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.
Asahi (baseball team) Asahi (baseball team) The Asahi were a Japanese-Canadian baseball team established in 1914. The team went on to great success, particularly in the 1930s, winning numerous tournaments and championships. The team was based in Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park, in the city's Japantown. Matsujiro Miyazaki, a Powell Street shop owner, was the Asahis' first coach and manager. The Asahi Baseball Team won the Pacific Northwest Championship five years in a row. The team was disbanded when its members were dispersed across Canada due to the Japanese-Canadian internment during World War II. The team was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame