M-League Announces Draft Date, Outline For 2025-26 Season

On May 26, 2025, M-League released the outline for the upcoming season, as well as the date for the M-League 2025-26 Draft.

Player Replacement

Maintaining the rule from previous seasons, a team that fails to make the semifinals two years in a row will be forced to change their roster. Players who are dropped will not be able to be drafted by the same team during the draft.

Playoff Structure

With the addition of the new Earth Jets team, there will be 10 teams competing this season. The top 6 teams will advance to the semifinals, with the top 4 teams in the semifinals advancing to the finals.

Prize Money

Starting this upcoming season, the championship-winning team will win 70 million yen, up from 50 million yen in the previous years. 2nd and 3rd place will still win 20 million yen and 10 million yen, respectively.

As with last season, the 1st place team at the end of the regular season will win 3 million yen.

The individual prizes will be announced at a later date.

M-League Off-Season Schedule

• June 16: Deadline to confirm current players’ contract status
• June 30: M-League 2025-26 Draft
• July: Confirming all contracts and team rosters
• September: M-League 2025-26 start date

M-League 2025-26 Draft

The M-League 2025-26 Draft will take place on June 30, 2025, starting at 17:00 JST. The draft will be broadcast on the ABEMA Mahjong Channel.

Being a new team, the Earth Corporation Team will have the opportunity to draft all four of their players first. Afterwards, the remaining teams that have vacancies in their roster will pick one player each, going in reverse standings order of the 2024-25 season. This process repeats until all vancancies have been filled.