Asahi TV's 'Sacred Dirt' draws Koshien cheers in stadium soil — One Show Gold

Japan's summer high-school baseball championship is followed more intensely than professional baseball: 49 district champions reach Koshien Stadium, and some fans' heckling piles extra pressure on teenagers who may be playing their final game ever. Asahi Television Broadcasting, which carries nightly tournament coverage, wanted spectators to act as supporters instead of adding to the stress.

Make the championship's cheer posters out of actual stadium soil — the 'sacred dirt' players carry home — and hang them at the station where all fans pass on game day.

Working with Dentsu Tokyo, ABC produced three B1 posters drawn entirely in soil mixed to the same formula as Koshien Stadium's ground — 10kg of soil, more than 100 test prints and two months of handwork. The texts speak in the players' voice: 'there are people who believed in me', 'people I want to make happy', 'people who entrusted me'. From 1 August 2023, days before the 105th tournament opened, the posters stood at Hanshin Koshien Station, the last stop for teams and fans alike.

Only three posters existed in the world, and they converted the players' most sacred keepsake — stadium dirt carried home as proof of effort — into a request for kindness; the work won a One Show 2024 Gold Pencil (Design, Posters/Series) and an ADC 2024 Gold Cube.

Every summer, Japan's national high-school baseball championship — played at Koshien Stadium and broadcast nationwide — stirs more passion than professional baseball. Top teams from 49 districts meet there, and many players will retire from the sport forever if their team loses. The intensity of supporters can tip into aggression, adding pressure to teenagers playing the most important games of their lives.

Asahi Television Broadcasting, whose nightly programme covered the 105th memorial tournament in 2023, wanted to foster a supportive atmosphere. With Dentsu Tokyo it made three B1 cheer posters drawn entirely in soil — 10kg of earth mixed to the same formula as the stadium's own ground, with more than 100 test prints and two months of handwork. The messages are written from the players' perspective: 'there are people who believed in me', 'people I want to make happy', 'people who entrusted me'.

On 1 August 2023 the three posters went on display at Hanshin Koshien Station, the stop where players and spectators arrive. The soil is the same 'sacred dirt' ballplayers traditionally carry home as a memento after their last game, so the posters linked the tournament's 105-year history and the athletes' effort to the role of the crowd — a reminder that supporters were there to help, not to heckle.

Stadium soil is the players' most emotional keepsake, so posters made from it carry an argument no slogan could make.

Placing them at the station catches fans at the moment they become spectators, before the first pitch.

Speaking in the players' voice ('someone believed in me') reframes the crowd's job from judge to supporter.

Hand-making three one-of-a-kind posters in dirt mirrors the scarcity and care of a championship run.

Borrow the audience's own ritual object as the material: when the poster is literally made of the thing everyone reveres, the medium delivers the emotional argument before a word is read.

The posters ran as the tournament returned to full, audible cheering for the first summer in four years. The work won the One Show 2024 Gold Pencil in Design (Posters/Series) and an ADC 2024 Gold Cube, with D&AD keeping the case in its awards archive; the idea is remembered as a quiet Japanese craft solution to spectator aggression, using the ritual object of the game itself as the medium.