Sumo, baseball and live events in Japan

🏟️ Sports & live events · 105 destinations · 255 activities

Live sport in Japan runs on a rigid calendar: sumo is six fifteen-day tournaments a year, always in the same four cities, and the baseball season runs March to October. If it matters to you, it is one of the first things to fix, because sumo tickets go on sale a month ahead and the good ones go on day one.

The destinations, by real weight

What to do exactly

Rusutsu — 13 activities

• Three mountains: West, East and Mount Isola 6 h must-see only 29 Nov - 31 Mar

  37 runs and 42 km of skiing across three linked peaks: West (715 m), the oldest and the only one with night skiing; East (868 m), home to the Super East face; and Mount Isola (994 m), the highest, with descents of up to 3.5 km. 594 m of vertical from base to summit, four gondolas and fifteen chairlifts. A gondola over the road links the two sides.

• Tree skiing in the birch forest 4 h must-see only 15 Dec - 20 Mar

  Here the forest is not an extra: between the Isola and East runs lie north-facing slopes of well-spaced birch and hardwood that you ride inside the resort boundary and that stay untracked for days. The Heavenly area is designated ungroomed all season. Average accumulation passes a metre in December and hits around 2.8 m by late February; January and February are the dry months.

• Lift tickets: day, 25-hour and Epic Pass 1 h only 29 Nov - 31 Mar

  In the regular season (20 December to 15 March) an adult day costs ¥16,200 at the window and ¥12,000 online, the most expensive in Japan; two days ¥23,600, three ¥35,400, five ¥59,000, children ¥8,000 (¥5,800 online). There is a five-hour ticket (¥14,000 / ¥10,500 online) and the 25-hour pass at ¥34,700, which counts down by the minute and covers scattered days. The Epic Pass gives five unrestricted consecutive days. There is no joint lift pass with Niseko.

• Mountain Guiding: a powder day with a guide 4 h booking only 15 Dec - 20 Mar

  The resort school runs native English-speaking guides who show you the lift-accessed powder zones in the trees, without leaving the ski area. You hire the guide, not a seat: ¥64,000 for three hours, ¥75,000 for four, ¥86,500 for five and ¥97,500 for a full day, for one to six upper-intermediate or advanced riders. Helmets compulsory (¥3,600 rental); bookable up to thirty minutes before.

• The seven roller coasters 2.5 h only 29 Apr - 18 Oct

  Seven coasters in one park: Ultra Twister, which barrel-rolls upside down and of which very few survive anywhere, the Corkscrew, the stand-up Standing Coaster, Loop the Loop, Hurricane, the Mountain Jet Coaster that threads the trees on the hillside, and the kids' Go Go Sneaker. All included in the day pass.

• Deep snow: tree wells and the resort boundary 0.5 h only 1 Dec - 31 Mar

  Rusutsu has no gate system like Niseko's: the forest is skied inside the boundary and leaving the ski area is prohibited, with search and rescue costs charged to whoever does it. What actually kills people in these woods is suffocation in the snow well at the base of a tree: always ride within sight of a partner, never one at a time to the bottom, with a helmet, a whistle and a phone. For anything beyond the trees between runs, bring transceiver, probe and shovel, and a guide.

Hakuba — 12 activities

• Resort-hopping on the Hakuba Valley pass 8 h must-see only 1 Dec - 6 May

  The Hakuba Valley all-mountain pass covers all ten resorts in the valley (Happo-one, Goryu, Hakuba 47, Iwatake, Tsugaike, Norikura, Cortina, Sanosaka, Kashimayari and Jigatake) and costs ¥11,100 for one day, ¥21,800 for two, ¥32,200 for three and ¥53,400 for five. Note that apart from Goryu-Hakuba 47 and Tsugaike-Norikura-Cortina, the resorts are not lift-linked: you move between them on the free shuttle, which means 20 to 45 minutes each way.

• Skiing at Happo-one 7 h must-see only 1 Dec - 5 May

  The valley's biggest resort and host of the 1998 Olympic downhill: 1,071 m of vertical, the Adam gondola and an unbroken 8 km descent from Usagidaira. A day pass is ¥9,800 in high season and ¥6,400 during the December weeks and from 23 March onwards; the season runs 1 December to 5 May, with exact dates confirmed on the resort site depending on snow.

