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 hope to 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 July 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)
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 have some sort of lounge access, though the detail and pricing for these seats have yet to be released.
Ticket sales will begin on May 17th (Saturday).
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.
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.
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!