March 31, 2025 at 14:00 JST
The opening ceremony of the 78th Japan Games at SAGA stadium in Saga Prefecture is held on Oct. 5, 2024. (Koichi Ueda)
Public debate on the future of the Japan Games must evolve into a more nuanced and substantive conversation.
An expert council convened by the Japan Sport Association recently released a set of recommendations aimed at rethinking the country's primary national sporting event—an annual, prefecture-based competition with rotating host duties.
These recommendations arrive as the Games approach a significant milestone: completing a second full cycle through all 47 prefectures in 2035. However, the panel’s proposals lack specificity, making it difficult to envision a clear and compelling future for the Games.
As they stand, the suggestions feel underdeveloped and incomplete.
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In exploring the path forward, the National Governors' Association has urged a serious discussion around key challenges, including the heavy financial burden on host prefectures and the overemphasis on securing local victories. In response, the expert panel has been conducting a fundamental review of the event since last autumn.
The panel characterizes the festival’s core principle as “the nation’s premier comprehensive athletic competition featuring top athletes,” maintaining a strong adherence to tradition.
It further defines the event as “a national celebration where everyone can play a leading role, contributing to personal and community growth through diverse activities and efforts to address social issues.”
However, the panel's basic recommendations largely preserve the existing framework—for example, maintaining the festival's annual schedule—and suggest only limited changes, such as multi-prefectural hosting or the introduction of a candidacy system.
Concrete measures to ease the burdens on host prefectures remain scarce.
Notably, the panel convened only three times. If the outcome of repeated surveys and briefings with numerous stakeholders simply results in identifying and organizing existing challenges, it risks being seen as an exercise in venting rather than driving meaningful change.
This initiative must not fall into the same pattern of superficial reform that has plagued past efforts.
What matters now is paving the way toward a festival “where everyone can play a leading role.” Proposals such as turning the competition into a year-round event and leveraging it for regional revitalization and urban development are promising.
These ideas deserve serious, in-depth discussion if the festival is to truly evolve with the times.
Transforming such a massive sporting event requires not only fresh ideas but also strong coordinating skills to align the interests of numerous stakeholders.
To ensure meaningful reform, the new study team to be created with the mission of putting proposals into action should actively invite a diverse range of experts—including those from outside the sports world—to collaborate and contribute innovative perspectives.
Last year’s Saga edition, which marked the rebranding of the National Sports Festival, featured several forward-thinking initiatives driven by the private sector. These included live-streaming of all events, cultural programming, and proposals aimed at human and community development.
The panel’s recommendations rightly emphasize the need to establish a system to carry these initiatives forward. It is regrettable that no such framework has existed until now and allowing these efforts to fade away would be a missed opportunity.
The key challenge facing the Japan Games is how to develop new frameworks and formats that genuinely benefit local communities. Rather than fixating on the timing of the third cycle, it may be worthwhile to treat the coming years as a test period, experimenting with multiple festivals.
Another option could be to invite interested local governments to host “model competitions” that explore innovative approaches.
This is a pivotal moment—an opportunity for the national sports community and local governments to come together and demonstrate a true commitment to meaningful collaboration.
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 30
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