On the back of watching a whopping 21 different sports in 2023, last year’s total was a more modest 12 and I was fairly happy with that. I don’t have any real interest in bettering that 2023 total and would have been content with reaching double digits. Yet again my main focus was on my three favourite sports (football, rugby and tennis) as well as any sports event taking place at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Fridays when I’m off work. Ranking them all in order of preference is an impossible task so I have instead opted to just list them in alphabetical order.

1. American Football

The chance to see this form of football being played at Tokyo’s iconic rugby ground was too good an opportunity to turn down. Whilst I struggled to follow what was going on at times I still had a lovely evening out at Chichibunomiya Stadium as the X-League season kicked off. Receiving a free shirt was a huge bonus too! More details here.

2. Athletics

The big showpiece track and field event of the year was the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. I booked a pair of tickets for two of the dates about a year in advance so had some reasonably good seats in the cheapest section for the two Sunday evening sessions which included elite action like the men’s 100 metres final and the team relay finals in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 metres. More details here.

3. Baseball

For a sport I still don’t really like too much, I ended up attending three games in three different cities in 2025 including a new experience at Yokohama Stadium which has the best atmosphere of any sports stadia in Japan’s second largest city. More details here.

4. Basketball

Having seen Kylie in concert at Ariake Arena in March I really was not expecting to return there anytime soon but to my surprise I was back in July to watch the women’s national basketball teams of Japan and Denmark facing off in a Mitsui Fudosan Cup exhibition series in preparation for the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup in China later that same month. More details here. 

5. Breaking

Many people scoffed at the idea of breaking being included at last year’s Olympics in Paris and I’m probably not 100% innocent in that regard either. This was probably the one sport I would not have expected to see at all. More details here.

6. Football

Football is and always will be the bread and butter of my sporting calendar, and in 2025 I attended 30 matches in seven prefectures with six of them being new stadiums for me.  More details here.

7. Gymnastics

When I bought the ticket, I didn’t actually realise it was the same tournament I attended the previous year in Gunma Prefecture. The ticket was not free this time but it saved on transportation costs and of course time. It was just as overwhelming as in 2024 as there were often a few events taking place at the same time. Almost every performance looked hugely impressive through the eyes of this novice! More details here.

8. Handball

My second ever handball match and yet again I saw Zeekstar Tokyo in action. I even remembered some of their players from my inaugural appearance in November 2023.

9. Rugby

It was difficult to live up to the heights of my rugby experiences in 2024 but of course there were still some memorable moments from the nine games I attended including one international and two showpiece finals. More details here.

10. Swimming 

My second swimming event ever was the Japan Open Championship in March. I can’t say I remember too much about any of the action, but it was nice to see it with a friend when I usually watch most sports alone.

11. Table Tennis

This was quite an overwhelming spectacle as there were 17 matches going on at the same time. It’s a sport which seemingly gets a lot of airtime each time the Olympics comes round and due to that I am actually aware of quite a few Japanese players, and the majority of them were taking part in this event. Of the 20+ sports I’ve watched for the first time in the last few years, this is probably the one I’ve enjoyed the most. More details here.

12. Taekwondo

The Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics offered the chance to see a few sports I’d never seen before but ultimately, I was only able to see one. It’s always nice to visit a new place too, and I was able to understand this martial art far greater than judo or karate.

13. Tennis

It was a bumper year for tennis too as I watched nine days of action in total including Davis Cup, Kinoshita Open and the Toray Pan Pacific Open among others. Furthermore, it was a bumper year for meeting players. More details here.

14. Wheelchair Basketball

The on-court action was highly competitive as indeed I expected having seen a bit of it in previous Paralympic games. There were two games going on simultaneously and it was end-to-end stuff in the two matches I hung around for. More details here.

15. Wrestling

The All-Japan selection wrestling championships were taking place over four days and I decided that a return to the tournament I first witnessed in 2024 was worth it again. Unlike 12 months earlier though I sadly didn’t know any of the competitors in action. Still, it’s always nice to see a sport I wouldn’t usually watch. More details here.

Bonus: Not exactly live sport but a motor car event kicked off my sporting year in early January. It featured driver and influencer Hana Burton, and a sizable selection of sports cars.

Click here to read ‘5 Different Sports On 5 Separate Visits To A Multi-Purpose Venue In Tokyo’s Sporting Mecca’

Click here to read ‘How Many Different Sports Did I Manage To Go & Watch Live In 2024?’

Click here to read ‘How Many Olympic Sports Did I See Live In The 18 Month Build Up To Paris 2024?’

Click here to read ‘I Watched 15 Sports In Japan For The First Time In 2023’