Tokyo Weekender - October 2017

Cup-winning striker Alessandro Del Piero to
Japan for a charity match to raise funds for
those affected by the 2011 earthquake, he
has spent his most of his career attempting
to import foreign football to Japan. Now his
main goal is to export the Japanese game to
the world.
"In terms of what's happening on
the pitch, great strides are being made
in Japanese football," Nakamura tells us.
"You see [Gaku] Shibasaki settling in Spain,
[Shinji] Kagawa regularly playing Champions
League football, multiple players in the
Bundesliga: there are plenty of good things
happening. I just feel that the business side
needs to catch up.
"Of course, the funds aren't there to be
able to compete with European leagues,
yet the J-League could be more creative in
terms of promoting its product globally.
Everything is run pretty well and things are
stable, but you see the press releases only in
Japanese, and I sometimes wonder if there is
any desire at all to have a presence outside
the country. I spoke to some clubs and had
casual conversations with the league about
the possibility of an international office,
but they didn't move. Fortunately, Kashima
Antlers did."
The most successful professional club in
Japanese history and current J-League champions,
Kashima, in cooperation with Blue
United Corporation, became the country’s
first team to set up an office overseas when
they opened in New York earlier this year.
International interest in the Ibaraki-based
side has risen over the past few months after
reaching the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup final
and then taking the mighty Real Madrid to
extra time. They’re now looking to build
on that success by making a splash beyond
these shores.
"Kashima are a club with an understanding
of what it means to go global," says
Nakamura. "They're one of three sides in the
country with an English-language Twitter
account and have staff in their office who've
worked abroad. They've stepped into the digital
age and are prepared to learn from the
marketing strategies of clubs in other countries.
Added to all that, their profile was at
THE REALITY HIT HOME ONE DAY WHEN HE WAS
CRUSHED AGAINST A WINDOW ON A CROWDED TRAIN
AND SAW A NEWSPAPER FEATURING ICHIRO SUZUKI
AND HIDETOSHI NAKATA
an all-time high because of the performance
against Madrid, so the timing was perfect."
It was a fantastic opportunity for Blue
United as well, who are helping Kashima
with their digital planning and selling sponsorship
for them outside of Japan. They’re
also working with various footballers, eSports
players and four other J-League teams on
a variety of projects including scouting in
the US and arranging youth competitions.
Right now, the business is purely focused on
consulting, but in the near future Nakamura
wants the organization to be more than
just a middle man and to own something
concrete. Reviving an international club
tournament involving Asian, North American
and Oceanic teams is his immediate
goal. He came up with the idea during his
university days and the concept became a
reality in 2008. The inaugural competition
of the Pan Pacific Championship, as it was
known, featured LA Galaxy and their star
performer, David Beckham.
“That was quite a boost in terms of
promotion,” Nakamura says with a smile.
“Seeing the crowds and media coverage
it attracted was very exciting for me as it
was basically just an idea I'd written about
for my master's thesis three years earlier.
I felt that it would give Japanese players,
who only played domestically, a chance to
test themselves against footballers from
outside of Asia. Hawaii seemed like the best
destination to host it as it's situated between
the different continents. Locals there rarely
got to see big football tournaments so that
was a plus point and of course, the fantastic
weather was another factor. It did well, but
was moved to Los Angeles a year later.
"The tournament returned to Hawaii
in 2012 and we want to bring it back there
again this coming February. Another of
our objectives is to launch a soccer school
in New York. I think owning what I call
'properties' gives a company more of an
established feel and that can help us when
negotiating with prospective clients. Ultimately
our goal is to make a big impression
internationally.”
A man with lofty ambitions, Nakamura
believes he can help to transform the
game in Japan. He started out working as a
businessman for NEC, yet while the job was
stable, meetings about optical fiber cables
didn't particularly captivate him. The reality
hit home one day when he was crushed
against a window on a crowded train and
saw a newspaper featuring baseball star
Ichiro Suzuki and leading Asian footballer
Hidetoshi Nakata. The latter was just 24, yet
had already achieved so much doing something
he loved, while Nakamura, who was
the same age, had simply been surviving in
an industry he cared little for.
The likelihood of making it as an athlete
had passed, but Nakamura could at least
pursue his passion of football through
business. In 2004, he decided to move to the
States, where he also grew up, to do a master’s
in Sports Management at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst. After graduating
he worked as an intern for the MLS before
persuading Arsenal’s current chief executive,
Ivan Gazidis, and the general manager
of Chicago Fire, Nelson Rodriguez, to give
him a full-time job there. Over a decade on
and Nakamura has now established himself
as a key figure in both US and Japanese
football. He believes it’s important that they
keep learning from each other as there are
many similarities between the leagues in the
two countries.
“Both the North American Soccer League
(1968-84) and the J-League ran into trouble
because they invested everything in big
names and hoped that would be enough,”
says Nakamura. “A coffee shop isn’t going
thrive just because it has the best beans. You
need to first lay the foundations. I think now
when you look at football in America and Japan
you can see that many clubs have done
that. They both have fairly strong domestic
divisions; however, Japan has room to grow
in terms of its global strategy. That’s something
that we at Blue United are determined
to help improve.”
To find out more about Blue United, visit
www.blueutd.com/en.
TOKYO WEEKENDER | OCTOBER 2017 | 31