National Basketball League club Wakayama Trians, which finished runner-up last year in the NBL, announced on Wednesday that it will not "complete the remainder of the
current season due to severe financial woes and submitted a notice of
withdrawal to the league," according to Kaz Nagatsuka of the JAPAN TIMES. The team said in a statement, "We, the Wakayama Trians, have made efforts to respond to the
enthusiastic support of everybody. But we have run out of ways to
improve our situation and we can no longer run the team, so we have
stopped our team activities as of Jan. 7." The Trians were formerly owned by Panasonic, based in Osaka
Prefecture, "but moved to Wakayama after the electrics company decided to
drop the basketball team two years ago." The Trians have received "some financial backup from
Panasonic for at least a couple of years." But that did not "really relieve the club's distress." The situation has not improved this season. The team's home attendance
"has dropped from 1,247 per game last year to 622, which is the lowest in
the 13-team league and way below the league average." NBL Acting President Mitsuru Maruo said that the league had "recognized the club's
serious financial difficulties since mid-November and supported it with
managerial betterment plans, but it hadn't helped to improve the
situation." Maruo said that the club had more than 50 companies as its
sponsors last year, "but that figure shrank to just a single digit this
season." Maruo: "I don't think that they (the club) were able to establish
good relationships with the local companies, fans and the local
(prefectural) association" (JAPAN TIMES, 1/7).
