Rakuten Today: Sports & Entertainment

Blog

Rahul Kadavakolu, VP of Rakuten’s Sports Business, talks about Rakuten's partnership with the Davis Cup and the importance of continuous evolution in sport.

4 days ago

Fans Talk. Teams Listen. We Evolve Together: The Davis Cup Story

Rahul Kadavakolu, vice president of Rakuten’s Sports Business, director of Global Marketing and Branding, Rakuten Group The Davis Cup by Rakuten dates back to 1900. Born as a contest between Great Britain and the United States, the Cup now counts 135 teams. In an individual sport, it has become the preeminent national team event – “the World Cup of Tennis” – inciting some of the game’s most passio…

Blog

Rakuten and the Golden State Warriors have announced an extension of their historic partnership for the 2021-2022 NBA season.

1 week ago

Rakuten and the Golden State Warriors continue a winning tradition

Since 2017, Rakuten and the Golden State Warriors have had a history of winning both on and off the court, with a strong partnership serving as the foundation for success. Continuing the tradition of winning, Rakuten and the Warriors have agreed to extend their historic partnership, which places the Rakuten name and logo above the hearts of the players. Celebrating Warriors history When Rakuten be…

Blog

Rakuten and FC Barcelona celebrate the unveiling of a new Big Picture mosaic at Camp Nou for 2021 featuring fan submitted photos.

3 weeks ago

“The Big Picture” is back! Rakuten and FC Barcelona unveil new mosaic of crowdsourced fan photos at Camp Nou to celebrate global supporters

FC Barcelona fans are front and center at Camp Nou once again. Today Rakuten announced the unveiling of a new fan-centric facade at Camp Nou, FC Barcelona’s iconic home stadium, which features a giant mosaic made up of thousands of photos from Barca supporters located around the globe. The Big Picture begins First introduced during the 2020 season, The Big Picture was created to bring Barca’s glob…

Blog

Rakuten and the Davis Cup serve up an exciting new initiative to connect tennis fans around the world with their favorite teams at the Davis Cup by Rakuten.

4 weeks ago

“Davis Cup Fan World Cup Presented by Rakuten” gives global tennis fans a new way to support their team

With the Davis Cup by Rakuten Finals set to return later this month, Rakuten and the Davis Cup are serving up an exciting new initiative to engage tennis fans around the world. Rakuten and Kosmos Tennis today announced the launch of the Davis Cup Fan World Cup Presented by Rakuten, which allows tennis fans around the globe to cheer on their favorite team at the Davis Cup by submitting messages of…

Blog

22-year-old Kei Kobayashi from San Clemente, California represents Rakuten on the waves. He talks about his goals as a surfer with a positive mindset.

November 4, 2021

Partnering with Rakuten: Pro surfer Kei Kobayashi aims to elevate his sport

Kobayashi has spent 20 of his 22 years on a surfboard.Photo by Joe Foster (@joefosterphoto). Rakuten has been a major player in professional sport for much of its history, beginning with professional baseball and soccer in Japan before expanding internationally by partnering with legendary soccer club FC Barcelona, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors — and more recently, the historic Davis Cup t…

Blog

Basketball standout Kaine Roberts has had an unconventional journey, from pro player in Japan’s B.League to Division I college recruit in the U.S.

September 9, 2021

Rising college basketballer Kaine Roberts shares his underrated success story

Few NCAA athletes can claim to have played at a professional level before ever checking in to their first college contest. For incoming Stony Brook Seawolves basketball standout Kaine Roberts however, it’s just the next step in an unconventional journey that has seen the rising 19-year-old point guard go from playing professionally as an amateur in Japan’s B.League to Division I college recruit in…

Blog

A Rakuten Insight survey reveals recent camping trends: Wanderers are turning to the great outdoors to enjoy a local experience.

September 2, 2021

Tired of being stuck indoors? Research reveals recent camping trends in Japan

Love nature but don’t love the hassle of camping? The glamping services of UFUFU VILLAGE in Shizuoka Prefecture might just have you covered. For many in Japan, 2021 has not been a year of ambitious travel plans. While the country has imposed no official lockdown, a string of long-running state of emergency declarations has much of the population avoiding unnecessary travel. But not everyone is rea…

Blog

Rakuten Super Ladies is a pro golf tournament which made its debut late last month - the three-day, 54-hole competition was won by Yuri Yoshida.

August 19, 2021

Rakuten Super Ladies JLPGA tournament debuts with a bang

In a year where Japan’s professional golf scene is earning international attention, the new Rakuten Super Ladies JLPGA tournament made its debut late last month. The three-day, 54-hole competition, which ran July 29-31 at the Tokyu Grand Oak Golf Club in Kato City, Hyogo Prefecture, featured a commanding performance by tourney winner Yuri Yoshida, who claimed the ¥14,400,000 winner’s purse.…

Blog

New Rakuten TV documentary The Giants tells the story of how four giant Hawaiians played a role in modernizing one of the world’s most ancient sports.

July 28, 2021

“The Giants” is the larger-than-life story of four Americans who modernized Sumo

Equal parts sport and ceremony, Sumo has evolved for centuries alongside Japanese culture to the point that it can sometimes seem impenetrable to the casual observer. Upon closer inspection however, modern Sumo is a surprisingly international sport with the skills, drama and athleticism to appeal to any sports fan. The new Rakuten TV documentary The Giants tells the story of how four giant Hawaiia…

Cookie	Type	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	0	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The purpose of this cookie is to check whether or not the user has given their consent to the usage of cookies under the category 'Advertisement'.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	0	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The purpose of this cookie is to check whether or not the user has given the consent to the usage of cookies under the category 'Analytics'.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	0	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The purpose of this cookie is to check whether or not the user has given the consent to the usage of cookies under the category 'Necessary'.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	0	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The purpose of this cookie is to check whether or not the user has given the consent to the usage of cookies under the category 'Performance'.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-uncategorized	0	1 year	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent plugin to record user consent for the usage of cookies under the category “Uncategorized.”
JSESSIONID	1		Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
viewed_cookie_policy	0	1 hour	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Type	Duration	Description
_fbp	0	2 months	This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr	1	2 months	The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE	1	2 years	Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
Outbrain "Pixel"	0		This cookie is set by Outbrain to show relevant advertisements to users and measure and improve advertisements.
personalization_id	0	2 years	This cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
Twitter "Pixel"	0		This cookie is set by Twitter to show relevant advertisements to users and measure and improve advertisements.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	1	5 months	This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.

Cookie	Duration	Description
__asc	30 minutes	This cookie is used to collect information on consumer behavior, which is sent to Alexa Analytics.
__auc	1 year	This cookie is used to collect information on consumer behavior, which is sent to Alexa Analytics.
_ga	2 years	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, camapign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assigns a randoly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_69263660_1	1 minute	Google uses this cookie to distinguish users.
_gat_UA-625217-22	1 minute	This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to.
_gat_UA-625217-47	1 minute	This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to.
_gid	1 day	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
GPS	30 minutes	This cookie is set by Youtube and registers a unique ID for tracking users based on their geographical location

Cookie	Type	Duration	Description
_gat	0	1 minute	This cookies is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the colllection of data on high traffic sites.
YSC	1		This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.

Cookie	Type	Duration	Description
_icl_current_language	0	1 day	This cookie name is associated with a Wordpress multilingual plug-in from WPML. It stores a language value for the website, maintaining the language selected by the client.
lang			This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.