<h2>Public Games Sales Hit All-Time High</h2>
<p> The sales of publicly operated sports for the fiscal year 2013 were announced. Bicycle racing sales increased 116.6% from the previous year to 1,548.7 billion yen, and boat racing sales increased 105.6% from the previous year to 2,665.8 billion yen. Boat racing sales reached an all-time record of 2.6658 trillion yen, 105.6% of the previous year&#8217;s level.</p>
<p> In proportion to the increase in sales of public management sports, events and race distribution at each racetrack also increased. Major entertainment companies, which had been reluctant to work in public management sports, also began to enter the market. A sports newspaper reporter noted, &#8220;Watanabe Entertainment (hereafter, &#8220;NABEPRO&#8221;) is the most aggressive among them.</p>
<figure id="attachment_467672" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-467672" style="width: 1919px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="49115927"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/05/9e198aba5ac883883a94f67e2706096b.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-467672" class="wp-caption-text"> Takumi Goto, 29, of &#8220;Four Thousand Head,&#8221; has been getting more and more work related to bicycle racing in the past few years, including comedy performances before races. He is also the MC for the Girls&#8217; Keirin live broadcast.</figcaption></figure>
<p><span class="strongInContent"><span class="strong-in-content"> Until now, the bicycle racing industry has been the sole domain of Yoshimoto Kogyo, which has a sales department specializing in public sports, and comedians who perform impersonations. Recently, however, we have been seeing more and more of the Nabepro-affiliated comedians Yonchitoushi, Pattie-chan, and Linda Color ∞ at bicycle races.</span></span></p>
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<p> The reason behind this, he says, is the decline in pay for terrestrial variety shows.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"><span class="strong-in-content"> Nowadays, even if a popular comedian appears on TV, he or she is paid 100,000-200,000 yen per show. But in the case of a public sports business, the fee is three times that amount. In the past, gambling did not have a good image, with people saying it was a &#8220;dirty job,&#8221; and people would go into debt or go bankrupt. However, the situation has changed drastically since the COVID-19 crisis, probably due in part to the massive amount of commercials featuring popular celebrities. ABEMA broadcasts live coverage of mid-night bicycle races every day, and many people are awakened to the joys of gambling there.</span></span></p>
<p> Popular actors such as Kanata Hongo (35), who professes to be a boat racing fan, and top boat racer Ryuta Mine (41) and his surfing buddy Shohei Miura (37) have also started appearing on talk shows held at race tracks.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"><span class="strong-in-content"> Boat racing has a large budget,&#8221; said Mine, &#8220;so if a person wants to appear on a talk show, top actors can do so. Top actors are now willing to accept jobs in public sports if they wish to do so. Bicycle racing does not have the same budget as rowing, and there is no competition for work, so the barriers to entry are lower. It has become an opportunity for latecomers and freelance talents like NABEPRO,&#8221; said an advertising agency official.</span></span></p>
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<p> Since several private companies operate bicycle racing sites, the director of a production company says, &#8220;There is a wide market for work through the channels of the companies that operate the sites and sponsor the races.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"><span class="strong-in-content"> In fact, Hanana Nakata (31), formerly of Nogizaka46, has been appointed as the image character of Hiratsuka Bicycle Racetrack, for which CyberAgent has acquired the naming rights, and former TV Tokyo announcer Yuki Matsumaru (44) appeared in a YouTube program for Betimo, a voting website run by a group company of East, a production company. (44), a former TV Tokyo announcer, appears on the YouTube distribution program for Betimo, a voting website operated by a group company of the East production company. The &#8220;Pattie-chan&#8221; has been releasing bicycle race videos on YouTube in a tie-up with the &#8220;Odds Park&#8221; voting service.</span></span></p>
<p> With the entry of major companies into the market in earnest, celebrities who have been making money from public bicycle races are now showing signs of impatience.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"><span class="strong-in-content"> Yasuda, 52, the leader of &#8220;Yasuda the Great Circus,&#8221; who loves bicycle racing, has jumped into events at bicycle racing tracks and said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to be paid, so I want to be on stage or in the video! They are also said to be making direct sales calls to the talent, saying, &#8220;We want to use you next time!</span></span></p>
<p> As the times change, so do the demands for work.</p>
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<p> From the May 15-22, 2026 issue of &#8220;FRIDAY</p>
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 Keisuke Nishi

 Bicycle and Boat Races Break Sales Highs, Accelerating Entry into the Entertainment Industry. Watanabe Entertainments introduces 4,000 heads and Pate-chan, and the fee for public sports is tripled compared to 100,000-200,000 yen for terrestrial wave. What is the reason for their popularity?

The price difference is a whopping 3 times! Falling Terrestrial Pay Attracts Attention to Publicly Funded Jobs

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