The USA-Japan women’s soccer world championship game was played at a bad time for newspapers in Japan. It began at 2:45 p.m. EST, which was 3:45 a.m. in Tokyo, making it impossible for the story to make the Monday papers.
I was curious how the Japanese papers would play a huge international sports win. Knowing the exuberance of the Japanese fans, for soccer and for baseball, I figured it would be played at least as big as local papers here play a Duke or UNC national championship.
But, not so.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Tokyo gave the win dominant art, but, graphically, it was understated:
The Nishi-Nippon newspaper in Fukuoka City played the story even more sedately:
The English-language Japan Times gets a little closer to the kind of play a big sporting event might get in an American paper, but it’s still restrained:
And, finally, The Stars & Stripes Pacific edition makes clear that, even though they are located in Tokyo, the win by the Japanese women was not their story, though it got a front-page refer:
Jon C. Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper, Carolina Journal.