Recently, there has been constant news in the Japanese football world. In the early morning of the 21st, Sports News said that FC Tokyo, which is about to change its boss, has officially issued an invitation to former Arsenal coach Wenger , hoping to hire the famous coach to serve as the team's consultant next season. This is also the first step to change the team after Japanese domestic IT giant mixi GROUP became the major shareholder of the team.
FC Tokyo was originally a "citizen team" with more than 300 shareholders, but mixi decided to acquire other shares in the hands of shareholders, become the team's major shareholder, and obtain the operating rights, which will change the current situation of the team. In recent years, IT companies in Japan's professional sports have gradually become a new force, and this capital team does not want to live a mediocre life anymore.
FC Tokyo was originally a corporate team under Tokyo Gas before the professionalization of Japanese football. In 1998, 161 groups including Tokyo Gas invested in the establishment of "Tokyo Football Club Co., Ltd.", and since then he bid farewell to the identity of the corporate team. After more than 20 years of development, the team currently has 371 shareholders, large and small, while Tokyo Gas has the right to operate. However, the team's economic situation in recent years has not been very ideal. As a Japanese domestic IT giant, mixi has become the team's main shareholder since 2018 and has started to sponsor the team's jerseys in 2019 (FC Tokyo jersey chest advertising is Mixi's ace studio XFLAG). The annual sponsorship fee exceeds 500 million yen (equivalent to RMB 28 million). In other words, mixi has been the actual big funder of this team in the past few years.
mixi is eager to make a difference in professional sports. Due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, FC Tokyo's financial situation has become even tighter, which makes mixi no longer hesitate and decides to acquire shares among the other shareholders, expand its equity to more than 50%, become a real major shareholder, and obtain operating rights. As a capital team, FC Tokyo's performance is not outstanding in the history of J League . They have been hovering in the middle of the league for a long time, and occasionally can play in the AFC Champions League zone, and have never won the top league championship.
so far, they have only won the League Cup championships in the 2004, 2009 and 2020 seasons, and the 2011 Emperor Cup championship. It is worth mentioning that 2011 is the most memorable year in the club's history, because they not only won the title of Kings in the Emperor Cup, but also won the J2 championship and successfully upgraded to J1. However, as the only top league team in Tokyo, FC Tokyo's performance is obviously seriously mismatched by this international metropolis, .
However, mixi still took a fancy to the business opportunities of this treasure land in Tokyo. They are eager to quickly expand their development direction through professional football club . Although mixi has a considerable influence in Japan, its involvement is slightly narrow. At present, the company's biggest business is to make mobile games, and such companies lack sufficient stability and stability. So, since 2018, the company has decided to "open up a second battlefield", and they have taken a fancy to professional sports events. In addition to FC Tokyo, the company also sponsors the Chiba Jets of the Basketball B League, as well as the veteran professional baseball team, Yakka Swallows.
In the professional sports field, the first step that mixi took is to acquire the basketball team Chiba Jets. They not only spent huge sums of money to attract outstanding players to join, but also built a new stadium. These are all driven with real money and achieved results - the Jets won the B League championship in the 2020-2021 season. However, basketball's influence in Japan cannot match baseball and football, so Mixi has more ideas in professional sports. They even hope to snatch the swallows from Yakka and form a "big club" with FC Tokyo, and take over the future commercial development projects of Yoyogi Park and Shrine Stadium. However, this ideal is not practical at present. On the one hand, it is because there are many insurmountable barriers to access and acquisition of baseball teams. On the other hand, it is because of the sudden arrival of the new crown epidemic that Mixi realizes that the opportunity to acquire FC Tokyo will no longer be lost, so they decided to make achievements in the football field now.
With the Internet war, more and more IT companies are getting bigger, and many companies in Japan hope to get a share of professional sports. Among the 12 teams in the professional baseball team, there are currently Fukuoka SoftBank Eagles sponsored by SoftBank , Tohoku Golden Eagles sponsored by Lotte , and Yokohama Bay Star Team sponsored by DeNA. As the largest e-commerce company in Japan, Lotte Chairman Mikitani Hiroshi also extended his hand to La Liga giants Barcelona, as well as J League team Kobe Victory Ship , and even invited top international superstars like Iniesta . Before this, Cyber Agent, a large advertising media company in J League, acquired low-level league FC Machida (80% of equity), and the large second-hand shopping website mercari is already the major shareholder of Kashima Antlers (61.6% of equity).
As an Internet company, getting enough exposure is the first priority. Acquiring professional sports clubs is undoubtedly very cost-effective, which is equivalent to advertising the company all the time. Looking at the past few years, Mixi really wants to allow the old FC Tokyo team to be able to have new wines in old bottles. Regardless of whether Wenger is successful or not, they have sparked heated discussions in Japanese football.
text/Bumps-Zhang Yangyuan
