In a press conference held on October 21st, NJPW broke the news of the company having a United States subsidiary, New Japan Pro Wrestling Of America (NJOA). Chairman Naoki Sugabayashi and CEO Takami Obari were on hand to explain the structure of the company.
According to Obari, there were three phases the company focused to make this happen with the first being talent recruitment, the second phase concentrating on the company focusing on running events within the United States and other international markets as we have seen within the last year, and the third phase which the company is now entering is to establish the subsidiary in the U.S. and to be fully established in the market and engage and interact with the fans. New Japan Of America will have events running in the West Coast, Texas, East/South East and Midwest, with tours running through the main cities in the four key areas the company is currently working on having events for.
Obari further discussed that there were no plans to sell the Japanese market short and that an office in the US would allow for more effective talent relations within the US to allow performers to further the NJOA brand while furthering engagement from the American fans.
Obari spoke about the key differences between the US and Japan in terms of the fan base, stating that in the US the fan base is more of a male fan base, and the way the fan base consumes the content digitally in the US, but in Japan the content is consumed through television.
With regard to the tours in the U.S., the tours will take place while the Japanese schedule is between tours. However, it was mentioned that there may be times where both the U.S. and Japan schedules may run at the same time which will affect talent schedules. According to Obari, the broadcasting plans will be to have the U.S. events through NJPW World whenever possible, and other times the shows will be available through video on demand on delay, as such with the Super J Cup tournament held recently.
At this very moment, the 2020 show schedule is still being laid out but according to Obari, there could be twice as many events as in 2019 from 12-13 to 24-26 events. Obari stated that this change in schedule would not result in a reduction of events in Japan.
Obari spoke briefly on the work between the promotion and AXS TV and mentioned that the promotion will continue to work with the network for the foreseeable future and that the two parties have worked well together. However, future partnerships with other networks could be considered and discussed.
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