Welcome back! Hopefully you have all sobered up from your senshuraku parties by now. Jungyo will kick off this upcoming weekend in Gifu city, an hour drive north of the venue in Nagoya. But before we focus on the tour this weekend, let’s cover a few items from earlier this week.
Juryo Promotions and Retirements
On Tuesday, the Sumo Association announced the three wrestlers who earned promotion to Juryo. Two will make their sekitori debuts (shin-juryo): Tanji (Arashio) and Tokifudo (Tokitsukaze). Nabatame (Futagoyama) will return after over a year.
Daishomaru’s retirement was the biggest announcement coming out of Nagoya. Subsequently, four more retirements have been announced: Tatsuosho, Asashorei, Nishikio and Asahirai.
Ticket Price Increases
Today, the Sumo Association announced wide-ranging price increases for tickets to tournaments in Tokyo and Osaka. Nagoya and Kyushu ticket prices are unchanged. The new pricing plan is here. For those of you who live in areas where public transit has “peak” or rush-hour pricing, you won’t be shocked that the Sumo Association has additional price rises for Day 14 and Senshuraku. And in Tokyo, they’re offering a new SS-tier seating arrangement, starting at 22,500-yen/person and going up to 24,000 on weekends and holidays and 25,000 during the final weekend.
Even if this price increase is not done in an official way, those of you who actually go to the tournaments are probably already paying higher prices on the secondary markets. For many of us foreigners, those secondary markets and resellers have been the only way in, anyway. Now, the official price is going up and the resellers will likely have to pass on the cost to their customers.
For most goods, when the demand suddenly increases the demand curve shifts outward. Prices go up but suppliers are encouraged to produce more. This moderates some of the price rise. In the FIFA world, the stadiums get bigger and the World Cup tournament expands to include more teams and more games. More fans are served. From what we’ve heard of Nagoya, the new seating arrangement for the new IG Arena does have a modest increase in the number of seats but not as much as would be possible. The Kyokai wants to maintain quality of viewing the action.
So, unfortunately for the sumo world the supply is relatively fixed. We cannot get more than 6 tournaments a year and these venues are not going to be expanded soon. We can get new products to try to satisfy that hankering for sumo action, like new Jungyo events (even in London and Paris) but we won’t get any new tournaments. Let’s face it, they’ve already expanded the calendar with the Kyushu tournament added back in 1958, I think. I’m too lazy to check SumoDB at the moment. Suffice to say it was a long time ago that they went to a six-basho calendar. If that changes I will eat Shonosuke’s fancy hat.
Yusho Prize Increases
The good news of the sumo boom is that the Sumo Association also announced substantial increases to the yusho purse and special prizes awarded at honbasho. Those increases will also start at Hatsu Basho 2027. The Top Division (Makuuchi) title purse will go up from 10,000,000 yen to 20,000,000 (*updated) — or roughly $124,618. Special Prizes increased from 2 Million to 3 Million. Yusho values below:
| Division | Current | Future |
| Makuuchi | 10 Million | 20 Million |
| Juryo | 2 Million | 3 Million |
| Makushita | 500,000 | 700,000 |
| Sandanme | 300,000 | 500,000 |
| Jonidan | 200,000 | 300,000 |
| Jonokuchi | 100,000 | 200,000 |
The calendar is pretty full over the next month. August 31st the Aki banzuke will be released. I hope to give a few more updates about Jungyo before then.
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Great post, thanks.
Is that a lot of money for the wrestlers? It’s difficult for me to put the sums in perspective.
Here‘s a bit of additional news:
There will be nine absences from the summer tour, among them Hoshoryu, Wakatakakage, Takayasu, Wakanosho and Shishi (left shoulder rotator cuff injury, anterior tooth subluxation), but neither Onosato, nor Aonishiki, which, at least in the latter case, from my very far away point of view seems to be a possibly dangerous mistake.
So, going from your post below, a yusho win is very roughly (depending on rank) about a year’s salary worth..
Yes, a yusho is quite a thing, financially too. What about the jun yusho? Is it a winner takes it all situation? Then to lose a playoff would be twice as hard.
But what I meant with my missing perspective is how expensive is life in Japan and how much earns an average Japanese? Are successful sekitori becoming rich?
Herbern, coming with the great questions that absolutely got my synapses firing this morning. Expect a post on this. It should be something which might interest @hochiyama, too. I’ve got two words: rikishi Gini.
I know opinions on Chris Sumo Youtube channel are differing, but I remember frequent reports on rikishi‘s top salary and income. It‘s probably not as much as in soccer but you can afford kind of luxury on it.
Looking forward to the post. But, yeah, their salary is light-years away from US baseball or basketball, and from European soccer salaries. I think MLS salaries are quite a bit higher, too. Put it this way – the reason rikishi often open restaurants after retiring isn’t because that has always been their dream. At the top its a decent salary, and I don’t know what sponsorship earnings add, but I don’t imagine there are many rikishi who could retire and live comfortably just off their sumo earnings..
There is no official prize money or formal trophy awarded by the Japan Sumo Association for a jun-yusho (runner-up) finish in the top Makuuchi division.
As I feared for Atamifuji and many others. Thanks.
I wouldn’t be too worried about that. I think that role is usually filled by a special prize. When it’s not, it seems the jun-yusho is claimed by an Ozeki or Yokozuna…or usually 11-wins. Usually 12 wins locks in the special prize for a maegashira. Exceptions look like Asanoyama in 2023, fresh off his suspension and Miyabiyama (another former Ozeki).
Interesting.
I‘ve checked the last five years and only 7 of the 39 jun-jusho rikishi below ozeki didn’t get a special prize. Five of them fighted from outside the joi. Only Daieisho as M1 with an 11-4 record and Kirishima as sekiwake with even a 12-3 went empty-handed.
„On July 30, 2026, the Japan Sumo Association held a board meeting at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo and announced a revision to wrestler salaries and allowances, effective from the Hatsu Basho in January 2027. Monthly salaries will be increased by approximately 10%. Yokozuna pay will change from the current 3 million yen to 3.3 million yen, Ozeki from 2.5 million yen to 2.75 million yen, and San’yaku from 1.8 million yen to 2 million yen. This is the first revision to Sekitori salaries in 8 years since 2019. Allowances for training-division wrestlers (Makushita and below) will also be increased by 6% to 9%, along with boosts to win bonuses and kachikoshi bonuses.“ (Nikkan Sports)
That’s a good bump.
Nice to see Tokifudo up – he was a big kid who somewhat incredibly reached Makushita as a 16 year old when he was fighting under his real name Yoshii, but was stuck in the division for 6 years. Bit of a shame as it would have been cool to see a 17 or 18 year old sekitori superstar.
A bit disappointed with the price increases for Tokyo and Osaka since those are the tournaments I most like to attend and tickets are difficult to come by as it is, but I understand and also agree the rikishi should be earning more.
It’s getting to be almost impossible for overseas fans to get tickets for the sumo. My wife and I last got tickets to Kyushu in 2023. We have tried Osaka and Nagoya since. I wonder if the Fukuoka basho could use the ambiance of the area outside the venue with its food stalls and drinks – and the close access to see the rikishi arriving – to set up big screens and move the fun and excitement outside.
I tired getting box seats for 2026.01; Since I am US based I had to use the official foreigner website. I tried and tried continuously and was not able to get a connection (typical high traffic message) until about 20 minutes after the sale opened. At that point all the box seats were conveniently sold out.
Exactly my experience too. I assume resellers are buying up many of the tickets to sell at highly inflated prices.
Interesting – didn’t know special prizes are more than 10% of the yusho prize. There’s a discrepancy between the table and text for yusho prize money – presumably its 10 => 20 million yen like the table says. Is kensho also changing?
Double yusho prize will burn sanyaku faster
Thank you for catching that. Yes, the table is correct. I got lost in the zeros. I’ll update when I have a chance.
Exactly my experience too. I assume resellers are buying up many of the tickets to sell at highly inflated prices.
Ditto..
I am hoping to attend the Aki Basho during my visit to Tokyo in September. Would I have a better chance of buying tickets online next week if I use the Japanese language purchase link rather than the English one?
