M.League

M.League
	; M League logo
Country	Japan
Inception	2018
Leader	Mr. Susumu Fujita, Chairman ; (Founder/President of CyberAgent)
Members	8 teams

M.League 「Mリーグ」 is a professional mahjong team league. This is the first league, where mahjong players receive a salary for playing games. Players are fielded from the various mahjong professional leagues. An M.League season consists of a number of regular season games followed by a playoff final. Each team is corporate sponsored, and thus they represent their respective companies. All league activity is hosted at the M.League Stadium.

Format

The main format of the competition features a regular season and a post season. The basic format of the season varies in the number of hanchan played.

Current format

With eight teams, the regular season spans for 90 days for 180 hanchan. This grants 90 hanchan per team. After the final regular season day, the top six teams continue into the semifinal round, where they play 12 hanchan on a 6 day schedule. Into the final, the top four play another round of 12 hanchan on a 6 day schedule.

Rule

Draft

Prior to each season, one day is set for team drafts. Teams select from a field of players among the different professional organizations. The inaugural draft was held on August 7, 2018. Naturally, every team made their player selections to fill their rosters in the inaugural draft. Subsequent drafts in later years, teams may opt to draft new players or otherwise pass on the opportunity. Currently, each team has rosters of either three or four players.

M.League Studio

The league has a dedicated studio for games and broadcasts. The studio is located in Hamamatsuchou, Minato, Tokyo.

Teams

Team name	Company sponsor	Players	Inception
Akasaka Drivens	Hakuhodo DY media partners	Ken Sonoda (Saikouisen) Jun Murakami (Saikouisen) Taro Suzuki (Saikouisen) Kanako Maruyama (Saikouisen)	2018
EX Furinkazan	TV Asahi	Aki Nikaido (JPML) Kazunori Takizawa (JPML) Kenji Katsumata (JPML)	2018
KADOKAWA Sakura Knights	KADOKAWA	Kotaro Uchikawa (JPML) Sayaka Okada (JPML) Makoto Sawazaki (JPML) Hori Shingo (Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai)	2019
Konami Mahjong Fight Club	KONAMI	Hisato Sasaki (JPML) Mari Takamiya (JPML) Yudai Maehara (JPML) Satoshi Fujisaki (JPML)	2018
SegaSammy Phoenix	SegaSammy	Yuumi Uotani (JPML) Seiichi Kondo (Saikouisen) Sayaka Kayamori (Saikouisen) Akira Wakutsu (JPML)	2018
Shibuya Abemas	CyberAgent	Takaharu Ooi (RMU) Sho Shiratori (JPML) Yoshihiro Matsumoto (Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai) Aiko Hinata (Saikouisen)	2018
TEAM RAIDEN	Dentsu	Masato Hagiwara (JPML) Naoki Setokuma (JPML) Saki Kurosawa (JPML)	2018
U-NEXT Pirates	U-Next	Go Kobayashi (Mahjong Union) Koushin Asakura (Saikouisen) Nobuhiro Ishibashi (Saikouisen) Akina Mizuhara (Saikouisen)	2018

Seasons

Season	Start Date	End Date	Winner	Runnerup	Top player
2018		2019-03-31	Akasaka Drivens	EX Furinkazan	Takaharu Ooi
2019	2019-09-30	2020-06-23	U-NEXT Pirates	SegaSammy Phoenix	Yuumi Uotani
2020	2020-10-05	2021-05-18	EX Furinkazan	KADOKAWA Sakura Knights	Hisato Sasaki
2021