Throughout the course of a season, Nippon Professional Baseball and the twelve teams that make up the league put on a ton of events. These are tied to musicians, fashion brands, food and beverage companies and more. In terms of games, Pokémon and Dragon Quest have been in the mix, but for the 2026 season, NPB has teamed up with Nintendo to celebrate Mario’s 40th anniversary at all twelve stadiums in the country. I had a chance to check out a game at the Saitama Seibu Lions’ Belluna Dome, so let’s talk about it.
Pre-Game
If you’ve never been to a game in Japan, most of the pre-games have each team’s respective cheerleaders doing some kind of dance performance or something similar before the team takes the field. For the Mario campaign, things were a little bit different, but mostly the same. One big difference as that the ground crew had to replace the traditional bases with special yellow Question Mark bases that are used during the game. They did first and second themselves, and then did a ceremonial version with Mario, Luigi, Toad and Yoshi alongside some of the crew and a representative player from the home team. In this case, outfielder Seiya Watanabe did the honors.
Shortly after that, the crew did a bit more dancing, complete with Mario themed hats. Afterward, it was time for Mario to show his stuff and prove that he belonged on the mound with the opening pitch. While this one had a bit of a bound before it reached the catcher, Mario actually threw a pretty decent pitch (which can’t be easy while wearing one of those kinds of costumes). Once that was over, the game moved to start as usual.
During the Game
Things are a little more subdued during the game, but there still are some Mario-related elements that are on offer throughout the stadium. The scoreboard saw a few subtle changes with the balls, strikes and outs featuring Mario themed emblems with Koopa Troopa shells for balls, Stars for strikes and Mushrooms for outs. At Belluna Dome, there was also a Mario 40th anniversary banner on the scoreboard and one on the outside of the stadium as well. Mario music was also on display during instant replay assists, with the Underground theme from the original Super Mario Bros. played during the duration of the review. During this particular game, there were two request of some pretty close plays, which led to a pretty lengthy review process and the music going for a long time…and then restarting just when people thought it was over. It might sound kind of stupid, but there was a light laugh from pretty much everyone in attendance. Outside of these, fans could make use of a special photo frame via the Nintendo Today app. Once in the vicinity of the stadium during the time period, this is available and is a great way to commemorate the game for fans.
Merch
A moderate amount of related merch is on offer at these games or on their corresponding online storefronts. Some of these are the same regardless of the home team, but a few feature the home logos. For the universal items, there is a folder featuring Mario and all twelve of the teams in NPB (¥440), and a keychain with a circular acrylic emblem with the Mario 40th logo in the center and the twelve teams around it (¥1,100). Items with logos include a team towel (¥3,300), a t-shirt with all of the NPB team logos circling the Mario 40th logo and then the home team logo with the Mario 40th on the upper back and a jersey (¥13,200).
I was prepared to buy everything on offer, but sadly, the keychain was sold out. Even though I got to the stadium about an hour and a half early, I mistakenly decided to buy food first. By the time that was finished, it was about 40 minutes until the start of the game, so I had another decision to make - line up for probably an hour to buy merch, or go to my seat and watch the opening festivities. I chose the latter. I suppose if I really NEED (…well, you know what I mean), I could always try to track one of these down online from another team’s online shop or something, or via an overpriced reseller. We’ll see how it goes.
As far as the merch itself goes, most of the items here are pretty high quality, albeit a bit expensive. The jersey, while cool, doesn’t really feel like a premium product to me. The material is a little bit thin. Even with that said, the design is unique and these are all things that hardcore Nintendo fans will likely want to have in their collections.
Conclusion
When NPB and Nintendo first announced this collab earlier in the year, I was excited. I won’t be able to make it to all of the games, but I’m really glad that I got to check this one out with my favorite team. Ironically, this is something that you won’t find in any of the Konami games, be it Power Pros or Pro Spirits (which is more understandable). But I digress. It was just fun being able to see Nintendo highlighted in NPB and I hope more collaborations like this between the two will happen again in the future.
But, let’s turn things over to you guys. What do you think about the Mario 40th anniversary celebration at the NPB stadiums? Could you go to any of the games? Be sure to sound off with any and all comments down below. We’d love to hear from you!
by Danny Bivens
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