Sumo has peaked since the pandemic, and will move to London for the first time in three decades in 2025

London will host an official Sumo Tournament in October 2025.
Text: Javier Escribano
Published 2024-12-18

Sumo is one of the oldest sports to still be practised, dating over a thousand year back, and has remained with almost no changes since the it became a professional sport in the 17th centry. While this martial art has had its fair share of controversies recently, and it has serious negative effects on sumo wrestlers' health, its popularity internationally has also grown.

To capitalize of the growing interest of sumo, London will host the second ever Sumo Tournament outside of Japan. It will be at the Royal Albert Hall, between 15-19 October, 2025. Tickets will go on sale early 2025. The Hall will be transformed into a temple of Sumo, with over 40 of Japan's elite maku-uchi rikishi (wrestlers).

Previously, the Royal Albert Hall also hosted a sumo tournament in 1991. That was the only time a sumo Tournament, typically held six times per year, happened outside of Japan.

Japan Sumo Association chairman Hakkaku Rijicho, and winner of the London tournament in 1991, explained that, since the Covid-19 confinement, international interest in sumo has grown like never before. First they watched it on the Internet, and now many tourists stop in a sumo tournament on their trips to Japan, venues that typically where only seen by older Japanese people.

Between 2.5% and 30% of spectators in sumo tournaments are foreign, he said, as reported by EFE. And it grew even larger thanks to the Japanese TV series Sancturay, which entered in the Top 10 non-English fiction worlwdie. Thanks to that, 2023 was the first time Japan Sumo Association reported profit after four years of losses.

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