Sumo Tournament in Nagoya (July)
From 2025, the July Tournament in Nagoya will move to the brand new IG Arena (New Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium). Most of the information below is for the Dolphins Arena, where the tournament took place until 2024. I hope to update this section in July 2025 with photos from the new arena.
The sumo tournament is held in the city of Nagoya, starting from the second Sunday in July for 15 days.
All of the wrestlers will wrap up their training in Tokyo around June 20th, and set up their training base in Nagoya.
The venue is the Dolphins Arena, also called the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium. Completed in 1964, this is another old arena just like the one in Osaka where the March tournament is held. 2024 will be the last time the tournament is held here, before the move to a brand new arena (see below).
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.
Tickets are available through the official Ticket Osumo site.
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.
Seats to avoid...
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.
Purchasing the chair S seats (The first two rows) might be a safer bet to avoid these undesirable seats.
New location for the 2025 tournament
The IG Arena is scheduled for completion by July 2025, in a location 800 meters north of the Dolphins Arena.
The Sumo Association already announced that it intends to hold the tournament at the new arena for 2025.
You can see details of the arena on the below website.
Meijo Koen (M08) will be the adjacent station on the purple Meijo Line. SUICA or PASMO cards issued in the Tokyo area also work on the Nagoya subways.
About 12,000 seats are supposed to be available when used for sumo, according to an article on the Nikkan Sports Newspaper. This would be more than the max capacity for Tokyo's Kokugikan, hopefully making purchases easier.
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 in the Sakae area, three subway stations to the south of the arena.