The BayStars host about 70 regular season contests (72 in 2019) a year. But Okamura said that his club hopes its stadium will be a “monumental facility” to activate the community 365 days a year and to be a presence he likened to that of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the Colosseum in Rome.

“By creating prosperity for the entire town with the stadium as the central institution, I believe that it will lead to the formation of new cultures,” said Okamura, a University of Tokyo Graduate School alum who researched ancient Chinese history.

The club is also looking to expand its reach beyond the stadium, laying out another grand conception, called “Sports Town Yokohama.” Besides Yokohama Stadium, other sports facilities in the Kannai and Kangai areas, such as Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium, will be remodeled. Yokohama DeNA wants to lead the initiatives to transform the areas into a sports town that will enliven the community and generate additional value from sports-related businesses and projects.

Other teams in the area include the Yokohama B-Corsairs of the B. League basketball league, which occasionally play out of the cultural gymnasium, and DeNA’s own professional long-distance running team. DeNA envisions making pedestrian decks at Yokohama Stadium available for the runners as well.

Yokohama is already known for its Minato Mirai 21 and Yamashita Park areas. Okamura noted that those bustling areas along the bay are well connected, and the club hopes to create something similar to better integrate the scenic Nihon Odori street, Yokohama’s Chinatown, Yokohama Stadium, Kannai, Isezakicho and Noge — which are all well-known visitors spots in their own right — via the sports town project.

Yokohama DeNA is also considering making a bid for a site where a Yokohama city office now stands, in between Kannai Station and Yokohama Stadium. The office will be relocated next year and Okamura said that the club would plan to use the space to bring in visitors.

Elsewhere, the BayStars have also obtained the management rights to operate a four-floor building — a tangible cultural property as designated by the city of Yokohama that was formerly used as the city’s finance office of the Kanto finance bureau — as another base for the sports town project.

The facility, dubbed “the Bays,” has a cafe, bar, merchandise store, fitness studios and some of the club’s offices. There is also a shared office, called “Creative Sports Lab,” and the club hopes to come up with some innovative, sports-related projects in cooperation with individual creators and venture companies that use it.

A BayStars executive staff member has reportedly insisted that the “sports town” concept has the potential to be a “Japanese Silicon Valley.”

Mano thinks that DeNA could be able to establish an innovative sports town business model of “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” taking advantage of its own up-to-date information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence technologies.

“It’s not just for sports, it’s about the town,” said Mano, who has served as a board member and adviser for numerous sports-themed government committees. “So it’s sort of a demonstration about how people would be able to live healthy and lively in the town (through sports).”

Okamura had been heavily recruited by DeNA owner Tomoko Namba to join the BayStars when he was a government official.

He said that he’s always wanted to serve the public, but he decided to come on board for the BayStars because he considers running an NPB club, the biggest professional sports league in Japan, to be along the same lines, with the Community Ballpark Project and Sports Town Yokohama being the most notable examples.

Indeed, Okamura repeatedly stated in an interview that the club is only “in charge of the team” and that the stadium is “a public institution.”

“So it wasn’t because we wanted it,” he said, reflecting on obtaining the administrative rights of the stadium. “It was because we’re running it on behalf of the city of Yokohama and its people, who agreed to us doing it so that we can bring it into the future.”

Mano imagines that, having moved from the government post, it was probably “incomprehensible” for Okamura to see some of the owner companies run their NPB clubs like private properties.

The professor said that he has discussed with Okamura how the BayStars could be like Spain’s FC Barcelona, which is actually a multisports club, not just its globally popular soccer team. The company recently acquired the B. League’s Brave Thunders, who play out of neighboring Kawasaki.

Mano also noted that the club can continue to grow smoothly thanks to the support for its ambitious plans it has received from the city.

Since DeNA assumed ownership of the BayStars, the club could not have done much better from a business standpoint.

But for Okamura and his team, this is perhaps just the beginning of their ultimate goals and dreams as they look to establish the club as a Yokohama institution.

“We are hoping to generate things that will lead to the future of Yokohama by concentrating various different powers of the city as the coordinator,” Okamura said with a slight smile.

“We are hoping to generate things that will create a better future for Yokohama by working as a coordinator in centralizing various different powers in the city,” Okamura said with a slight smile.