is a Japanese

sports equipment Sports equipment, sporting equipment, also called sporting goods, are the tools, materials, apparel, and gear used to compete in a sport and varies depending on the sport. The equipment ranges from balls, nets, and protective gear like helmets. ...

and athletic goods

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

with its international corporate headquarters located in Nishi-ku,

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

, Chūgoku. Specializing in equipment for

ball games This is a list of ball games and ball sports that include a ball as a key element in the activity, usually for scoring points. Ball games Ball sports fall within many sport categories, some sports within multiple categories, including: *Bat-and- ...

, the balls manufactured by Mikasa for sports

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

Korfball Korfball ( nl, korfbal) is a ball sport, with similarities to netball and basketball. It is played by two teams of eight players with four female players and four male players in each team. The objective is to throw a ball into a netless bask ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, waterpolo and handball are often used for official

match A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

es,

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

s and

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

s. Most notably, Mikasa volleyballs are the official balls for all Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (International Volleyball Federation) worldwide competitions, and numerous domestic leagues outside of North America. Mikasa volleyballs are the official ball for the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

. Presently clubs, regions, high schools, colleges, and tournaments throughout the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

use Mikasa volleyballs.

History

Mikasa was founded in 1917 as the Hiroshima Gomu Corporation. The company began its life producing many different types of rubber products, such as

flip-flops Flip-flops are a type of light sandal, typically worn as a form of casual footwear. They consist of a flat sole held loosely on the foot by a Y-shaped strap known as a toe thong that passes between the first and second toes and around both side ...

and dodgeballs. It began using the Mikasa brand name on its sports products in 1935, and in the early 1940s was consolidated with a number of rival rubber companies. Following World War II, the company grew rapidly: Mikasa volleyballs made their Olympic debut at the

1964 Tokyo Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this hon ...

, and in the 1970s the company began to expand globally. Since 1980, Mikasa has also produced the official Olympic

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

ball. In the 2000s, Mikasa was faced with allegations of labor violations in some factories in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. The

ITUC The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC); german: Internationaler Gewerkschaftsbund (IGB), link=no; es, Confederación Sindical Internacional (CSI), link=no. is the world's largest trade union federation. History The federation w ...

published a report alleging anti-labor campaigns by company management.2007 Annual Survey of violations of trade union rights - Thailand: Violations in 2006, International Trade Union Confederation, 2007
survey07.ituc-csi.org
The report detailed allegations of unethical labor practices such as the penalization of union leaders and labor organizers via discriminatory transfers and unjust disciplinary procedures. The ITUC argued that Mikasa succeeded in either forcing the resignation of most of the factory's union committee in an affront to the right of its employees to organize. The Thai Labor Campaign alleged that new Mikasa factory workers received only 173

baht The baht (; th, บาท, ; currency sign, sign: ฿; ISO 4217, code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 ''satang'' (, ). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. Society for Worldw ...

per day. (equivalent to $4.36 per day in 2006)The Life of Football Factory Workers in Thailand, Junya Lek Yimprasert, Thai Labor Campaign, June 30, 2006
PDF from CleanClothes

Products

Mikasa makes many different types of balls, including goods for

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...

and

indoor Indoor(s) may refer to: *the interior of a building *Indoor environment, in building science, traditionally includes the study of indoor thermal environment, indoor acoustic environment, indoor light environment, and indoor air quality *Built envi ...

volleyball,

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

waterpolo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

korfball Korfball ( nl, korfbal) is a ball sport, with similarities to netball and basketball. It is played by two teams of eight players with four female players and four male players in each team. The objective is to throw a ball into a netless bask ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

and

rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

. (The last two are available solely in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

)

Sponsorships

Mikasa has been the official ball provider for the following leagues and associations, in addition to having exclusive agreements with some prominent athletes:

Volleyball

Athletes

Misty May-Treanor Misty Elizabeth May-Treanor (; née May; born July 30, 1977) is a retired American professional beach volleyball player. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and , was the most successful female beach volleyball player having won 112 tour ...

Reid Priddy William Reid Priddy (born October 1, 1977), known as Reid Priddy, is an American volleyball player on the United States men's national volleyball team and Italian club Cucine Lube Civitanova. He has also played on the AVP tour from 2000 to 200 ...

Marta Menegatti Marta Menegatti (born 16 August 1990) is an Italian beach volleyball player who plays as a left-side defender with her partner Viktoria Orsi Toth. With former teammate Greta Cicolari, she achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 4 in August ...

Sara Hughes Sara Elizabeth Hughes (born February 14, 1995) is an American beach volleyball player. With teammate Kelly Cheng, she achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 2 in August 2023. Hughes has won six tournaments on the AVP Pro Tour and sev ...

Clubs

HAOK Mladost Hrvatski akademski odbojkaški klub Mladost or simply HAOK Mladost is a Croatian professional volleyball team based in Zagreb which is part of the HAŠK Mladost sports society. It was established in 1945. HAOK is the most successful Croatian volley ...

* C.S.M. Arcada Galati *

Dinamo Moscow MGO VFSO "Dynamo" (russian: МГО ВФСО «Динамо»), commonly known as Dynamo Moscow (russian: Динамо Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. Founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky on 18 April 1923, Dynamo Moscow was the first ...

Federations

* Fédération Internationale (FIVB)

National teams

* * * * * * * *

Waterpolo

Ligue Européenne de Natation Len or LEN may refer to: People and fictional characters * Len (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Lén, a character from Irish mythology * Alex Len (born 1993), Ukrainian basketball player * Mr. Len, American hip hop DJ * L ...

Fédération Internationale de Natation FINA (french: Fédération internationale de natation, en, International Swimming Federation, link=yes) (to be renamed as World Aquatics by ) is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administer ...

(men and women) *

Tony Azevedo Anthony Lawrence Azevedo (born November 21, 1981) is a Brazilian-born American water polo player. He is a 2008 Olympic silver medalist and a five-time Olympian (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016). Azevedo ranks fourth on the all-time scoring list ...

* National

men A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chrom ...

and

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

teams

Gallery

File:Beach volleyball ball.jpg, Beach volleyball File:Mikasa VLS300 official beach volleyball.jpg, Mikasa VLS300 File:A mikasa basket ball.JPG, Basketball File:NewWaterPoloBall.JPG, Water polo game ball File:Volleyball Mikasa 2006.jpg, Indoor volleyball File:Mikasa voleyball balls 2017 02.jpg, Volleyballs used in Poland File:Wedstrijdbal EGLF4 1.jpg, Mikasa V200W used at the European Golden League Final Four 2021

Bibliography

* ''Michigan High School Athletic Association Bulletin'', Volume 70, Michigan High School Athletic Association, 1993, University of Michigan, p. 464. * ''Gay and lesbian tourism: the essential guide for marketing'', Jeff Guaracino, p. 146. * ''Sports sponsor factbook'', Team Marketing Report, Inc., 1999, p. 623. * ''Japanese multinationals, facts & figures'', Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha, 2007, p. 268. * American Commercial Inc. d/b/a Mikasa and Mikasa Licensing, Inc. v. Sports and Leisure International d/b/a Mikasa Sports, Civil Action No. 96–713LHM (U.S.D.C. C.D. Cal.).

References

External links

*
Mikasa USA
{{Sports equipment brands Sporting goods manufacturers of Japan Companies based in Hiroshima Manufacturing companies established in 1917 Japanese brands Multinational companies headquartered in Japan Rubber industry Sporting goods brands Sportswear brands Japanese companies established in 1917