The Japan Series baseball championship ended a few days ago and I’m pretty pleased with the results. Although I don’t follow baseball that closely, I do follow it here in Japan. My favorite team name is the Carp (because Carp) but my favorite team is the one with the best discounts.

Japanese baseball teams are owned by corporations that use the teams as marketing more than as sources of income. (The main source of income actually seems to be fees earned from sending Japanese players to the US Major Leagues.) As a result, the Japan Series was the Fukuoka SoftBank (telecommunications) Hawks versus the Tokyo Yakult (probiotic dairy product) Swallows. The Hawks won their second series in a row and that means several days of product discounts at every company affiliated with SoftBank.

This is pretty good, but it was better when the Hawks were the Fukuoka Daiei (department store chain) Hawks. When they won the Japan series in 1999, the discounts at all their stores were excellent and several items were priced at. She Who Must Be Obeyed cheered for them in 2003 in anticipation of the discounts. (They won and there were discounts.)

The discounts were also good at the fast food chain Lotteria when the Chiba Lotte (food and chemical) Marines won.

There are, of course, teams you hope will never win. For example, the Hanshin (electric railway) Tigers and the Yomiuri (media conglomerate) Giants, are right out. Yes, they are the most popular teams in Japan but what do I get when they win? I get nothing. And nothing don’t buy my love. (Something like that.)

In the future I’m hoping to see a series of discounts, er, a series championship from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham (food processing) Fighters (because tasty dead animal flesh) or from the Hiroshima Toyo (actually Mazda) Carp (because cool name and car stuff).

Until then, I’ll try to enjoy the SoftBank related discounts. I’m hoping if they three-peat they’ll offer some discounts on their smartphone plans. It’s only a coincidence that I want that and that they are my phone provider. Well, not it’s not.