Paper short abstract:

By examining Seibu's creation and juxtaposition of the two spheres of sports (Seibu Lions) and religious activity, I show how Buddhist traditions, samurai expressions of power and authority, and a baseball team were integrated to create a sports-religious world.

Paper long abstract:

This draws upon William Kelly's concept of "sportsworld" to analyze the relationship between the Seibu Lions baseball team and the Tendai school temple of Fudōji. Kelly coined the term to discuss the interactions between players, the front office, support specialists and other people who are involved with a sports team's activities. Seibu (a Japanese conglomerate that owns and operates Tokyo-area trail lines and the Prince Hotel chain) purchased the Lions and established them in its domed-stadium in 1979. The Tsutsumi family, the founders of Seibu, also built Fudōji in the 1970s by acquiring gates from the former mausolea of several Tokugawa Shoguns and other Buddhist buildings. Adapting Kelly's model to discuss Fudōji, I characterize the temple as a "religious world" that emerges through the combination of Buddhist temple history and rituals, religious legacies derived from the Tokugawa, and the influence of Tsutsumi patronage. By examining the Seibu's creation and juxtaposition of these two spheres of sports and religious activity, I show how the Tsutsumi integrated Buddhist traditions, elite samurai expressions of power and authority, and a modern baseball team to create a unique sports-religious world that enhances the family's own position of prestige in post-war Japan.