As it bids to become the world’s most competitive and popular volleyball league by 2030, Japan’s rebranded SV.League is gradually lifting foreign player quotas originally intended to nurture local talent, but which its leadership now considers counterproductive in the long term.
It has raised the number of non-Asian foreign players allowed on the court at a time to two, in addition to one non-Japanese Asian player, and plans to increase it further to three plus one from the 2027-2028 season.
In its previous iteration as the V.League, it allowed only one player at a time from powerhouses such as Brazil, Italy, Poland and the United States.
Suntory Sunbirds Osaka (red) and Osaka Bluteon (blue) players line up before their SV.League volleyball season-opening match at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Oct. 11, 2024. (Kyodo)
Masaaki Okawa, chairman of Japanese volleyball’s SV.League, gives an interview in Tokyo on Oct. 24, 2024. (Kyodo)
“The NBA and MLB have no quota for foreign players, and that is our ultimate goal,” SV.League Chairman Masaaki Okawa said in a recent interview with Kyodo News. “Teams will never get stronger if you try to secure opportunities for Japanese. That’s for sure.”
“We all know Japan wants to get a medal on the international stage, and ideally gold, right? To do so, Japanese players have to earn themselves regular positions, no matter how many great players come from other countries.”
The SV.League aims to attract more of the world’s best players than the Italian men’s and women’s leagues, currently considered the best in the world, or Turkey, which shares the No. 1 mantle for women.
“The top of the world means that we’ll have more than any other league in every category, from the number of international stars to revenue, attendance and information,” Okawa said. “If so, world-famous head coaches and agents might come over as well.”
“I have an idea of how much we need to improve key performance indicators to catch up with the Italian Serie A. Many of the greatest players in men’s volleyball are already in Japan — in their prime, not past their peak, so the world is paying attention to our league.”
The SV.League launched its inaugural season on Oct. 11 with the men’s opener between Osaka Bluteon and Suntory Sunbirds Osaka featuring Yuji Nishida and Ran Takahashi, two of the biggest stars on Japan’s national team.
Suntory Sunbirds Osaka’s Ran Takahashi (facing camera) spikes the ball against Osaka Bluteon during the second set of their SV.League volleyball match at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Oct. 11, 2024. (Kyodo)
Japanese ace Yuki Ishikawa is playing for Italy’s Perugia.
In a post-match interview after his Bluteon’s straight-sets victory, Nishida thanked a crowd of 6,513 at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium and urged the media to cover not only the familiar faces but all teams of the league.
The league’s reform-minded chairman, who has served as a senior official of both football’s J-League and basketball’s B-League, echoed the sentiment.
“It’s good to have some big clubs, but we also need ambitious teams looking to step into title contention, such as Tokyo Great Bears,” Okawa said.
“Volleyball has a strong fan base in Japan. I hope to see more teams in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures such as Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama will rise to the occasion for the growth of the league.”
The popularity of SV.League players, especially Takahashi and Nishida, has spread to Southeast Asian nations such as Thailand and the Philippines, with the help of Japanese volleyball manga Haikyu!!
The league has a Thai-language Instagram account that already has a similar number of followers as the Japanese account despite the relative infancy of the league, Okawa said.
The SV.League has started out with 10 teams for men and 14 teams for women.
Asked if he considers an expansion in the future, Okawa said he believes 10 to 12 teams are appropriate in each of the men’s and women’s competitions if it wants to maintain premium status.
Saitama Ageo Medics’ Hiroyo Yamanaka (2nd from L) spikes the ball against NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki during the first set of their SV.League volleyball match at Todoroki Arena in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Oct. 12, 2024. (Kyodo)
The 66-year-old former banker added that there should still be the promotion-relegation playoffs between the SV.League and the now second-tier V.League to keep the entire structure healthy.
“We have a chance to be the world’s No. 1 volleyball league at a time when Japan is losing ground in a wide range of areas, such as gross domestic product. That’s why we want to give it a shot,” he said.
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International players to watch in SV.League (teams in alphabetical order)
Jtekt Stings Aichi: Ricardo Lucarelli (Brazil), Torey Defalco (United States)
Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers: Luciano Palonsky (Argentina)
Osaka Bluteon: Thomas Jaeschke (United States)
Suntory Sunbirds Osaka: Aleksander Sliwka (Poland)
Tokyo Great Bears: Maciej Muzaj (Poland)
Toray Arrows Shizuoka: Alan Souza (Brazil), Francesco Recine (Italy)
Wolfdogs Nagoya: Nimir Abdel-Aziz (Netherlands), Tine Urnaut (Slovenia)
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==Kyodo