Tokyo based sporting teams form alliance to develop Olympic Games legacy

An alliance of 14 Tokyo-based sporting teams and organisations has been formed to enhance the marketing power and appeal of the city’s teams and venues.

Nearly one year on from the Tokyo Olympics, the ‘Tokyo Unite’ partnership aims to bring together the sporting partners to share knowledge and experience of how to market the city’s stadia and arenas, as well as their brands, with the aim of boosting fan followings, supporting social issues and increasing sports participation in and around Japan’s capital city.

Launched last week by Kitajima Kosuke, the double-double Olympic breaststroke champion in 2004 and 2008, the group underpinning Tokyo Unite includes Tokyo Yakult Swallows and Yomiuri Giants (the country's most popular sports team) from baseball, FC Tokyo, FC Machida Zelvia and Tokyo Verdy from men’s football and Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza from women’s football.

Rugby union - one of the country’s growing sports after Japan staged the 2019 Rugby World Cup - is also represented by a trio of clubs: Tokyo Santory Sungoliath, Ricoh Black Rams Tokyo and Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo.

Other participants, drawn from seven sports, include basketball teams Sunrockers Shibuya and Alvark Tokyo, Tokyo Frog Kings from swimming, Kinoshita Meister Tokyo from table tennis and Nihon Sumo Kyokai from sumo wrestling.

Shigeya Kawagishi, Managing Director of Tokyo Football Club, which operates the J-League Division 1 team FC Tokyo, advised “we are really proud that FC Tokyo can participate in Tokyo Unite activities, while at the same time acknowledging the responsibility it brings.

“By overcoming the boundaries separating each individual sport team and group in Tokyo, and joining together in cooperation, we can achieve things that we would never have been able to individually.

“I truly believe that the power of sport will, more than ever before, bring colour to peoples’ lives, and contribute to finding solutions to social issues. I also believe that Tokyo Unite will help to revitalise Tokyo, and even Japan, after the havoc of the COVID pandemic.”

With the full backing of the national and metropolitan governments, Tokyo Unite’s fundamental goals are to make Tokyo an even more attractive year-around hub for domestic and global sports, by tearing down the wall between sports through cross promotion and engagement.

Tokyo Unite will aim to follow up and build on the core values of Tokyo 2020 such as diversity/inclusion and sustainability, to carry out and help realise the legacy of the Games.

Only eight of Tokyo’s 42 venues for the Games were new and permanent, with the rest being existing or temporary.