A new professional sports league is hoping to spur new interest in an ancient practice.
The Sumo Championship League’s first-ever event is happening this weekend outside of Austin, and the competition features several Texans, including the tournament’s No. 1 seed.
Stuart Snyder, the league’s chairman and CEO, joined Texas Standard with more about the competition and what fans can expect.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Why are you betting big on Sumo?
Stuart Snyder: Well, sumo has been around for over 1,500 years. It is obviously very well-known and popular in Japan.
And if you go to anybody and ask anyone walking around the U.S. and say sumo, they have a visualization of what sumo is — very high awareness factor. But not many people have seen it live.
I studied it over the last few years, discovered it’s in 85 countries around the world. Right here in the U.S. there are 45 amateur clubs. And I’m going, why is there no professional sumo wrestling league?
And it’s a great live sport. So we’ve launched it, and we’re launching right here in Austin, Texas.
How did Texas end up being your debut event site?
Well, I know Austin well. I’ve been here many, many times over the years, visiting South by Southwest and coming for concerts. Really the city is amazing, diverse. It’s such a unique city that welcomes different things.
Great sports city. You know, I know that there’s a pretty big game on Saturday, so let’s start with go Longhorns. And I think Saturday is a perfect way — I think everybody should watch the Longhorns win, celebrate hard and end Saturday with the Sumo Championship League at the H-E-B Center at eight o’clock.
How did you find your athletes?
Great question. So when we announced, we said that there was a process for people to apply to the league.
Right now I’m pleased to say we have 58 athletes signed to the league, and they’re from 10 different countries around the world. And we really have chosen the best of the best to be with the league in the beginning.
We also heard from a lot of athletes who are not today either experts in sumo or have even trained in sumo, but they’re athletes that have had their day in the sun in other sports, such as football, for example.
So we have evaluated them as well and have established a training program for athletes to learn sumo, so somewhere down the line, they get a chance to be in the league as well.
Well, it’s a lot of athletes to keep track of. I wanted to ask about the No. 1 seed for this weekend, Dominus Davis-Williams, who I believe is from San Antonio.
That’s right. I’ve seen Dominus over the last few years compete, and he’s an amazing sumo wrestler.
Dominus and others, they’ve been doing this for a while. They train and they are so passionate about their sport. They’re all competitive, but they come at it from a standpoint of really what sumo is all about, which is respect and honor and sportsmanship.
They have tremendous respect for all of their competitors whenever they compete. He and all of our 16 competitors in Austin are great people.
What do people need to know about sumo before watching an event?
It’s pretty simple: Two sumo wrestlers enter the dohyo. The objective is to push or to throw or to whatever you can to get your competitor outside of the dohyo — outside of ring, as we say.
Also, the other way that they win is if any body part other than a competitor’s feet hit the ground. And matches can last anywhere from 10 seconds to several minutes.
It’s great night out for families because that foundation of sumo is all about honor and the respect and sportsmanship. So there’s nothing objective that a parent would have with bringing their kids to see sumo wrestling.
What would success look like? Is there another sports success story that you would model after or hope to achieve?
Well, I think that if you look in terms of my background and so forth, I’ve had a wonderful and honored to have spent time at WWE. And you look at UFC and their growth over the years.
I’d like to grow the number of shows. I’d to see the awareness of sumo grow as well as a sport. And ultimately, I would like to see the sumo wrestlers themselves become superstars.
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