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13 Comments
- JoeyDaioh, on 05/29/2009, -0/+2Lyoto Machida also drinks his own urine.
- vroom101, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1http://jugsi.com/images/sumo-jump/
- GraceHead, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1me play joke
- zuiquan, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1Takanohana!
- LoudMusic, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1The business of Sumo Wrestling would make so much more money if instead of overweight dudes they used really hot chicks.
- inactive, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1Best fighter in the world as of now. This guy is straight up skill. He should fight Cung Le. Sanshu vs Shotokan!
- daxmonkey, on 09/19/2009, -0/+1
There are many non japanese sumo wrestlers these days. Asashoryu is ranked number 1 or yokozuna and he is from Mongolia. So are several Ozeki ( number 2 rank) wrestlers. There are also many popular wrestlers from the former soviet union ( rohou) from georgia. Also kotoshu is from bulgaria. Not to forget the many wrestlers from hawaii ( konishiki,musashimaru, who dominated the sport in the 90`s.
http://www.freedazzle.info - BaphClass, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1"All hail Emperor Clobbersaurus!"
- inactive, on 08/26/2009, -0/+1Wrestling matches offer an entertainment venue for game advertising - http://www.ad4game.com/
Just keep yourselves out of harms way when watching a live match. hihihi - duggreen, on 05/29/2009, -0/+1Sumo is a vastly underappreciated sport in the west. True, like Natto it's an aquired taste. Sumo is harder to watch knowledgeably than college wrestling, but once you start to see what's up you'll have a hard time getting excited about 'MMA' fighters. Zuiquan, you make a good point about Takanohana. Since that great Yokozuna retired, the Japanese have lost interest in their own sport which just has a couple big louts as it's stars now.
- rascalscastles, on 10/29/2009, -0/+0Sumo Wrestling is a great sport.
We hire sumo wrestling suits out in Southampton, UK.
http://www.rascalscastles.co.uk/sumo.htm
see link above for more info and videos - ColinGreig, on 05/29/2009, -2/+2Anyone read chapter 1 of the book "Frekonomics" titled "What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common? "
http://freakonomicsbook.com/thebook/ch1.html
Interesting! - flyinguitar90, on 05/29/2009, -3/+2Question: How much prize money is awarded to the winner of a bout decided by forfeit?
(AskMen's baiting pisses me off)
Answer: None.
Although baseball is, to many people, as American as apple pie and fireworks on the Fourth of July, Japan has made a name for itself in the game, thanks, in part, to legends such as Sadaharu Oh. But the Japanese furor for baseball is superseded by the Pacific island nation’s love for its own creation, sumo wrestling.
This sport, in which extremely large men grapple with each other inside a ring, is part of a deep-rooted tradition in Japan. It’s also a huge business worth millions of yen to the wrestlers and those who train them.
Here, we’ll take a look at how the sport is organized, how much money sumo wrestlers are making, and what corporate sponsors are contributing.
Note: All amounts are in U.S. dollars.
Organization
The governing body of professional sumo wrestling is the Japan Sumo Association, also known as Nihon Sumo Kyokai. Wrestlers of other nationalities are welcome to compete, but professional competitions only take place in Japan.
Association members are former wrestlers and, as such, are the only people allowed to train new wrestlers. All wrestlers are part of a training stable; there are 54 stables in Sumo, for a total of nearly 700 wrestlers. The association provides stables with approximately $550 in monthly training payments for each wrestler who’s not in one of the top two divisions.
There’s plenty of incentive for masters to recruit and train winners: For sumo stables, the cash cows are yokozuna -- or grand champions -- who are worth about $3,000 every two months. Larger stables may receive total payouts that approach $1 million annually.
Salaries
Sumo wrestling is a strict, hierarchical meritocracy. In other words, competitors are promoted or demoted based solely on their performance. When entering sumo, wrestlers begin in the lowest of the sport’s six professional divisions with the intention to work their way up the ladder.
Only wrestlers in the top two divisions -- about 66 in total -- receive a salary, travel allowance and prize money. In the lower tiers, wrestlers basically beg for scraps and do chores in exchange for a very basic living allowance.
The base salary for a yokozuna is about $23,900 per month, while a wrestler in the second division typically makes about $8,700 a month. In 1993, grand champion Akebono earned about $800,000, which was more than triple his base salary.
Wrestlers don’t have a great deal of time to build their nest eggs since their careers typically end around the age of 30. At such time, wrestlers decide to either stay in the Association as an elder or give up their spot and find some other form of employment.
Sponsors
Big business provides the money that fuels the economies of many sports, and this fact certainly holds true in sumo. Many Japanese corporations sponsor individual top-division matches and contribute nearly $500. The wrestlers get around $250 per sponsor, with the tax man getting whatever is left over.
JCB -- a major player in the Japanese credit card industry with about 56 million card members, 13 million merchants and annual sales of about $56.5 billion -- is a cosponsor of Nihon Sumo Kyokai.
Ticket sales
Japanese Grand Sumo has six tournaments a year that run 15 days each. Three of these tournaments take place at the Sumo Hall in Tokyo, while the others are held in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.
In November 2006, the Japan Sumo Association held its tournament in Fukuoka where ringside and A-level box seats were listed as sold out for the last four days of the event. Ringside seats sold for about $120 each and a two-person, A-level box sold for more than $190. Arena seats were a relative bargain, selling for about $26 a piece.
Charges of corruption
With so much money involved, especially for the guys at the top of the sport, it may not surprise you that some people thought everything wasn’t on the up and up.
In 2000, a study on corruption and bout fixing looked at wrestlers who had 7-7 records going into the final day of a tournament. What had drawn suspicion was that about 70% of these heavyweights with .500 records won. However, the study did not find any solid evidence that corruption was taking place. In fact, in a 2006 tournament, six of the seven wrestlers with 7-7 marks lost on the final day and the lone winner gained his victory by default.
a heavyweight business
Even though it’s not clear whether corruption is indeed part of the sport, one thing remains clear: Sumo is a very big business for very big men.
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