• Backcountry with a guide, and the valley's rules 8 h booking only 20 Dec - 30 Apr

  You may only leave the ski area through the designated gates at Goryu, Happo-one, Tsugaike, Norikura and Cortina, and you must submit a mountain-entry registration form first (it can be done online). Transceiver, probe and shovel are not optional, and the resorts accept no responsibility for rescue. People die here almost every winter in avalanches and by suffocating in tree wells, so without snow training hire a local guide: roughly ¥20,000-35,000 per person per day in a small group.

• Goryu and Hakuba 47, the double mountain 7 h only 5 Dec - 15 Apr

  Two lift-linked resorts skied on a single ticket (¥10,000 adult, ¥4,500 child per day): Goryu faces the valley with wide learning terrain, while Hakuba 47 drops down the north side, holds its snow better and has Hakuba's most serious terrain park. Along with Happo and Tsugaike they are the ones that stay open into April, and Goryu's base, Escal Plaza, is the drop-off for the Shinjuku bus.

• Hakuba Olympic Ski Jumping Stadium 1.5 h

  The hill where Japan took team gold in 1998: a chairlift and a lift take you up the K120 start tower for ¥740 return (¥440 for schoolchildren), and from up there the gradient suddenly makes sense. Open 8:30-16:30 in summer and 9:00-15:30 in winter, closed for a few weeks in April and November and during competitions.

• Tsugaike Kogen and its wide slopes 7 h only 5 Dec - 6 May

  At the north end of the valley, already in Otari village: the Kanenonaruoka slope is over 1,200 m wide and gently pitched, and the longest descent is 5 km with 904 m of vertical. It is the best resort here for first-timers and families and at the same time the gateway to the Tsugaike DBD backcountry; its season is one of the longest in the valley and usually reaches early May.

Nozawa Onsen — 11 activities

• Skiing Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort 7 h must-see only late November to early May

  297 hectares, 36 runs and 1,085 m of vertical between the village at 565 m and the summit of Mt Kenashi at 1,650 m, served by two gondolas (Nagasaka and Hikage) and around twenty lifts in all. A day pass is ¥7,500 (¥4,500 children, ¥6,000 over-60s); half day ¥6,400, two days ¥13,900, three days ¥20,300. It is the resort's own pass: it is NOT part of the Hakuba Valley joint ticket, nor Shiga Kogen's, nor the Ikon Pass. The 2025-26 season ran 29 November to 6 May, but dates depend on snow and are confirmed each autumn on the resort site.

• First tracks on a storm day 1 h only 15 Dec - 31 Mar

  The plan for a snowy morning: take the first gondola at 8:30 and get two or three runs in the upper Yamabiko area before it is tracked out. The resort publishes no official average snowfall, but good winters top ten metres and peak bases up high have run between 460 and 480 cm in recent seasons. January is the reliable powder month with February close behind; March brings big days but also rain lower down, and in the village at 565 m the snow is always heavier than up top.

• The 10 km descent to the village 1.5 h only snow permitting, from December to April

  Nagano's longest descent: ten linked kilometres from the summit of Mt Kenashi down to the village. The centrepiece is the Skyline, six kilometres along a ridge with views over the Iiyama valley, narrow in places and with flat sections you have to tuck through; not a beginner run, though not a hard one either. At the bottom you peel left for the gentle Karasawa slopes or right for the steep ungroomed runs (Grand Prix, Jumping). An hour and a half with stops, and the top closes in wind, which on Kenashi is routine.

• The Yamabiko trees and the powder runs 4 h only 20 Dec - 31 Mar

  The upper mountain, between 1,300 and 1,650 m, is where the powder keeps: wide untracked edges, the Yamabiko walls, and the birch and beech glades that open between the A, D and E runs. This is in-bounds skiing, but the trees are neither marked nor patrolled like a piste: go with a partner in sight, never alone, and give big trunks a wide berth because of the soft hollows at their base, the tree wells you can end up trapped in head-down. The four Yamabiko lifts close earlier than the rest in wind.

