Hideki Kuriyama, Chief Baseball Officer (CBO, 65) of Nippon-Ham, attended a talk event held at baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Tokyo on the 26th to commemorate his induction into the baseball Hall of Fame, where he interacted with fans. During the Q&A session, he made an unusual "request" to Shohei Ohtani, his former student from his time with Nippon-Ham Fighters and now a star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

When fans expressed concern about a decline in baseball's popularity after Ohtani's retirement, Chief Baseball Officer Kuriyama emphasized, "First of all, we must not let him retire until a successor to Ohtani emerges. That is important." Although Ohtani has a contract with the Dodgers until 2033, he requested that he continue playing until a new star of "Ohtani caliber" is born.

The number of people baseball is also on the decline due to the low birthrate. "We are the ones who feel the most sense of crisis. We may not be able to become like Shohei, but there must be players that everyone wants to watch, and we have to find those kinds of players and create them," he said, expressing his opinion.

"To be honest, the type of players that everyone would want to see are basically likely to go to America. Players who can draw a crowd on their own," he said, acknowledging the trend of NPB star players challenging the majors. "I feel a sense of crisis about that, and we have to change the structure of baseball, including its structure. If we increase the number of teams or increase the number of places baseball is played, the probability will increase, or rather, we can maintain it. We have to change that structure," he said, reiterating his long-held advocacy for expanding the number of teams to "around 20."