Japan - V.League V1 (Division 1, Women) 2021-2022

    Quote from wargirls

    If you go to the Olympics website > Athletes > search for their names > Occupation:

    • listed as "Athlete": only Erika Araki for Hinotori Nippon + Yuki Ishikawa and Yuji Nishida for Ryujin Nippon (Ran Takahashi and Otsuka Tatsunori were listed as students because they're still in university; Taishi Onodera was still listed as an "Athlete, Office Worker");
    • listed as "Athlete, Office Worker": everyone else (for example: Yuki Ishii).

    However, I don't know if these are 100% accurate. Some of their social media links were not, for example :D


    When Taishi Onodera announced his "retirement from the business side" he said he's gonna become a "professional volleyball player" (same case as Ogawa - men's NT). So... everyone else is not officially a "professional volleyball player" yet?

    Not even close as far as I can tell


    On the far end of the spectrum (because I love name-dropping this team), think of the Yamanashi Central Bank Sporting Bears. They are just girls who got a job at a bank and play volleyball on the weekend. They play several tournaments a year. They might even get to play Saitama in the National sports Festival. Last year when V2 Champions Gunma Bank lost their Captain/setter to injury at the beginning of the season, they borrowed Yamanashi Central Bank Sporting Bears' setter and won the Championship again! Go Yamanashi Central Bank Sporting Bears :super:


    V2 teams like Chiba Angel Cross and Forest Leaves Kumamoto are girls on some pre-med journey to become health care workers and they get to play volleyball on the weekend. GSS Sunbeams do something and play volleyball on the weekend. I bet all those girls work 40 hours a week and get paid nothing for the volleyball (except maybe meals and transportation). I've read (google-translated, so ...) that they "work" for various hospitals and the like, and in return the hospital "sponsors" their volleyball team.


    Now consider Sarina Koga. What is her typical work day/work week like? She "works" for NEC whatever division. How many hours a week? 10? 20? 40? She plays volleyball after work at night and on the weekends. I really want to know if her paycheck comes from those labor hours or from some contract to play volleyball. I bet the former. In the summer time she has to walk around Kawasaki and pick up garbage. Who pays her for that? She has to hold volleyball classes and talk to elementary school kids.


    It's indentured servitude!


    All the players on those big corporate dual citizenship BCS hiring teams do that (except picking up garbage)


    The gray area teams, the teams that actually call themselves "professional" like Okayama, Himeji, (Kurobe? PFU?) are an unknown. They must do something to contribute to their teams bottom line. I know the NoSmilers do a lot of volleyball classes and community work.


    So when folks talk about Japan needing to train imaginary tall players in order to get better, I say: let the girls devote their lives to volleyball. This is the best reason I've heard for why a player would "go abroad". They don't have to do the data entry/labor/garbage pickup work abroad. They get paid to train and play volleyball


    "Abroad" players show up two weeks before the season starts, missing out on all the garbage picking up, don't have to do data entry/labor nonsense for a big corporate dual citizenship BCS hiring team, and get paid a salary equal to the combined salaries of all the players on the team they join


    But I'm not bitter about it

    Quote from sitenoise

    V2 teams like Chiba Angel Cross and Forest Leaves Kumamoto are girls on some pre-med journey to become health care workers and they get to play volleyball on the weekend. GSS Sunbeams do something and play volleyball on the weekend. I bet all those girls work 40 hours a week and get paid nothing for the volleyball (except maybe meals and transportation). I've read (google-translated, so ...) that they "work" for various hospitals and the like, and in return the hospital "sponsors" their volleyball team.


    (A bit off-topic because it’s a men’s team) Oita Miyoshi players (V1 men’s team) also work in the medical field. I read that they’re full-time medical workers (not sure if all of them are medical workers) and play volleyball in the evening.


    Much respect for all these players honestly 👏🏻

    Let's go back and explain the history of the Japanese team system for corporate volleyball teams, aka pre-original V.League, back to the Japan Volleyball League.


    At that time, teams in the top league were owned by businesses and players were employees of those businesses. Hence, back in the old days, players were not really considered professionals. They were paid as workers and possibly did work during the week, in addition to playing for the team.


    When the V.League was created in the 1990s, basically there was no difference in the way teams were set up, other than that teams would hire foreigners to play as "hired guns."


    When Toshiba stopped running the Seagulls in 1999, the team became the first non-company affiliated team in the league, essentially a professional women's team. Originally the team was based in Toyama, but eventually moved to its current home of Okayama in 2006.


    Sakai Blazers also became a professional club after their parent Nippon Steel, pulling funding in 2000.


    With the "Licensed" version of franchises with the most recent update of the V.League in 2018, in theory all teams can have professional players. Teams without corporate names, Victorina Himeji and Okayama Seagulls, Sakai Blazers and VC Nagano are really the only teams in the top level considered "professional." Many teams are still affiliated with their corporate parents, but the teams are being run professionally due to the licensing structure required with marketing, coaching and training staff. Wolfdogs Nagoya is still very much affiliated with Toyoda Gosei, but using the city name of Nagoya. Still the parent companies are willing to invest with Toray, Hisamitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Suntory and others. Those teams are very professional, but still corporate.


    As for Taishi Onodera, he is looking to possibly play overseas, so his announcement of that he is now a professional was a way to set up his team for next year (22-23) if he has left to play overseas. Also if JT could transfer him, while still under contract, his team would possibly get paid. Otherwise, they may not get anything in return if he has fulfilled his JT contract and being a free agent.

    Teams may be "professional"-ly run, ie., in order to get an S1 license their coach has to have gone through an accredited coaching school, and they may be required to employ a certain number of professionally trained staff members, and and? ... and then all the BS about having a community name and a Home Arena the team could fill with 3,000 people got thrown to the wayside.


