Sporting Yokohama

In the newly opened port of Yokohama, the foreigners of the settlement brought the sports of home with them. In a land with no place to run, no one to compete against, and no equipment, they formed their own clubs and laid out their own grounds.

At first, the Japanese watched from a distance. Then students took up the challenge, lost, and tried again. The story of sport in Yokohama is also the story of how the people from across the sea and the people who lived here came to stand on the same field.

In 1866 (Keio 2), Japan’s first Western-style racecourse was built on the hill at Negishi. That same year, foreign residents of the settlement founded the Yokohama Football Club. The Japan Rugby Football Union regards it as the oldest rugby club confirmed in Asia.

On December 7, 1901 (Meiji 34), at the sports ground in Yokohama Park, students of Keio Gijuku played the settlement’s club, YC&AC (Yokohama Country & Athletic Club). The score was 5–41. Keio’s first win came seven years later, in the autumn.

Yamate Park was opened by foreign residents in 1870, and in 1878 (Meiji 11) a club of foreign women laid out a tennis court there. Cultural Heritage Online describes it as “the birthplace of tennis in Japan.”

In May 1896 (Meiji 29), at the sports ground in what is now Yokohama Park, the baseball team of the First Higher School played a team of foreigners living in Yokohama and won 29–4. It is said to have been the first international baseball game in Japan.

Soccer in Japan began in Tokyo, but in February 1904 (Meiji 37), Tokyo Higher Normal School took on YC&AC and lost 0–9. The Japan Football Association regards this as the first match played in Japan against a foreign team.

Right by Kannai Station, inside Yokohama Park, stands Yokohama Stadium. Locals call it “Hamasta.” Baseball on this spot has a history that began long before the stadium was built.

As part of the rebuilding after the Great Kanto Earthquake, a ballpark opened in Yokohama Park in 1929 (Showa 4). On November 18, 1934 (Showa 9), an American major league all-star team, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig among them, played an all-Japan team here and won 21–4.

After the war, the ballpark was requisitioned and called “Gehrig Stadium.” Light towers went up, and on August 17, 1948 (Showa 23), a game between the Giants and the Chunichi Dragons became the first night game in Japanese professional baseball. After its return, it was known affectionately as “Heiwa (Peace) Stadium,” and in 1978 (Showa 53) it was reborn as Yokohama Stadium.

At the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, baseball and softball were played here, and in both, Japan beat the United States in the final to take the gold medal.

Founded in 1949, the Taiyo Whales moved from Kawasaki to Yokohama Stadium in 1978 and became the Yokohama Taiyo Whales. They became the Yokohama BayStars in 1992, and the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in 2011. They have won the Japan Series three times: in 1960, in 1998, and, after a wait of 26 years, in 2024.

Nissan Stadium in Shin-Yokohama (officially, International Stadium Yokohama) opened in March 1998 and seats about 72,000.

On June 30, 2002, it hosted the final of the FIFA World Cup, in which Brazil beat Germany 2–0 — the first World Cup final ever played in Asia. On November 2, 2019, in the final of the Rugby World Cup, South Africa beat England 32–12 before a crowd of 70,103. And in 2021 came the men’s soccer final of the Tokyo Olympics.

The Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, the Rugby World Cup: according to the City of Yokohama, it was the first stadium ever to host the finals of all three.

Rooted in the Nissan Motor soccer club founded in 1972, the club has played in the J.League since its first season in 1993. In 1999 it merged with the Yokohama Flügels, its neighbor in the same city, to become today’s Yokohama F. Marinos. It has won the J1 title five times: in 1995, 2003, 2004, 2019, and 2022. Its home grounds are Nissan Stadium and NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Football Stadium.

After the Yokohama Flügels were gone, this club was born on December 25, 1998, through the efforts of the city’s own people. The blue ribbon in its emblem comes from the ribbons worn by the supporters who tried to keep the Flügels alive. The club calls its home ground, NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Football Stadium, “the Theater of Dreams.” It was with this club that Kazuyoshi Miura set the record as the oldest player to appear in J1.

Corsairs means “pirates.” Hidden in the brim and the grooves of the pirate hat in the team’s logo are the katakana characters “ha” and “ma,” for Hama, the city’s nickname. In the 2022–23 season, Yuki Kawamura was named the B.LEAGUE’s Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year, and the team reached the championship playoffs for the first time. Kawamura later crossed the ocean to take on the professional game in the United States.

For the 2026–27 season, the team joined the new top league, the B.PREMIER, and moved its home to Yokohama BUNTAI in Kannai. The arena, with about 5,000 seats, opened in 2024 on the site of the old Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium, known to locals as “Buntai.” The stairs up to the second floor are laid with paving stones from the old Yokohama streetcar line.

