2011-08-21

National High School Championship Attracted 840,000 Spectators

NISHINOMIYA、Hyogo Prefecture -- Tokyo's Nichidai No.3 routed Kosei Gakuin of Aomori Prefecture 11-0 in the final of the national high school baseball championship on August 20, to become the top of 4,014 participating teams across the country from the regional preliminaries.

The final game saw another capacity crowd of 47,000 making the aggregate total attendant of 840,000 for the 15 day tournament at the Hanshin Koshien Stadium, compared to 890,000 of the 90th Championship which lasted for 17 days.

To save household electricity usage of TV, broadcast nationwide, the final game started at 9:30 a.m. instead in the afternoon to avoid peak power consumption around noontime on Saturdays. By starting the previous first games at 8:00 instead of customary 8:30 a.m., games under floodlight were reduced to the total of 4:34 hours, about 1/3 of the previous year.

The Japan’s High School All Star team will participate in the 9th Asian Baseball Championship of 8 countries/regions in Kanagawa Prefecture to start on August 27.