• Karasawa and the easy runs with children 4 h only while the resort is open

  Forty per cent of the terrain is beginner-graded and almost all of it is on the lower mountain: Karasawa and Hikage have wide, gentle pistes with magic carpets, a sledding area and a kids' school, and from there you ride up to the Uenotaira plateau, where anyone who can already stand up finds kilometres of blue runs with no nasty pitches. Save the upper Yamabiko bowls for later in the trip.

• Lessons and equipment rental 3 h booking only while the resort is open

  The resort's own shop (Salomon Station, third floor of the Nagasaka Center House, 8:15-16:45) rents a full package of skis or board with jacket, pants and helmet for ¥9,000 a day (¥6,800 children), skis or board with boots for ¥5,500, clothing alone for ¥4,000, and high-end powder gear for ¥6,000. There are also English-speaking ski schools in the village, bookable online and worth reserving weeks ahead over Christmas and New Year.

Tokyo — 20 activities

• Tokyo Yakult Swallows game at Jingu Stadium 4 h must-see booking

  The crowd opens thousands of coloured umbrellas and sings the Tokyo Ondo every time the team scores. A small open-air stadium with far more atmosphere than the Tokyo Dome, and one condemned by the Jingu Gaien redevelopment.

• Open-air votive sumo at Yasukuni Shrine 4 h only one day in mid-April

  Once a year the Sumo Association offers a full day of open-air bouts on the dohyo inside Yasukuni Shrine, including ceremonies you never see at a paid tournament: the ring purification at nine, sumo chanting, tower drumming, a parade of yokozuna around half past one and the ring-entering ritual at two. It is free and unreserved, with capacity for about four thousand, so a queue forms well before the 8:30 opening. In 2026 it fell on 13 April. Worth knowing that the host shrine is the most contested site in Japan's memory of the war.

• Tokyo Marathon 5 h booking lottery only the first Sunday of March

  One of the six World Marathon Majors, with more than 30,000 runners crossing Asakusa, Ginza and Tokyo station in early March. Entry is by ballot almost a year in advance; watching from the street is free and spectacular.

• A race day at Tokyo Racecourse, in Fuchu 4 h

  Eight group 1 races a year, among them the Japan Cup and the Japanese Derby, in front of tens of thousands of people. Admission costs 200 yen and there is a playground, food and 100-yen bets.

• Alvark Tokyo basketball at the Toyota Arena 3 h booking

  New Odaiba arena opened in October 2025, home to the B.League and its show of lights and entertainment. It is the best reason Odaiba has left to go there at night.

• Fight night at Korakuen Hall 3 h booking

  Eighteen hundred seats on the fifth floor of Tokyo Dome City that have been the home room of Japanese boxing and small-hall pro wrestling since 1962: everyone passes through here before the big arenas. There is a card most weeks, including a well-established women's wrestling scene (Stardom stages several shows a month) alongside boxing and martial arts. Tickets run roughly 3,000 to 8,000 yen online, the front rows sell out fast, and the room is small enough that every seat has a clear view of the ring.

Sapporo — 8 activities

• Okurayama ski jump and the Olympic Museum 2.5 h must-see

  The large hill from the 1972 Games, still in World Cup use. A chairlift climbs to the start gate (1,000 yen return) and from up there you see the ramp the jumpers drop down and, behind it, the whole city. The Sapporo Olympic Museum (670 yen; 1,370 combined with the lift) has jump and bobsleigh simulators. Open year-round, but the chairlift stops running during competitions.

• Deep snow at Sapporo Kokusai 7 h only 20 Nov - 6 May

  The snowiest ski area within the city, past Jozankei: seven runs and four lifts with accumulations comparable to Niseko's and none of its queues. A day pass is about 6,000 yen, or 8,800 including the return bus from Sapporo station's terminal (90 minutes; book a seat). Season runs from late November to early May.

