Sumo Stadium Fully Housed for 15 Days in a Row after 19 Years

The Sunday 27th of September was the last day of Sumo's fall season and the eleven thousand seated Ryogoku Kokugikan was fully packed with spectators. This is the first time after 19 years for the Japanese national Sumo stadium to be full housed 15 days in a row. There are a number of visitors who were not allowed to get into the stadium as all the ticket were sold out.

The last time that a 15 days tournament was fully housed in a streak was 19 years ago. It was in 1996 Grand Champion when Takanohana won the Fall tournament with 15-0 for his 15th championship.

On the opening day of this year's Sumo fall season, the Japanese national Sumo stadium seats were fully packed with all seats tickets sold out. Throughout the whole 15 days, there were so many visitors from all over Japan to Ryogoku Kokugikan and visitors fully housed for each day of the fall season.  On Sunday, the final day of the fall season, all seating tickets were sold out at 8:30 AM.  

This shows the booming of Japanese traditional sports again. One of the reason is because there is no single hopeful among the Japanese wrestlers in sight to outwrestle the Mongolians. The last Japanese wrestler to win the championship was Champion Tochiazuma back in 9 years ago. The Grand Sumo Tournament holds six seasonal tournaments a year and so Tochiazuma's feat was, therefore, 58 tournaments ago. Many Japanese has been waiting to see another Japanese national wrestler become a champion.  This season many Sumo fans thought that there are great opportunity for Japanese wrestlers to win the tournament.  

This rapid rise of the visitors to the national Sumo stadium is also supported by the plans and events created to invite people. There were special days such as Japanese traditional clothing day. Visitors were encouraged to wear Kimono to come to watch Sumo games on a certain day. These event's information was released via social medias such as Twitter. Great performance by young Sumo fighters such as Terunofuji and Endo were also helping many Japanese to be at Ryogoku Kokugikan.

"I believe that these numbers of spectators will keep visiting  Ryogoku Kokugikan as long as we can keep showing great Sumo performance. We will try to do our best to fulfill the visitors" Kitanoumi, the president of Japanese Sumo associations told reporters.