Takafumi Horie, 31, has been the man in the news since the end of June, when he announced that his Tokyo-based Internet service firm, Livedoor Co., was in the market for Osaka's debt-ravaged Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team.
In the present tumultuous state of the professional game in Japan -- with merger talks ongoing between the Buffaloes and its Kobe rival, Orix BlueWave, and a plan by some of the owners of the country's 12 pro teams to merge the Central and Pacific leagues prompting a players' backlash that may yet lead to a strike -- Horie's buyout bid added considerable fuel to the yakyu flames.
However, it was precisely because he shares the view of many of the players and fans that merging the clubs and then the leagues is not the way to go, that Horie made his move. This was combined with his conviction that Livedoor can turn the troubled Buffaloes around and then turn a healthy profit. To do so, Horie envisions root-and-branch restructuring, involving issuing stocks to the fans, offering the players stock options and broadcasting games on the Internet. "Our plan will definitely change the current state of Japanese baseball," he says with confidence.