It's often said in professional sports that teams with bigger payrolls have a better chance to win games and championships.

In Nippon Professional Baseball, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks sometimes have their achievements downgraded by some, because it's felt that they can capture so many title because of their extensive resources.

In fact, the Pacific League club will have 17 Japanese players with an annual salary of over ¥100 million (their overall payroll will be estimated at somewhere around ¥6-7 billion for 2018) for the 2018 season, which tops Japanese baseball.