training. At a certain time that became 2,000,000 yen [~$18,600 USD]. This year we got 3,000,000 yen [~$27,900 USD].

The show's host Ryuichi Kosugi, 46, threw out, "There's a lot more money than that being made, right?" Coach Hara laughed as he answered, "They have a financial report. By all means, feel free to put in a request to see it." Asked whether 3,000,000 yen was enough to cover the AGU ekiden team's operating costs for the year Hara replied, "No, I don't think it's enough. On average the universities that compete at the Hakone Ekiden have about 60 members. That works out to 50,000 yen [~$465 USD] apiece. We work the entire year preparing for Hakone, of which about 60 days are spent at training camps. One night's stay with three meals costs about 7000 yen [~$65 USD] at the absolute cheapest places. Add in transportation, shoes, physio, nutrition. Even excluding academic costs I think that's going to be at least 1,000,000 yen [~$9,300 USD] per person.

Coach Toriuchi said the situation was much the same in football. "We're in the red for sure," he said. Together with coach Hara, the two of them briefly pulled back the curtain on the often-ignored goings on in the back kitchen of collegiate sports.

source article:
https://www.sponichi.co.jp/entertainment/news/2020/04/07/kiji/20200407s00041000178000c.html

translated by Brett Larner
photo © 2012 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...
1 comment
Read more