Judo, the Olympics, and Television

Copyright © Joseph R. Svinth 2001. All rights reserved.
 In 1922 judo founder Jigoro Kano resigned from his position as head of the Japan Amateur Athletic Association because he disagreed with its policy of encouraging professionals to enter international competition in hope of inflating Japanese medal counts. [EN1] A few years later, Kano told Olympic leader Pierre de Coubertin that judo was inappropriate for inclusion in the Olympics because it was not a sport but a school of life: judo, said Kano, was not a game, but instead it was "like a church, it teaches a man a moral sense." [EN2] In 1933, Kano told the young British judoka Trevor Leggett that, while he had nothing against competition, he was against championships; to his thinking, championships degraded people by placing too much emphasis on winning. [EN3] Finally, during a luncheon speech given at the Pan-Pacific Club in Tokyo on June 14, 1935, Kano complained that "competition sometimes makes men go to extremes and results in their doing themselves serious internal injury."[EN4]

So, despite the International Olympic Committee announcing on March 16, 1938 that judo, kendo, and kyudo (Japanese archery) would be demonstration sports featured at the 1940 Olympics, [EN5] it seems clear that in his time, Jigoro Kano never wanted judo in the Olympics.

So who did want judo in the Olympics? Before World War II, the Nazis, and after the Korean War, Japanese nationalists eager to boost Japan's Cold War Olympic medal counts.

Throughout the 1930s the Germans tried to organize a European Jujutsu Union, but due to international relations, it, in the words of Britain's Gunji Koizumi, "was formed but never matured." [EN6] Nonplused, the German judo federation then petitioned the Nazi sport ministry to ask that judo be included as an exhibition sport during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. That also didn't happen, but efforts were made to train the Hitler Youth in judo so that Japan and Germany could compete in Tokyo.

Following World War II, Japan joined the Americans and Russians in the quest for success on the Cold War battlefield known as the Olympics. Since Japan was the world's judo superpower, its International Olympic Committee campaigned for the inclusion of judo in the Olympics. The sport was introduced in 1964 and included in every Olympics since 1972, and as recently as Sydney in 2000, judo provided Japan with 44 percent of its Olympic medals. [EN7]

After the Cold War ended in 1992, Olympic sponsorship changed from governmental to commercial. So, according to International Judo Federation (IJF) President Y.S. Park, speaking in December 1996, "Ninety-five percent of the budget that sustains the IJF and the Continental Unions is directly from the television rights, advertising rights, and marketing rights to IJF events." [EN8] This caused a problem, however: while judo was popular on Japanese, French, and German television, it was not popular in the enormously lucrative North American market. [EN9]

Toward overcoming this problem, the IJF introduced blue uniforms that probably reduced referee error and then ruined the effect by introducing a slew of new rules that increased them. And meanwhile it ignored the real problem, which was that North American networks are not in the business of featuring teams that routinely lose to Japanese, Cubans, Russians, and Koreans.

In case this sounds like hyperbole, see Table 1, which lists the judo Olympic gold medals won between 1964 and 2000. Note that Canada and the United States do not appear.
 
 

The USA and Canada fare little better in the silver medals. See Table 2.

Even in the bronze medal divisions the USA and Canada are most kindly described as mediocre. See Table 3.
 
 

Put another way, between 1964 and 2000, the USA ended up ranked number 11 in total medal counts while Canada ranked number 20. See Table 4.

And, as a rule of thumb, North American television network executives don’t get all misty-eyed about teams in the bottom ten. Thus until something changes and teams from the USA and Canada start placing in the top three, North American judo is going to remain about as well-funded as archery and small-bore riflery.

Still, how well a national team did in 1964 is no indication of how well the team is doing today. So Table 5 shows men's results between 1992 and 2000 while Table 6 shows women's results during the same period.
 
 

Clearly USA and Canadian judo programs continue to be headed nowhere, including primetime television.

So, what to do? If the goal is simply finding American and Canadian athletes to carry the Stars and Stripes and Maple Leaf into the gymnasiums where Olympic tournaments are being staged, then nothing needs to be done; status quo is fine. However, if the goal is to get judo on North American television, then North American judoka must begin winning medals. And for this to happen, the current North American judo training programs requires significant restructuring. Based on the medals won between 1992 and 2000, the Cuban women's program has shown astonishing improvement, and as a result the American and Canadian national teams should do the Cubans the honor of copying whatever it is that the Cuban women's team is doing.

Meanwhile, expect to hear the IJF continue bleating about its inadequate funding. [EN10]

ENDNOTES

EN1. Japan Times, September 9, 1922, 1.

EN2. André Louka and Harry Cook, "Memories of the Great Masters: Minoru Mochizuki," Dragon Times, 13 (1998), 25, 28.

EN3. Xerographic copy of research notes prepared for Saburo Matsushita by Trevor Leggett, courtesy of Richard Bowen.

EN4. Japan Times, June 16, 1935, 2.

EN5. North American Times, April 18, 1938, 8.

EN6. German interest in judo: Japan Times, December 19, 1934, 1; Japan Times, December 29, 1934, 6. Quote: Letter from Richard Bowen, July 7, 1998. See also Richard Bowen, "Origins of the British Judo Association, the European Judo Union, and the International Judo Federation," Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 8:3 (1999), 42-53.

EN7. Japanese athletes won eighteen medals in Sydney in 2000. Of these, eight (four gold, two silver, and two bronze) were in judo. 8 ¸ 18 x 100 = 44%. For a by-event breakdown of the Sydney Olympics, see http://cbs.sportsline.com/u/olympics/2000/medaltracker/medalcount.htm. For similar data from earlier Olympics, see the "The Players," compiled by Sweden's Wolf Lyberg. Copies may be obtained by contacting Lyberg at Fax 46-8-6633096.

EN8. http://www.ijf.org/whatnew/press/wn-pr-008.html

EN9. According to IJF President Y.S. Park, "Based on the television ratings of the various events, each event was placed into one of four categories during this year's Atlanta Olympics. The television profits were divided according to categories. Judo, of the four categories, ranked into the lowest category." http://www.ijf.org/whatnew/press/wn-pr-008.html

EN10. By the way, the IJF’s poverty is relative, as in 1997, IJF President Park noted that Hyundai had agreed to give the organization US $3.1 million, Coca Cola had awarded scholarships, and the bank balance was $1.43 million. http://www.ijf.org/congress/cg97-25.html. Note also the same article’s statistic of 2.2 million judoka worldwide, which seems to contradict the statement at JudoInfo.com (http://judoinfo.com/announce.htm) that judo is the second most popular sport in the world. (With a mere 2.2 million players worldwide, judo is better described as the second most popular combative sport done in the Olympics than a serious rival to basketball, volleyball, and jogging.)