• Skiing at Sapporo Teine 7 h

  Within the city itself, forty minutes from the centre. It keeps two runs from the 1972 Olympic Games and the Olympic torch as a monument; the season runs from late November to early May.

• The Nippon-Ham Fighters at ES CON FIELD 5 h booking

  Warning: the team no longer plays at the Sapporo Dome. It moved in 2023 to ES CON FIELD, in Kitahiroshima, a different municipality some thirty kilometres away. The stadium has a 166-metre retractable roof, an onsen with a sauna looking onto the field, and Japan's first hotel with rooms overlooking the playing surface.

• F Village on a non-game day: hot spring over the outfield 4 h

  On days with no game the 32-hectare Es Con Field complex is free to enter: its own brewery, the Nanatsuboshi Yokocho restaurant lane, a farm and an adventure park. The Tower Eleven block holds the world's first hot spring from which you can watch a baseball game through glass, plus hotel rooms overlooking the field. Take the JR Chitose line to Kitahiroshima (about 20 minutes from Sapporo) and a 5-minute shuttle.

• A Consadole Sapporo match at Sapporo Dome 2 h booking

  Sapporo Dome, with its unusual sliding turf, is home to the Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo football club (J1 League); it also offers guided tours of its facilities on non-match days. Sapporo Dome is still Consadole's home ground, but it is worth checking which division the club is playing in for the season you are looking at. The Nippon-Ham Fighters no longer play here: they moved in 2023 to ES CON FIELD, in Kitahiroshima.

Niseko — 5 activities

• Off-piste through the Niseko Rules gate system 6 h booking

  Niseko manages its backcountry with numbered gates opened or closed daily according to the avalanche bulletin. Using them is compulsory, never duck a rope, and helmet and transceiver are required; breaking the rules costs your pass and a minimum of 100,000 yen for rescue. The system exists because Niseko once had Japan's highest avalanche death toll.

• Hanazono Zipflight zip line 1.75 h booking

  The largest zip line in Asia, with three courses; the long line is 1,700 metres, the longest in Japan, and reaches 110 km/h. From late April to mid-October.

• Ski touring on Yotei 10 h booking

  A serious traverse with a descent through the crater. This is not an outing: it is winter mountaineering, and in practice it requires a guide.

• UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in Niseko 8 h booking

  In late August 2026 Niseko hosts the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships for the first time in Asia, with 140 and 80 kilometre races, a time trial and relays. It means fully booked accommodation and road closures on those days, even if you are not taking part.

• Golf with Yotei in the background 4.5 h booking

  Mountain courses with the cone of Yotei as a backdrop; the one at Niseko Village was designed by Arnold Palmer.

Echigo-Yuzawa — 5 activities

• Skiing straight off the Shinkansen at GALA Yuzawa 8 h

  GALA Yuzawa is the only Shinkansen station in Japan that doubles as a ski resort base building: you step off the train, hire your gear and board the gondola in the same building, 77 minutes from Tokyo.

• Fuji Rock Festival at Naeba 12 h booking only the last weekend of July

  Japan's largest outdoor festival has been held since 1999 at the Naeba ski resort, within the municipality of Yuzawa itself: seven stages spread across the mountain and more than 50,000 people a day. The site is sloping forest, so waterproof boots and a rain jacket are needed even in July.

• Spring skiing at Kagura 8 h

  With its summit at 1,845 metres and 1,225 metres of vertical drop, Kagura has the longest season near Tokyo: from late November to mid-May. It is split into three sectors of the municipality, Kagura, Mitsumata and Tashiro, with continuous runs of up to six kilometres.

• Cosmos marathon 5 h booking

  A community race in late September through cosmos fields in bloom and freshly cut rice paddies; entries close in mid-August.

• Zipline and summer sledding at Yuzawa Kogen 2.5 h

  From May to November the plateau runs a zipline, a 706-metre summer bobsleigh and mountain karts, with a play meadow for younger children.

Fukuoka — 8 activities

• BOSS E·ZO FUKUOKA 3 h booking

  An entertainment complex attached to the stadium, with an external tube slide, a rooftop ropes course, virtual-reality sports and the Oh Sadaharu Baseball Museum. It also houses the teamLab.