In October 1990, a skating rink opened in Shin-Yokohama. It was called the Shin-Yokohama Prince Hotel Skate Center, and it opened before the hotel next door. At first it was the home rink of the Kokudo Keikaku ice hockey team (later the SEIBU Prince Rabbits). Its name has changed over the years, and since 2017 it has been known and loved as the KOSÉ Shin-Yokohama Skate Center.

Its international-size rink measures 60 by 30 meters, and the building holds 2,446 people, standing room included. The ice stays in all year, and the center hosts figure skating competitions and the Yokohama run of the ice show Prince Ice World. It is also home to the ice hockey club Yokohama GRITS, whose players balance their working lives with their sport.

In July 1998, in a corner of Kohoku New Town at Kitayamata, Tsuzuki Ward, the Yokohama International Swimming Pool opened, nicknamed the “WATER ARENA.” Its internationally certified main pool, 50 meters long with 10 lanes, has a movable floor that can set the depth anywhere from 0 to 3.5 meters.

In August 2002, it hosted the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. The City of Yokohama counted the meet, the first international swimming competition held at the pool, among its “Top 10 Yokohama News Stories” of the year. International competitions in synchronized swimming followed in 2004 and 2006, and in water polo in 2016.

In winter, a floor is laid over the pool, turning it into a sports floor with room for four basketball courts. The Yokohama B-Corsairs, too, played their home games here through the 2025–26 season.

The City of Yokohama is planning to redevelop the facility: the main pool will give way to an arena that can be used all year round, a new 25-meter pool will be built, and the reopening is targeted for March 2031. The 50-meter pool where swimmers from around the world raced for records will, before long, change its form. If you want to swim here, or to watch, go while you can.

North of the West Exit of Yokohama Station, in Tsuruyacho, Kanagawa Ward, is the Ohashi Boxing Gym. Its president, Hideyuki Ohashi, is a former world champion who won the WBC strawweight title in 1990 and the WBA strawweight title in 1992. After retiring, he has been raising the next generation of boxers here in his home city of Yokohama.

From that gym came the champion Naoya Inoue. He unified all four major world titles at bantamweight in 2022 and at super bantamweight in 2023. On October 7, 2018, defending his title at Yokohama Arena, he knocked out his opponent just 1 minute 10 seconds into the first round. In May 2026, at the Tokyo Dome, he won a decision over Junto Nakatani to keep all four belts.

His younger brother, Takuma Inoue, is the WBC world bantamweight champion. On September 27, 2026, he defended his title against Tenshin Nasukawa by decision. Twenty-five days earlier, on September 2, Takeshi Ishii of the same gym fought for the vacant WBA world minimumweight title at Yokohama BUNTAI and won by first-round knockout. After the gym’s president, Mr. Ohashi, and the former champion Akira Yaegashi, he became the next to wear the WBA belt in the same division (the strawweight class of Ohashi’s day is today’s minimumweight).

Other world champions have come out of Yokohama gyms as well: Takanori Hatakeyama, Yutaka Niida, and Ryol Li Lee of the Yokohama Hikari Gym in Tsurumi, and Keitaro Hoshino of the Hanagata Gym in Tsuzuki. And in October 1974, Susumu Hanagata of the Yokohama Kyoei Gym won the world flyweight title at the Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium.

In 1980, more than 103,000 citizens signed a petition, and on November 29, 1981, the first Yokohama Marathon was held. The race began with 2,081 runners setting off in front of Yamashita Park; in 2015 it became a full marathon, and today more than 20,000 people run it. It is the one chance to run on your own two feet along the Shuto Expressway Bayshore Route, where ordinarily only cars may go. In 2026, it takes place on October 25.

Every New Year, the Hakone Ekiden relay runs right through Yokohama. Taking the sash at the Tsurumi relay station, each team’s ace runs the celebrated second leg, the “Hana no Niku,” past Yokohama Station and through Hodogaya, then over the Gontazaka hill to the Totsuka relay station. On the return leg, too, the sash changes hands at Totsuka and Tsurumi. The people waving flags along the roadside are part of a Yokohama New Year as well.

The race began in 2009 to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the port. Starting and finishing at Yamashita Park, athletes swim in the sea, then cycle and run through the harbor city. Watching is free. The City of Yokohama counts it among the seasonal sights of the month in which the port opened.

Like so many of the sports that began at the port, billiards too came from across the sea and took root in this country. We, the Yokohama Open Executive Committee, hold billiards tournaments here in this city.

We are still a long way from the roar of Hamasta or the heat of the arenas. Even so, we hope to grow a tournament that will one day take its place among Yokohama’s many sports and draw many people to watch. We take on the future of billiards. We create a legacy for Yokohama.