Do University Sports Function as Advertising in the Japanese Higher Education Market? An Analysis of the Hakone Ekiden Long‐Distance Relay Road Race

The Hakone Ekiden, a university‐level long‐distance relay race, is the premier New Year's sporting event in Japan. It is held immediately prior to the university application period. Using panel data for 2001 to 2015, I examined how this race influences the number of applicants for university entrance examinations. The major finding is that applicants per intake for a particular department in a university was 0.7 points larger when that university participated in the current year's race than when it did not. However, the effect of participating in the previous year's race was not observed. Furthermore, the effect increased when the department of the university was more difficult to enter or was located in Tokyo. This reveals that prestigious universities participating in the race give students a casual motivation to take an entrance examination of the university without regard for their chances of passing.