My recollection (perhaps not correct) is that the Japanese link requires an address in Japan. That’s why I ended up using the English one. Based on my experience last time (not getting tickets), I may use one of the resellers to try to get Osaka tickets for March. Others with better knowledge/experience can hopefully advise us both.
That’s my recollection as well. I think they needed a phone number in Japan, too. Or that may have been Jungyo tickets. Picked them up at 7-11.
You can get a mailing address via a mail forwarding service for free that works for the paid tier fan club and the pia ticket sumo site.
The Japanese site runs on the same infrastructure as the English site, so it times out all the time too.
The biggest issue for overseas folks is that they added phone number verification last August where you have to have a Japanese phone number to enter/update payment information on the pia ticket site. It puts up a phone number you need to call within 5 minutes from the Japanese phone number listed on your account. I purchased an e-sim which included a Japanese phone number when I went in November last year so I could continue to try and get tickets via the fan club advance lottery.
At the same time as they added the phone number verification last year they also significantly reduced the number of dates/types of seats you could apply for in the advance lotteries. It used to be 7 choices for each of the categories: QR code Box seat, Paper ticket box seat (7-11 pickup), QR chair, paper chair. It is now down to I think 3 per?
The phone verification was described as being to cut down on people using multiple accounts to buy tons of tickets from the advance lottery and then resell them on so that more people actually wanting to attend could get a ticket. Anecdotally it worked for me as I snagged a box for day 14 in January and a chair seat for day 2 in March via the fan club advance lottery.
The first few times I went to sumo starting in 2023 I purchased tickets via the “worst e-commerce website in the world” aka the sumo ticket site but with the tourism boom that is basically impossible for the last couple years for Tokyo events so I have had to pay a premium to purchase a ticket via JTB. Though the tickets are more expensive, if you have someone with you who is new to sumo it is a nice experience because the guides do a good job of explaining the basics as well as being there to answer questions. You also get a “free” random cheering towel and a snack :)
Any experience with BuySumoTickets?
I tried accessing the ticket site at 1000 JST, and it was jammed until about 1120. I finally got in with access to some C-tier seats, but the English language site wouldn’t process my telephone number – I tried it in all USA formats and told it I was purchasing from USA.
Looks like my next option is a tour operator, resale, or hotel concierge. The JTB guided packages appear to be already sold out on my dates. Any guidance for secondhand ticket access would be appreciated!
I saw that BST isn’t even taking more orders. It’s a challenge. Konishiki has been doing VIP tours at past tournaments. I wonder if he will have anything available.
It looks like Konishiki will be there during Aki. He’s advertising a popup outside Kokugikan running the length of the tournament from 10:30am – 7pm. I’d keep eyes open for his VIP tours but maybe he couldn’t get a tranche of tickets? https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db4xkUrxkpO/?igsh=N2hncmNuYWtxeW9j
Andy, what would be the Promotion/Demotion scenario for Makuchi & Juryo?
Does Mitakeumi has any chance? As there are 3 confirm demotion behind him.
Also can you give an overview on how Sanyaku might look like in Next Banzuke?
It looks like there will be 3 open slots and there will be good shuffle in the Joi and Sanyaku.
I’m excited to see how many of the brother pairs end up side-by-side in the banzuke!
Fun question!
There are six brothers, six Isegahama rikishi and four Takasago in makuuchi if I used my fingers well to count them.
In the guess that I sent to GTB not one pair occupies the same rank, though there is nobody between the Ishizaki brothers plus between Takerufuji and Nishikifuji.
I was relaxing my criterion a bit by not requiring same rank to count as side-by-side. I have all three in Makuuchi, although only 1 pair at the same rank, but I suspect I’m misplacing Wakatakakage (well, misplacing all of them no doubt, but him the most egregiously)..
I have Daiseizan, Kazuma, Onokatsu & Mitakeumi going down, and Asasuiryu, Tokihayate, Toshinofuji & Shonannoumi coming up.
My guess is that Mitakeumi ends up at approx J4W.
I have the demarcation as Wakanosho (saved by the skin of his teeth) at M17E & Dewanoryu (no room at the inn) at J1E.
So they have increased prices for something that basically wasn’t possible to buy anyway… I guess I can tell my wife that I am now saving even more money when Ticket Pia crashes and all the tickets are gone when it comes back online… :D