<h2>The Reason for the &#8220;Bans</h2>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The Mainichi Shimbun and other media reported that Fuji TV has been effectively &#8220;banned&#8221; from Game 1 of this year&#8217;s Japan Series, in which SoftBank and DeNA are engaged in a fierce battle.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">A sports director at a Tokyo-based TV station spoke in a hushed voice.</p>
<figure id="attachment_397350" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1081px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-397350"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="193b4f2e"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/ce1217435bc7d290a72577940ddeadcc.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-397350" class="wp-caption-text">Flowers presented to the stadium by various broadcasters. Fuji TV&#8217;s name was missing.</figcaption></figure>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> At the practice session held on the day before the Japan Series on the 25th, Fuji TV&#8217;s reporters and camera crews covering the DeNA baseball team were covering the game as usual, so there was a lot of confusion at the scene. The scene was quite tense.</span></p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> When we asked Fuji officials what was really going on, they told us, &#8220;The NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball), which is in charge of managing and covering the Japan Series, asked us to return our Japan Series coverage passes. Without the pass, we will not be able to cover up to seven games of the Japan Series in the stadium.</span></p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Why was Fuji Television, which specializes in sports coverage, unable to enter the stage where this year&#8217;s professional baseball games were to be concluded? It is said that the broadcast of the U.S. Major League Baseball World Series, which began on the same day, had a major influence on the situation. A Fuji Television insider said, &#8220;This year&#8217;s World Series will be broadcast live from the home of Sho Ohtani.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> This year&#8217;s World Series attracted the world&#8217;s attention with the Dodgers, with Shohei Ohtani (30) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (26), and the Yankees, a prestigious team. Therefore, Fuji Television officially acquired the broadcasting rights. It decided to broadcast all games live, and also exercised its rebroadcasting rights to replay the games on terrestrial broadcasting. However, the NPB must have been dissatisfied with this.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;">Because the World Series is played in the evening local time, due to the time difference, the live broadcast in Japan starts around 9:00 a.m. The NPB thought this would interfere with the Japan Series. It is hard to imagine that this would interfere with the Japan Series. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent">The World Series broadcasts themselves are fine, but Fuji&#8217;s replay of Games 1 and 2 was broadcast at 7 p.m. to make it easier for viewers to watch. However, Fuji&#8217;s replay of the first and second games was broadcast at 7:00 p.m. to make it easier for viewers to watch. That was a bad idea. In any case, TBS was broadcasting the first and second games of the Japan Series right behind the Fuji broadcast. Fuji Television, considering the current popularity of Otani, challenged TBS with the same baseball content.</span></p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> From the NPB&#8217;s point of view, the Japan Series, the most popular content, must have felt eclipsed by the popularity of Otani. It is not surprising that the NPB executives felt &#8220;humiliated. It is said that the decision to ban Fuji TV from the Japan Series was made in retaliation.</span><span class="strongInContent"> The sports director mentioned above said, &#8220;It&#8217;s true that the ban was made in the name of the president of Fuji Television.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_397417" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1108px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-397417"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="6a291bf5"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/10/5583ed01a2e2955017990e3f01bec4cd-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-397417" class="wp-caption-text">Indeed, two flowers, one in the name of the president of Fuji Television Network and the other in the name of the chairman of the Fuji Sankei Group, are isolated.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>There is a fear that this may affect the next season.</h2>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The media, having angered the NPB, will be faced with a tricky problem.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> Each year, the NPB issues a press pass to the staff in charge of baseball at each media organization, which allows them to enter all games hosted by the 12 teams of the Central League and the Pacific League without having to go through the necessary procedures in advance. If that were taken away, they would have to make sure to apply to each team for coverage each time, which would make the procedure quite complicated. Apparently, the anger of NPB executives is considerable this time around, and the possibility of suspending the issuance of passes for coverage during the regular season next year has surfaced. Fuji TV is most afraid of this, and is busy persuading the NPB to take action.</span></p>
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<p>The third game on October 29 was televised by Fuji Television as scheduled because Fuji Television had originally acquired the broadcasting rights. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> Before the game, the head of Fuji Television&#8217;s programming department flew all the way from Tokyo to apologize to the sponsors and NPB officials. Even so, the apology was not completely accepted, and for the time being, the players will be penalized by having their passes confiscated, etc.&#8221; (Sports newspaper reporter covering the scene)</span></p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">As is customary, congratulatory flowers such as orchids are delivered from sponsors and TV stations to the stadium where the Japan Series is held, but there was something &#8220;unusual&#8221; about Fuji Television&#8217;s flowers.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><span class="strongInContent"> The entrance to the stadium was marked with flowers sent by NTV, TV Asahi, TBS, and other TV stations in Fukuoka under the names of their presidents, but only the Fuji TV flowers were missing. It seemed that the flowers had been &#8220;removed&#8221; from the entrance and quietly moved to another location where they would not be seen by the public. Perhaps the Fuji staff became impatient with this, and on the 29th, they hurriedly moved the</span><span class="strongInContent"> Fuji officials, perhaps impatient with this, hurriedly sent an additional orchid under the name of Hieda Hisashi (86), the general manager of the Fuji Sankei Group, on the 29th. The uproar was probably greater than expected and they scrambled to put out the fire. However, the flowers were quietly placed in the same location as those in the president&#8217;s name. It is very unusual to &#8220;remove&#8221; the flowers in the president&#8217;s name and then relegate even the flowers presented by the chairman himself to the same place. &#8230;&#8230; The NPB must be very angry. &#8230;&#8230;</span></p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Fuji Television had previously made headlines when it was temporarily &#8220;banned&#8221; from reporting on Otani because of a report that infringed on Otani&#8217;s privacy and froze its pass to cover him.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">This time, when the NPB tried to report on Otani&#8217;s heroism to the Japanese public, they were angered and had their passes confiscated. Fuji TV, which was &#8220;banned&#8221; in both Japan and the U.S., must have been in a very bad situation.</p>
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 Kyodo News

 Fuji TV has been effectively "banned" from the first game of this year's Japan Series, in which Softbank and DeNA are engaged in a fierce battle.

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