Skip to main content

2022 Hakone Ekiden Broadcast Pulls in Only 33.4% Peak Viewership Rating While Courseside Crowds Triple

The Nippon Television broadcast of the 98th Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3 generated average viewership ratings of 26.2% for the first day of the race and 28.4% for the second day, according to data released on Jan. 4. The overall average viewership rating for the two days was 27.2%. Last year's broadcast had average viewership of 31.0% on day one, 33.7% on day two, and an overall average of 32.3%, all the highest since the TV broadcast began in 1987.

Peak viewership on the first day of this year's race came at 1:22 p.m. when winner Aoyama Gakuin University's Hiroki Wakabayashi finished the uphill Fifth Stage, reaching 31.1%. The peak day two rating of 33.4% came at 9:05 a.m., just after the finish of the downhill Sixth Stage when Aoyama Gakuin's Yuki Takahashi held on to the team's lead and Juntendo University's Keito Makase overtook Komazawa University's Kohei Tsukuda in a duel for 2nd.

Meanwhile, race organizers Kanto Gakuren announced that an estimated 600,000 people turned out to watch along the course, more than triple last year's estimate of 180,000. Both years the organizers had asked people to help counter the coronavirus pandemic by not coming to see the race in person. Few people made the trip to see the Day Two start at Lake Ashi, but as the race progressed the numbers increased. Large crowds turned out at exchange points and in the Nihonbashi area near the finish.

Despite the increase, the number of spectators remained far below normal. Organizers' estimates of crowd sizes over the last six years:

2017: 1,180,000
2018: 1,200,000
2019: 1,240,000
2020: 1,210,000
2021: 180,000
2022: 600,000

source article:
translated and edited by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

TS said…
Not a huge surprise that there would be a slight bump last year with the lack of in person spectators and Soka's incredible almost victory...but do these ratings include TVer and NTV website numbers?
January 4, 2022 at 9:04 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer.  These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly.  I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes.  As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway.  That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...
18 comments
Read more