Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome (東京ドーム, Tōkyō Dōmu) is an indoor stadium in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. It was designed as a baseball stadium following its predecessor, Korakuen Stadium (whose former site is now occupied by the Tokyo Dome Hotel and a plaza for this stadium). In Japan, it is often used as a unit of size; for example, "the new construction is five times the size of Tokyo Dome."
Not to be confused with Tokyo Dome City Hall.Location
Tokyo Dome Corporation[a]
(Mitsui Fudosan (80%) and The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings (20%))
Facility Capacity Area[6]
Site: 112,456 m2 (27.788 acres)
Building: 46,755 m2 (503,270 sq ft)
Internal height: 56 m (184 ft)
Field: 13,000 m2 (140,000 sq ft)
Left/right field – 100 m (330 ft)
Left/right-center – 110 m (360 ft)
Center field – 122 m (400 ft)
Capacity: 1,240,000 m3 (43.8 million cubic feet)
March 17, 1988
Takenaka Corporation[1]
Nikken Sekkei,[2] Geiger Engineers
Construction[edit]
Construction on the stadium began on May 16, 1985, and it opened on March 17, 1988. It was built on the site of the Velodrome, adjacent to Korakuen Stadium and the Koishikawa-Kōrakuen garden. It has a maximum total capacity of 57,000 depending on configuration, with an all-seating configuration of 42,000.[7][3][8][9]
Tokyo Dome's original nickname was "The Big Egg", with some calling it the "Tokyo Big Egg".[10] Its dome-shaped roof is an air-supported structure, a cable-reinforced 0.8 mm flexible fiberglass membrane supported by slightly pressurizing the inside of the stadium[11] with 150,000 m3/hour[12] using independent blowers.[13] It was developed by Nikken Sekkei and Takenaka Corporation,[1] and modeled after the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.[10]
History[edit]
It is the home field of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team. On March 18, 1988, the day after the Tokyo Dome opened, the Yomiuri Giants held a game which was the first event in the Tokyo Dome.[14] The Yomiuri Giants host about 70 games a year at their home stadium, Tokyo Dome, and other Nippon Professional Baseball teams sometimes host several games a year at the Tokyo Dome. If the Yomiuri Giants advance to the Climax Series or the Japan Series, additional games will be held at Tokyo Dome. Interleague play, in which the Yomiuri Giants participate, will also be held at the Tokyo Dome. In 2021, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows advanced to the Japan Series, but they held the Japan Series at Tokyo Dome instead of their home stadium, Meiji Jingu Stadium. This was because the Japan Series had to be rescheduled due to the spread of COVID-19 infectious disease, and the dates overlapped with the game days of amateur baseball tournaments at Meiji Jingu Stadium.[15][16][17] Tokyo Dome is also the location of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame which chronicles the history of baseball in Japan.[18]
It has also hosted international baseball tournaments such as the World Baseball Classic and WBSC Premier12, Major League Baseball, music concerts, basketball, American football, and association football games, as well as puroresu (pro-wrestling) matches, mixed martial arts events, kickboxing events, and monster truck races. It became the first Japanese venue with an American football attendance above 50,000.[19]