Yuzuho Shiokoshi buried the winning penalty Friday night, giving Japan its third consecutive Asian Games women’s soccer gold. The stadium erupted. Japan’s broadcasters showed men’s volleyball instead.
About 6,000 people watched Japan defeat North Korea in the final at Shizuoka Stadium, which has 50,000 seats. That same day, 65,000 fans watched the men’s national team beat Ecuador in a penalty shootout in Yokohama. Shiokoshi, the Tokyo Verdy Beleza midfielder who scored the decisive goal, couldn’t miss the contrast.
“The crowd today might have been large for this tournament, but compared to last time in Hangzhou, I feel like we’re still not quite there,” Shiokoshi said in comments reported from Nagoya on October 3. Three years earlier, Japan’s women had faced the same North Korean opponent in front of 37,000 fans in Hangzhou, China. The trajectory tells a story: women’s soccer in Japan is moving backward.
The Broadcasting Problem
Japan’s host broadcaster chose to air the men’s volleyball semifinal instead of the women’s soccer final. That wasn’t incidental scheduling. It reflects a systemic decision about whose sport matters, whose athletes deserve visibility and whose professional opportunities warrant investment. Shiokoshi spoke plainly about the impact: “We’re out there fighting hard, and we want people to come and see us play in person. It’s tough at times, given that women’s football isn’t always prioritised for TV broadcasts.”
The women earned a gold medal. They performed at the highest level. Yet institutional gatekeepers—network executives, schedulers and the machinery that decides what millions see—deemed their achievement less worthy of airtime than a men’s volleyball semifinal.
Building the League From Below
Shiokoshi plays in Japan’s WE League, the women’s professional top flight. She knows visibility drives investment, attendance and sustainability. If fans don’t see women’s soccer on television, they won’t buy tickets. Without ticket revenue and sponsorship, the league can’t pay players competitively or attract top talent.
“I hope this encourages more people to come and watch WE League matches, and that it helps generate some excitement around the league,” Shiokoshi said. “I think winning the title can boost the league’s value.”
Japan’s Asian Games squad consisted almost entirely of players based at home, rather than the nation’s top players competing in Europe. That meant the team drew from the domestic league. The gold medal, then, offers proof of concept: invest in women’s soccer at home, and the returns come in gold medals and international recognition.
Why This Matters:
The gap between 6,000 fans and 65,000 fans, and between a gold-medal match and a men’s volleyball semifinal on the broadcast schedule, reflects deeper inequalities in how societies value women’s professional sports. When public institutions—broadcasters with reach and influence—consistently choose men’s events, they send a market signal: women’s sports matter less. That creates a vicious cycle: fewer TV appearances mean fewer sponsors, lower player salaries, smaller crowds and less institutional support. Shiokoshi’s appeal isn’t just emotional—it’s structural. Women athletes can’t build sustainable careers in a sport starved of visibility and investment. The question facing Japan’s sports institutions is whether they’ll treat women’s soccer as worth protecting and promoting, or whether gold medals will keep playing second fiddle to men’s volleyball on the schedule.