    I assume, for example, that Ligare Sendai won't qualify for an S1 license until they find a Head Coach. I doubt Arisa Sato has been accredited as a 'professional' coach. Who knows what their staff is like


    But this still begs the questions of "Who pays the players"? and "What are they paid for"? Just because there is some criteria needed, and some fees to be paid to the JVL in order for a "team" to get a License 1,2, or 3 ... that doesn't trickle down onto the players being "professionals"


    There's this weird disconnect in my brain when a team is termed "professional" and the players clearly are not


    Professionals go practice and when they are done they post selfies from the beach in their bikinis and brag about who they are dating


    I do see how some players in the man version of our game could play "Club" volleyball overseas, and play with the Japan NT and be considered professional


    Who pays Sarina Koga to pick up garbage and engage school children? Maybe she does these things voluntarily for the good of the team (like Himeji and Okayama players do?) and the NEC Corporation reaps the benefits of her good will? Maybe it is written into her contract that she must do "various things the team decides are necessary?


    I would kill to see the contract Manami Mandai "signed" with SAGA, and compare it to the contract Foluke signs with them

    I will go back to the video of Yukiko Ebata after the 2010 World Championships. She is doing office work for Hitachi, and then playing on the weekend. Gamova isn’t doing that in Russia.


    Go about 5:13 in.

    Quote from brahmin

    I will go back to the video of Yukiko Ebata after the 2010 World Championships. She is doing office work for Hitachi, and then playing on the weekend. Gamova isn’t doing that in Russia.

    It's in Japanese :white:


    We know they do office work in some vague terms. I guess we'll never know the details


    How many hours a week does Sarina Koga do "office work"? 10? 20? 30? 40? Big difference

    Is the number of office work hours, or the amount she is paid for them (if she is paid for them) dependent on how good of a volleyball player she is?

    What if she is 3 hours late for office work every day for 3 months? Who disciplines her and what would that discipline be? Can't play volleyball? Fired from office work? then what?

    Does she have to take vacation/sick days to train with the NT or go to Belgium for a week in September to play in a Club World Championship or something?

    What if she doesn't want to pick up garbage?


    Japan is weird. I guess it's not really my business to know the details of someone else's employment though

    when you are playing with the national team, you probably had to get it approved by some boss of the volleyball group and then their bosses too. A little hard to do work when traveling to multiple countries in 3 or weeks.

    The team PR is kind of a given with any sports team. Charity events, etc.

    Professional in the word means you are really dedicated to only one thing. In the past, players would have a “second” job, which depending on their school work, whether have a college degree or only high school diploma, could determine where they were situated in the business. Many teams would have players work in the “easier” jobs, but this was back before you could have a “career woman,” who focused on their career before getting married and having kids. Even now female players in Japan are expected to retire after getting married.

    The reason for showing the videos is just to at least say, look at Ebata, literally wearing the standard manufacturing uniforms that everyone wears at that plant. I never saw something like this with Saori Kimura, Erika Araki or Takeshita. When Ebata choose to be a professional she left Hitachi and went to Cannes in France. Seeing how Yuma Sano and Saori went overseas they gave her advice.

    Even on her Wikipedia Page in Japanese it Shows that she passed the 3rd level of secretarial qualifications, which I did not know was a certificate in Japan, but does not surprise me given what she probably was doing.

    Baris Ogurlu who works for Turkish agency Shining Stars (Kulan's agency +Zehra Tugba Cansu O.) is still in Japan. I'm not sure how long he's been in Japan but he was already there way before Kulan came back. Could he be working on some sort of deal with V League?

    Quote from Phoenix

    Baris Ogurlu who works for Turkish agency Shining Stars (Kulan's agency +Zehra Tugba Cansu O.) is still in Japan. I'm not sure how long he's been in Japan but he was already there way before Kulan came back. Could he be working on some sort of deal with V League?

    All the teams have announced their foreign players right? PFU?


    Someone should help vleague with their shitty streaming :gone:

    Quote from Playmaker

    Someone should help vleague with their shitty streaming :gone:

    Maybe he is there to talk to them about moving things to volleyball world. Didn't the Turkish League do that?

    Quote from Playmaker

    The new V League book


    So is it Hayashi Mayu Koga + NT hopefuls? I thought PFU is pushing Valdes

    Shiori Aratani wins :rose:


    Don't think that Toyota setter is an NT hopeful :rolll:


    A few interesting choices. I think Nabeya is there because she is a popular veteran. Valdes could totally flop this year. It remains to be seen


    Even though there has been no evidence to support it, I still think-ish Nakagawa could become a respectable player. Maybe she went through her tweening years in a quiet way

    Quote from brahmin

    Ebata, literally wearing the standard manufacturing uniforms that everyone wears at that plant. I never saw something like this with Saori Kimura, Erika Araki or Takeshita.

    I'm suspicious of everything

    Himeji's mystery setter case is solved. It was Akari Bono from their farm team MaxValu. She's registered with Himeji now

    I kind of like this poster, and I get they are just showing the recent OG players who are in V.League this year, but some might see it as favoritizing


    "I want you to see the flames of my eyes and the powerful attack. "



    If Himeji handles this right, they may not win a lot of matches but they should be fun as heck

    I think many bottom 4 teams got better, except Toyota. Kelsie is going to have to carry a massive load.

    Denso will drop some, but above the bottom four.

    JT still look dominant and returning a ton of players. Toray might have a slight drop until Kurogo comes back from her break.

    Hitachi I think will improve with their youngsters having an extra year.