M.League

M.League
	; M League logo
Country	Japan
Inception	2018
Leader	Mr. Susumu Fujita, Chairman ; (Founder/President of CyberAgent)
Members	9 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 Studio.

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 nine teams, the regular season spans for 108 days for 216 hanchan. This grants 96 hanchan per team. After the final regular season day, the top six teams continue into the semifinal round, where they play 30 hanchan on a 15 day schedule (20 hanchan per team). Into the final, the top four play another round of 16 hanchan on a 8 day schedule.

Rules and regulations

Game rules are indicated in the Official M-League Rules 「Mリーグの公式戦ルール」. All gameplay is in the form of hanchan using AMOS brand professional mahjong tables.

Game day

Every game day session includes two hanchan. Teams scheduled to play send one team member for each of the two hanchan. If desired, one player may play both hanchan.

Game rules

League rules comply with general riichi mahjong rules with special competitive settings. Starting score is 25,000 points; target score is 30,000 points; the uma is 「+30 / +10 / -10 / -30」.^[1]

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. For subsequent drafts in later years, teams may opt to draft new players or otherwise pass on the opportunity (passing is disallowed starting from 2022 season). Currently, each team has rosters of four players.

Announcers

Main

Guest

A number of guest commentators appear for casting. The most regular guest commentator is Koushou Tsuchida. Other commentators may either be current league players, former members, or other mahjong professionals.

M.League Studio

The league has a dedicated studio for games and broadcasts. The studio is located in Hamamatsuchou, Minato, Tokyo. A jansou named M.League Stadium is open to the public in Takadanobaba.

Teams

Team name	Company sponsor	Players	Inception
Akasaka Drivens	Hakuhodo DY media partners	Ken Sonoda (Saikouisen) Taro Suzuki (Saikouisen) Maki Asami (Saikouisen) Futoshi Watanabe (Saikouisen)	2018
BEAST Japanext	BS Japanext	Masatoshi Sarukawa (JPML) Hiroe Sugawara (JPML) Daisuke Suzuki (JPML) Kana Nakada (JPML)	2023
EX Furinkazan	TV Asahi	Aki Nikaido (JPML) Kenji Katsumata (JPML) Takaya Matsugase (RMU) Rumi Nikaido (JPML)	2018
Kadokawa Sakura Knights	KADOKAWA	Kotaro Uchikawa (JPML) Sayaka Okada (JPML) Shingo Hori (Kyokai) Nanba Shibukawa (Kyokai)	2019
Konami Mahjong Fight Club	KONAMI	Hisato Sasaki (JPML) Mari Takamiya (JPML) Arisa Date (JPML) Kazunori Takizawa (JPML)	2018
SegaSammy Phoenix	SegaSammy	Yuumi Uotani (JPML) Sayaka Kayamori (Saikouisen) Rio Toujou (JPML) Hiroshi Daigo (Saikouisen)	2018
Shibuya Abemas	CyberAgent	Takaharu Ooi (RMU) Sho Shiratori (JPML) Yoshihiro Matsumoto (Kyokai) Aiko Hinata (Saikouisen)	2018
Team Raiden	Dentsu	Masato Hagiwara (JPML) Naoki Setokuma (JPML) Saki Kurosawa (JPML) Tomohiro Honda (JPML)	2018
U-Next Pirates	U-Next	Go Kobayashi (Mahjong Union) Akina Mizuhara (Saikouisen) Yu Suzuki (Saikouisen) Kei Nakabayashi (Kyokai)	2018

Note:

JPML = Japan Professional Mahjong League

Saikouisen = Saikouisen Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai

Kyokai = Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai

RMU = Real Mahjong Unit

Seasons

Season	Start Date	End Date	Winner	Runner-up	Top regular season player
2018	2018-10-01	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	2021-10-04	2022-04-26	KADOKAWA Sakura Knights	SegaSammy Phoenix	Akina Mizuhara
2022	2022-10-03	2023-05-19	Shibuya Abemas	Konami Fight Club	Arisa Date
2023	2023-09-18

Top 10 hanchan scores

Rank	Player	Team	Score	Date	Season (Hanchan)
1	Taro Suzuki	Akasaka Drivens	132.8	2024-02-26	2023 (Reg 178)
2	Saki Kurosawa	Team Raiden	132.7	2022-11-07	2022 (Reg 41)
3	Arisa Date	Konami Fight Club	125.5	2021-11-18	2021 (Reg 54)
4	Koushin Asakura	U-Next Pirates	122.4	2021-12-02	2021 (Reg 70)
5	Hisato Sasaki	Konami Fight Club	118.2	2021-04-22	2020 (SF 14)
6	Yuumi Uotani	Sega Sammy Phoenix	114.4	2020-02-27	2019 (Reg 167)
7	Hisato Sasaki	Konami Fight Club	114.0	2021-02-18	2020 (Reg 154)
8	Yoshihiro Matsumoto	Shibuya Abemas	113.7	2021-04-29	2020 (SF 22)
9	Shingo Hori	Kadokawa Sakura Knights	112.9	2021-01-02	2020 (Reg 97)
10	Makoto Sawazaki	Kadokawa Sakura Knights	112.1	2019-11-19	2019 (Reg 64)

Yakuman

Main article: List of MLeague yakuman

So far, all the yakuman scored fall under yakuman gosanke: suuankou, daisangen, and kokushi musou. The most scored in a season was in the 2019 season with eight.