Nippon Professional Baseball merged with the Orix BlueWave and were replaced by the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Until 1993, baseball was the only team sport played professionally in Japan. In that year, the J.League professional soccer league was founded. The new soccer league placed teams in prefectural capitals around the country—rather than clustering them in and around Tokyo—and the teams were named after their locations rather than after corporate sponsors. The wave of players moving to Major League Baseball, which began with Hideo Nomo "retiring" from the Kintetsu Buffaloes, then signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers, has also added to the financial problems.
World Series Baseball Starring Deion Sanders World Series Baseball Starring Deion Sanders World Series Baseball starring Deion Sanders is a baseball video game for the Sega 32X. North American releases feature Deion Sanders, and Japanese releases feature Hideo Nomo. 野茂 英雄ワールドシリーズベースボール The game features a full MLBPA license, which allows it to have real-life players and teams. There are three game modes: exhibition, full season, and playoff. Unlike its Genesis counterparts, this game had updated rosters for the then-current baseball season. On release, the game was scored a 29 out of 40 by a panel of four reviewers at "Famicom Tsūshin". "Next Generation" reviewed the 32X