• Kyushu Sumo Tournament (Kyushu Basho) at Fukuoka Kokusai Center 4 h booking only fifteen days in November

  Hosts the Kyushu honbasho every November, the last of the year's six grand tournaments and the only one held outside Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya — only available during those dates.

• Sadaharu Oh Baseball Museum 1.5 h

  On the fourth floor of the leisure complex attached to the stadium, devoted to the man with 868 home runs, a world record nobody has beaten, and now the Hawks' tutelary figure. His bats, the one-legged swing frame by frame and the history of Japanese pro baseball. It costs 1,800 yen for adults and 900 for children, opens 11:00 (10:00 at weekends) to 20:00 with last entry at 19:30, and the batting and pitching attraction zone is charged separately. Hours shift on game days.

• SoftBank Hawks Game at Mizuho PayPay Dome 3 h booking

  A stadium with a retractable dome, home to one of the most decorated teams in Japanese baseball; the NPB season runs roughly from March to October.

• Watching morning sumo practice in November 2 h only all through the November tournament

  During the Kyushu tournament the stables lodge for a whole month in temples, community halls and warehouses around Fukuoka and nearby towns, and set up their ring there. Several let you watch the morning practice, roughly seven to eleven, free and from the doorway. It is not a show: shoes off, silence, no flash and no conversation, you do not leave halfway, and you must ask the stable or the tourist office first, because each one decides for itself and some have closed to the public.

• Avispa Fukuoka at Best Denki Stadium 3 h booking

  A team in Japan's first division, at the municipal stadium in Higashi Hirao, twenty minutes by bus from Hakata. A very family atmosphere and tickets far easier to get than the Hawks'.

What only happens on specific dates

• Three mountains: West, East and Mount Isola Rusutsu 29 Nov - 31 Mar
• Tree skiing in the birch forest Rusutsu 15 Dec - 20 Mar
• Deep snow: tree wells and the resort boundary Rusutsu 1 Dec - 31 Mar
• Lift tickets: day, 25-hour and Epic Pass Rusutsu 29 Nov - 31 Mar
• Equipment rental Rusutsu 29 Nov - 31 Mar
• Super East and the hard runs on West Rusutsu 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• Night skiing on West Mountain Rusutsu 20 Dec - 15 Mar
• Mountain Guiding: a powder day with a guide Rusutsu 15 Dec - 20 Mar
• Ski and snowboard school in English Rusutsu 1 Dec - 31 Mar
• Snow park and sledding Rusutsu 20 Dec - 15 Mar
• Snowmobiling across the snowfields Rusutsu 15 Dec - 25 Mar
• Skiing at Happo-one Hakuba 1 Dec - 5 May
• Resort-hopping on the Hakuba Valley pass Hakuba 1 Dec - 6 May
• Goryu and Hakuba 47, the double mountain Hakuba 5 Dec - 15 Apr
• Tsugaike Kogen and its wide slopes Hakuba 5 Dec - 6 May
• Cortina and the birch forests Hakuba 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• Hakuba Norikura: ski, then soak Hakuba 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• Iwatake in winter Hakuba 20 Dec - 31 Mar
• Backcountry with a guide, and the valley's rules Hakuba 20 Dec - 30 Apr
• Night skiing at Goryu Hakuba 25 Dec - 20 Mar
• Gear rental and lessons in English Hakuba 1 Dec - 15 Apr
• Skiing Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort Nozawa Onsen late November to early May
• First tracks on a storm day Nozawa Onsen 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• The 10 km descent to the village Nozawa Onsen snow permitting, from December to April
• The Yamabiko trees and the powder runs Nozawa Onsen 20 Dec - 31 Mar
• Off-piste and backcountry with a guide Nozawa Onsen 5 Jan - 31 Mar
• Night skiing at Nagasaka Nozawa Onsen scattered nights from December to March
• Lessons and equipment rental Nozawa Onsen while the resort is open
• Karasawa and the easy runs with children Nozawa Onsen while the resort is open
• A day trip to Madarao Kogen Nozawa Onsen snow season, December to March

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