In honor of the national holiday Sports Day on October 8, Oricon surveyed two thousand people to find out who their favorite sports players were. The #1 male was predictably Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, while the #1 female was teen figure skater Mao Asada.

Also unsurprising was the fact that baseball players made up the majority of top ten men, with seven athletes named. Soccer player Shunsuke Nakamura was #2, followed by Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Ryo Ishikawa (golf), Kyuji Fujikawa, Tomonori Maeda, Masahiro Tanaka, and Kosuke Kitajima (swimming).

The list of top ten women had more variety, with volleyball being the largest contributor with four names. After Mao Asada, the complete list was Miwa Asao (beach volleyball); Ryoko Tani (judo); Miki Ando (figure skating); Miyuki Takahashi (volleyball), tied for 5th with Megumi Kurihara (volleyball) and Ai Fukuhara (table tennis); Reiko Shiota (badminton); Ai Miyazato (golf); Saori Kimura (volleyball).