Sumo Tournament in Nagoya (July)
From 2025, the July Tournament in Nagoya will move to the brand new IG Arena (New Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium). Until 2024, the tournament took place at the Dolphins Arena. I've kept the information about the old venue at the bottom of the page. I will update this section in July 2025 with photos from the new location.
New location for the 2025 tournament!
The IG Arena is scheduled for opening in June 2025, in a location 800 meters north of the old Dolphins Arena.
Ticket prices and the seating arrangement can be found on the Sumo Association site (in Japanese). Ticket sales began on May 17th (Saturday).
https://www.sumo.or.jp/IrohaKyokaiInformation/detail?id=676
The capacity for sumo events will be 7,800 so it is not a huge difference from the Dolphins Arena where the capacity was at 7,448.
Good news for international fans is that the new arena will have 14 rows of chair seats, a big increase from the previous arena that had only six. This should allow for a more comfortable style of viewing rather than the traditional Japanese style seating that dominated the old venue.
The chair seats on the main side (正面) will be bundled together with a meal, drink and lounge access. It will be sold directly through the arena website starting on May 17th/10am. Prices start at 18,000 JPY so they are quite higher than the normal chair seats.
https://ig-arena.venue-ticket.jp/
(Purchasing tickets will require a "d account", a service provided by NTT Docomo, the mobile phone operator)
All of the wrestlers will wrap up their training in Tokyo around June 20th, and set up their training base in the Nagoya area where they will stay until the tournament is finished.
Meijo Koen (M08) on the purple Meijo Line will be the adjacent station. SUICA or PASMO cards issued in the Tokyo area also work on the Nagoya subways.
From Nagoya Station, I prefer using the red Sakura-dori Line, changing trains at Hisaya-odori. It's also possible to take the yellow Higashiyama Line and change at Sakae, but I have found this train and the transit station to be busier at peak times.
Nagoya can be easily done as a daytrip from Tokyo or Osaka, but it is a good base for exploring the Nakasendo path or for heading to Takayama. There are many hotels around Nagoya Station or in the Sakae area.
DOLPHINS ARENA...where tournaments were held until 2024
The official name is the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium. Completed in 1964, this is another old arena just like the one in Osaka where the March tournament is held.
The capacity is 7,448 for sumo, about the same as Osaka. However there are much fewer chair seats in Nagoya with only five or six rows in the back of the arena. The rest is the traditional Japanese style seating, which I do not recommend for western visitors.
Because it is July, the temperatures outside tend to be extremely hot. Unfortunately the air-con inside the arena seems to be on the weak side. It's not to the point where it is uncomfortable and considering that it is a 50 year-old arena, there probably is not much that can be done to improve it.
Pillars got in the way...
The view from my "Chair B" seat in row 15 seat 30, at the very back of the arena looked like this, with the pillars being a big nuisance.
It didn't block the view of the ring but it was still a big distraction.
Hopefully the new area will not have any obstructed view seats like this!