History of Panasonic Sports

Over the company's 100-years history, sports have continued to make contributions as a tool for enhancing employees' health and promoting friendship among them, as well as being a key company growth strategy to develop human resources, foster a positive workplace culture, and create a brand.

Panasonic's involvement with sports dates back to 1920, two years after the company's founding, when the Hoichi-kai Society employee association was established to foster a sense of unity among employees. The founder Konosuke Matsushita launched the Society based on the idea that employees must make a unified commitment to achieve corporate growth. The Society actively promoted sports tournaments as well as recreational and cultural activities. At the start of the Showa Period, rubber-ball baseball became popular, which led to the formation of many teams and in-house tournaments. Despite the cancellation of all sports tournaments during World War II, some workplaces resumed holding them as early as two years after the war, and in 1948, the All Matsushita Rubber-ball Baseball Team was formed, helping raise employee awareness of business restructuring.

In August 1950, Konosuke Matsushita, who always had a keen interest in sports, issued an internal notice regarding the encouragement of sports, in which he stated that in order to boost the morale of employees and increase their solidarity, the company must develop uniform measures and improve its external reputation. Furthermore, he classified the All Matsushita Rubber-ball Baseball Team as one of the company's official organizations. Thus, Panasonic stepped up its efforts to leverage the power of sports to foster a corporate culture and develop a brand.

In 1951, the intra-Matsushita Electric Group sports tournament entitled Nationwide Company Sports Festival was launched and became an annual event, continuing for nearly 50 years until 1998. This event was such a high-level athletic meet that it was referred to as the Matsushita version of the National Sports Festival. In 1989, for the commemorative tournament to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the company's founding, participants came from 12 countries and regions including the U.S. and Australia, resulting in a global event involving around 6,500 people. Currently, the beanbag toss tournament (organized by AJTA) functions as a group-wide sports event, which was introduced in 2011, and has involved overseas companies for the purposes of better workplace communication and improving health.

In 1952, based on the idea that a sound mind and fair play will create a healthy work environment, the Sports Department was launched as a Head Office organization. The baseball team changed to a hardball team, and the volleyball and basketball teams were established successively. In 1957, the company launched the Sports Committee in an attempt to bolster athlete recruitment and further advance efforts to develop a culture of solidarity and enhance brand competitiveness through the teams' good performances. The founder became the first chairperson, and the committee launched full-fledged initiatives for corporate sports.

* A series of essays written by Konosuke Matsushita and posted in in-house magazines often referred to the baseball team, which was doing quite well from early on.

The Sports Committee was later reorganized as the Corporate Sports Department in 1994 and further renamed as the Corporate Sports Center in 2002. Against this backdrop, they worked toward becoming an autonomous and independent organization to lead brand image enhancement. For a while, there were six sports teams going strong in their respective fields, but some underwent changes with the times, such as the soccer team developing into GAMBA OSAKA.

Finally in 2020, the position of sports within Panasonic further advanced. On October 1, the Sports Management Division was launched to make a new start by collectively naming the PANTHERS, Baseball Team, WILD KNIGHTS, IMPULSE, Angels, and other competitive Panasonic sports teams as Panasonic Sports. These teams not only represent Panasonic, but also move forward with the aim of achieving further growth as a group of athletes who will encourage Japan and bring a smile to the faces of everyone around the world.