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.
Kurohimeyama Hideo Kurohimeyama Hideo Kurohimeyama Hideo (born 12 November 1948 as Hideo Tanaka) is a former sumo wrestler from Ōmi, Niigata, Japan. He made his professional debut in March 1964, and first reached the top division in July 1969. After he was re-promoted to the top division in November 1969 he fought there for 71 consecutive tournaments and 1065 matches, never missing a single bout. His highest rank was "sekiwake". He retired in January 1982 and became an elder in the Japan Sumo Association. He worked as a coach at Tatsunami stable, and his two sons were both wrestlers there under the