Harsh Working Conditions for Team Staff
NPB team employees face extremely harsh working conditions during the season. On home game days, they are committed from early morning to late night, with post-game cleanup and next-day preparation often extending workdays beyond 14 hours. Beyond 70+ annual home games, duties span event planning, sponsor relations, and media management. Despite this, team employee salaries tend to be lower than general corporate positions. Staff passion motivated by 'loving baseball' is used as justification for poor compensation.
The Harm of Athletic Culture
Team organizations often have former players and coaches in executive positions, bringing athletic hierarchical culture directly into workplace dynamics. Atmospheres where questioning superiors is not tolerated, unreasonable reprimands, and personality-denying verbal abuse constituting power harassment have been reported. Particularly during periods of poor team performance, stress is sometimes directed at front office staff. Front office employees are structurally unable to push back against unreasonable demands from players and coaches.
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High Turnover and Talent Drain
Team employee turnover rates are reportedly high. Many employees resign unable to endure harsh conditions and low compensation. Young employee departures are particularly notable, making experience and knowledge accumulation difficult. Teams tend to adopt an attitude that 'replacements are always available,' but talent drain leads to declining management quality. Recently, IT companies entering team ownership have improved workplace environments at some teams, but the gap with teams retaining old-fashioned cultures is widening.
The Path to Improvement - Modernizing Team Management
Improving front office working conditions requires modernizing team management itself. Proper staffing, thorough work hour management, harassment prevention training, and consultation services that are standard at general companies are needed at teams. Teams owned by IT companies like DeNA, Rakuten, and SoftBank are seeing workplace improvements through corporate culture introduction. However, no unified NPB-wide standards exist, leaving efforts to individual teams. For professional baseball's sustainable development, attention must be paid not only to players but also to the working conditions of the support staff behind them.