1. What Koshien is

A century-old rite of passage.

Officially the National High School Baseball Championship, the event is universally called “Koshien” after the stadium that hosts it, Hanshin Koshien Stadium near Osaka.¹ The championships began in 1915, making this one of the oldest and most storied competitions in Japanese sport.¹

2. Summer & spring

Two tournaments, one stadium.

Summer Koshien is the big one: held during the school summer break in August, its two-week finals bring 49 teams to Koshien.¹ The spring tournament, Senbatsu (“selection”), is an invitational played in March, with teams chosen by committee largely on their results in the previous autumn’s regional tournaments.²

3. Who gets in

Win your prefecture, reach the stage.

For summer, the 49 finalists are decided in prefectural qualifying tournaments — one team from each of the 47 prefectures, with two each from baseball-heavy Tokyo and Hokkaido.¹ With thousands of schools entering the regional rounds, simply reaching Koshien is a career-defining achievement for a teenage player.

4. Why it matters

The emotional heart of Japanese baseball.

Koshien is the largest-scale amateur sporting event in Japan, drawing huge live TV audiences and crowds of up to 50,000 a day.¹ Losing teams famously scoop up the Koshien dirt to take home, and the tournament is the proving ground that feeds NPB and, increasingly, the US majors. It sits alongside the school-sport system as a pillar of how Japan develops athletes.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Koshien played?
At Hanshin Koshien Stadium near Osaka, which gives the tournament its name.

How many teams reach Summer Koshien?
49 — one from each of the 47 prefectures, plus a second team each from Tokyo and Hokkaido.

What is the difference between summer and spring Koshien?
Summer (August) is won through prefectural qualifiers; the spring Senbatsu (March) is an invitational chosen by committee.