Railway firms one after another are severing ties with their money-losing professional baseball teams.

OSAKA-Kintetsu Corp. is set to become the sixth railway operator to withdraw from the professional baseball business, the latest indication the traditional business model adopted by the companies is failing.

Hankyu Corp. founder Ichizo Kobayashi created the model, which calls for comprehensive construction of buildings, including houses, department stores and amusement parks, along the railway lines to boost passenger numbers.

Ownership of a professional baseball club, the former Hankyu Braves, was part of Kobayashi's strategy for the Hankyu lines. The railway benefited from the increased exposure and passenger numbers that the team brought, and soon other railways followed suit. By the late 1980s, five of the 12 professional baseball teams were owned by railway companies, four of which were located in the Kansai region.

In all, eight railways have had a hand in running ball clubs, including the now-defunct Japanese National Railways, which was privatized and splintered into what are now the Japan Railway group companies.

Passenger numbers, however, have been on an extended decline, and the baseball teams no longer have the pull they once had, making them prime candidates to be jettisoned during restructuring.

For many analysts, such reform is long overdue.

Kintetsu's exit from professional baseball following the Kintetsu Buffaloes' planned merger with the Orix BlueWave would leave only two railway companies involved in baseball-Hanshin Electric Railway Co. and Seibu Railway Co., whose top shareholder, Kokudo Corp., owns the Seibu Lions.

Hanshin cashed in on the traditional business model in 2003 when the Hanshin Tigers won the Central League, helping the parent company mark record sales and net profit.

But such success stories are rare.

Kintetsu, for example, is being burned by the traditional model.

Although its railway network stretches from southern Osaka Prefecture to central Japan and is lined with department stores, housing projects and crowd-getters such as the large-scale resort and amusement facility Shima Spain Village in Mie Prefecture, passenger traffic has been on a downward trend since fiscal 1992.

The 12-year decline is attributed to families having fewer children and the prolonged economic doldrums.

The number of passengers in fiscal 2003 was about 630 million, down by 20 percent from eight years earlier.

The decline in the number of passengers is casting a shadow over Kintetsu's future operations.

The population living along Kintetsu lines remained almost unchanged in 2003 from 2002, and sales of commuter passes fell by 2.1 percent from a year earlier, surpassing the 1.3-percent drop in sales of other tickets.

Kintetsu managed to post its first net profit in five years in fiscal 2003, but that was largely as a result of a groupwide review of operations.

In May 2003, the group disbanded OSK Nippon Kagekidan, a revue troupe based in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture. In June, it closed the Ayameike Yuenchi amusement park in Nara. The company is also trying to revive business at the Shima Spain Village.

Under the circumstances, Kintetsu decided that it can no longer afford to support the money-losing Buffaloes. Each year, the Kintetsu group loses about 4 billion yen on its baseball operations.

The story is not a new one. It is almost identical to those that led Hankyu and Nankai Electric Railway Co. to cut their ties with professional baseball in 1988. While the Braves were reborn as the BlueWave, the Nankai Hawks became the Daiei Hawks.

Reforms at the two railway companies continue to this day.

In April 2003, the Hankyu group shut down Takarazuka Family Land amusement park in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture. The company also plans to renovate the Takarazuka Grand Theater, the base for Takarazuka Revue Company, in December for completion in January 2005.

The Hankyu Nishinomiya Stadium, former home of the Hankyu Braves, will reopen as a large-scale shopping facility in autumn 2006.

Nankai, meanwhile, opened the Namba Parks shopping complex in October 2003 on the site of the Osaka Stadium, the former home of the Nankai Hawks.(IHT/Asahi: October 19,2004) (10/19)