How to Watch Professional Japanese Baseball (NPB) on TV or Streaming from Overseas

By Trevor Raichura

Several times a year we get asked a question that should have a readily-available answer: “Where/How can I watch NPB from overseas?”

Here are your best options to watch Nippon Professional Baseball from abroad, in no particular order of accessibility or cost.

Pacific League TV – For the reasonable price of ¥1,450 per month, you can watch all Pacific League (Fighters, Eagles, Marines, Lions, Buffaloes, Hawks) regular-season games, plus farm games from many of those teams and more, plus the PL Climax Series. Also included are home interleague games for the Giants and Tigers.

Toratele – For just ¥660 per month, you get access to all Hanshin Tigers home games, home farm games, plus road games against the Yomiuri Giants. (I have a guide for signing up on my Tigers site.)

Giants Live Stream – For ¥1,500 per month, you can view all Yomiuri Giants home games, plus road games against the Hanshin Tigers and Yokohama BayStars.

ForJoyTV – Now we’re getting into Japanese TV feeds, which are not exclusively baseball-related. This one costs $27.99 per month, and gives you access to over 80 channels of Japanese network and cable TV. You would then have to sort through and find the broadcasts for the games by yourself. Archives go back just two weeks.

JPTVnet.com – This services offers a variety of options and at different prices. Costs range between $18 and $30 per month. Channel availability changes depending on how much money you pay!

For the Fans – (Announced August 9, 2020; stay tuned for more) According to NHK, “For the Fans sports channel will broadcast more than 200 official Pacific League games between August and November.” Games are on digital channels that carry For the Fans: Pluto, Xumo, Samsung Smart TV, ROKU, & Zingo TV but not on their website. There will be one game each day at 5:00 PM ET. At least in the beginning it will be the Japanese broadcast with no English commentary. *Hat-tip to Keith Brock for this!

There are probably a lot of people in our community who know of other ways to get access to NPB games, so feel free to share some with us and we will add them to the list! There are also all sorts of “illegal” livestreams of games all over the internet, but we don’t exactly want to support what they are doing…

Hope this helps you find the baseball action that you want so badly to see!

For more Japanese baseball, check out JapanBall’s Articles and Features section!