The Strange Business of Sapporo Dome's Return to Profit—Driving Away Its Biggest Moneymaker, Then Relying on Taxpayers

I saw news that Sapporo Dome, a multipurpose dome in Sapporo, Hokkaido, developed with the backing of the city, had returned to profitability.

The catch was that public support from the City of Sapporo was reportedly behind that result.

Wait a moment. If tax money was injected before the facility became profitable, can we really say that its management improved?

If covering a deficit with tax money counts as profitability, the phrase “poor business performance” may disappear from the world entirely.

Sapporo Dome Lost Its Biggest Customer

The main reason Sapporo Dome fell into difficulty was that the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, a Japanese professional baseball team, left.

For years, the Fighters had been one of the dome’s most important customers and a major source of attendance. But the usage fees were high, the team had limited freedom to earn revenue from food, beverages, and advertising, and the burden that the artificial turf placed on players had also become a concern.

The Fighters asked for the conditions to be improved, but Sapporo Dome did not accept their requests and instead raised the usage fees.

The Fighters therefore decided to build a stadium of their own.

In 2023, ES CON FIELD HOKKAIDO opened in Kitahiroshima.

At an ordinary private company, the prospect of losing such an important customer would trigger a crisis.

It would reconsider its fees, improve its facilities, share revenue, and offer every possible concession to persuade the customer to stay.

Sapporo Dome, however, ultimately lost its largest customer without managing to improve its relationship with the team.

There appears to have been an argument that a public facility had to treat users fairly. But in business, giving special treatment to a customer responsible for a large share of revenue is entirely normal.

Everyone was treated equally, and the largest customer disappeared.

Fairness may have been preserved, but the business that mattered was not.

The Confusion Began After the Team Left

After the Fighters departed, Sapporo Dome faced a major loss of revenue.

Its response was a “new mode” that used a huge curtain to divide the dome so that it could accommodate smaller events.

But usage did not increase as hoped.

The basic idea was unrealistic: after losing professional baseball, a stable attraction that provided dozens of games every year, the dome tried to replace it with one-off events.

Customers capable of bringing tens of thousands of people a fixed number of times every year are not easy to find.

Worse, this was a customer the dome itself had driven away.

Before desperately searching for new events, should it not have asked why it failed to retain the customer it already had?

With Tax Money, Anyone Can Look Like a Brilliant Manager

And now we come to the reported return to profit.

If public support is sustaining the operation, a positive bottom line alone is not necessarily cause for celebration.

The number that matters is what the result would have been without taxpayer support.

For a private company, this would be like losing its largest client, suffering a sharp drop in sales, and finally receiving financial assistance from its parent company.

Even if it then announced a profit, evaluating its management would be a separate matter.

In Sapporo Dome’s case, moreover, the citizens are the ones providing the money.

They are not the people who made the management decisions.

When the dome made money, the revenue belonged to the dome. When it failed, the bill went to the taxpayers. What a remarkably convenient business model.

Will Consadole Be the Next to Leave?

The remaining presence of Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo is another concern.

A football club plays only around twenty home games a year. It cannot hold dozens upon dozens of games like a baseball team.

It is difficult for football alone to support the maintenance costs of such an enormous dome.

For Consadole, usage fees and facility conditions are also important issues.

What will happen to Sapporo Dome if Consadole follows the Fighters and begins looking for another stadium?

Of course, the dome can host concerts, exhibitions, and other events. But can those uses alone reliably cover the cost of maintaining such a huge facility?

The dome was originally supposed to energize the region through sports and events.

Now, preserving the facility itself seems to have become the objective.

Was It the Building or the Customer That Needed Protection?

The strangest part of this story is why the greatest danger—the Fighters’ departure—could not be prevented.

In private business, maintaining a relationship with a major customer is one of the most basic principles of management.

At a public facility, by contrast, usage rules, fairness, and budgetary procedures take priority. Business logic is pushed aside as a result.

Then, after the customer disappears, tax money is used to maintain the facility.

The Fighters built their own stadium and gained the ability to operate the events, food and beverage business, and advertising for themselves.

Sapporo Dome was left with an enormous building, its maintenance costs, and a burden for the city’s residents.

The Fighters got a stadium of their own. The citizens of Sapporo got a bill of their own.

Apparently, the only thing distributed fairly in this relocation was the burden.