M.League

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M.League

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

The M.League 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 Stadium

The M.League Stadium is a facility located in Takadanobaba within Shijuku, Tokyo, Japan. The location also functions as a jansou, where players can come in and play no-rate.[1]

Teams

Logo 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
Konami Mahjong Fight Club KONAMI Hisato Sasaki (JPML)
Mari Takamiya (JPML)
Yudai Maehara (JPML)
Satoshi Fujisaki (JPML)
2018
Shibuya Abemas CyberAgent Takaharu Ooi (RMU)
Sho Shiratori (JPML)
Yoshihiro Matsumoto (Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai)
Aiko Hinata (Saikouisen)
2018
SegaSammy Phoenix SegaSammy Yuumi Uotani (JPML)
Seiichi Kondo (Saikouisen)
Sayaka Kayamori (Saikouisen)
Akira Wakutsu (JPML)
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
KADOKAWA Sakura Knights KADOKAWA Kotaro Uchikawa (JPML)
Sayaka Okada (JPML)
Makoto Sawazaki (JPML)
Hori Shingo (Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai)
2019

Seasons

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

References

External links

M League channel
M League promotional video
M.League in Japanese Wikipedia
Blog covering game highlights