2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's

The 2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's was the 30th tournament of the V.League between 14 October 2023 and 31 March 2024.^[1][2][3][4]

2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's
League	V.League Division 1
Sport	Volleyball
Duration	14 October 2023 – 31 March 2024
Number of games	187
Number of teams	10
TV partner(s)	V.TV by Easy sports Gaora Sports Fuji TV
Regular round
Final stage
Champions	Suntory Sunbirds
Runners-up	Panasonic Panthers

Voreas Hokkaido is promoted to V.League Division 1 after winning the 2022–23 V.League Division 2.^[4]

Club

Personnel

2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's
Club	Head Coach	Captain	Province/City	Colors	Main Sponsor
Wolfdogs Nagoya	Valerio Baldovin	Bartosz Kurek	Inazawa, Aichi		Toyoda Gosei
Suntory Sunbirds	Kota Yamamura	Masaki Oya	Minoh, Osaka		Suntory
Panasonic Panthers	Laurent Tillie	Akihiro Yamauchi	Hirakata, Osaka		Panasonic
Toray Arrows	Ayumu Shinoda	Yudai Minemura	Mishima, Shizuoka		Toray Industries
Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Shinya Chiba	Dekita Takashi	Sakai, Osaka		Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal
JTEKT Stings	Michał Gogol	Ryuta Homma	Kariya, Aichi		JTEKT
JT Thunders Hiroshima	Raúl Lozano	Shinichiro Inoue	Hiroshima, Hiroshima		Japan Tobacco
Tokyo Greatbears	Kasper Vuorinen	Koga Taichiro	Sumida, Tokyo		NatureLab Tokyo
VC Nagano Tridents	Shinji Kawamura	Kohta Ikeda	Takamori, Nagano		Melco Holdings INC.
Voreas Hokkaido	Edo Klein		Asahikawa, Hokkaido		Voreas,INC.

Transfer players

The list of transfer players in the 2023–24 season
Player	Moving from	Moving to	Ref.
Japanese players
Yuma Nagatomo	Tokyo Great Bears	Fragolad Kagoshima	[5]
Issei Maeda	Wolfdogs Nagoya	JT Thunders Hiroshima	[6]
Taishi Onodera	JT Thunders Hiroshima	Suntory Sunbirds	[7]
Akihiro Fukatsu	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Tokyo Great Bears	[8]
Shohei Nose	Tokyo Great Bears	SWD Powervolleys Düren	[9]
Wataru Taniguchi	Tokyo Great Bears	Pallavolo Padova	[10]
Shunsuke Watanabe	Dinamo București	Toray Arrows	[11]
Ryu Yamamoto	Suntory Sunbirds	Dinamo București	[12]
Masahiro Yanagida	JTEKT Stings	Tokyo Great Bears	[13]
Cole Hogland	Hawaii Rainbow Warriors	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	[14]
Dai Tezuka	Toray Arrows	JTEKT Stings	[15]
Yuji Nishida	JTEKT Stings	Panasonic Panthers	[16]
Tomohiro Yamamoto	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Panasonic Panthers	[17]
Shohei Ono	Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler	VC Nagano Tridents	[18]
Shota Fujiwara	Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler	VC Nagano Tridents	[18]
Kosuke Hata	Suntory Sunbirds	JTEKT Stings	[19]
Takahiko Imamura	Panasonic Panthers	Kladno volejbal cz	[20]
Hiromasa Miwa	VC Nagano Tridents	JT Thunders Hiroshima	[21]
Kenta Koga	Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler	Voreas Hokkaido	[22]
Kandai Goto[a]	Biwako Seikei Sport College	Tokyo Great Bears	[23]
Kenshi Morisaki	VC Nagano Tridents	Reve's Tochigi
Ito Tatsuki	VC Nagano Tridents	Hokkaido Yellow Stars	[24]
Kota Yamada	Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler	Hokkaido Yellow Stars	[25]
Hirohito Kashimura	Voreas Hokkaido	Suntory Sunbirds	[26]
Kouhei Yanagisawa	JTEKT Stings	Diamond Food VC	[27]
Koki Yonemura	Hokkaido Yellow Stars	Voreas Hokkaido	[28]
Foreign players
Rao Shuhan	Shanghai Bright	JTEKT Stings	[15]
Thomas Jaeschke	Halkbank Ankara	Panasonic Panthers	[29]
Xiu Chengcheng	Shanghai Bright	VC Nagano Tridents	[18]
Xu Ke	Bao Ding	Toray Arrows	[30]
Michał Kubiak	Panasonic Panthers	Shanghai Bright
Yu Yuantai	Al Arabi	Suntory Sunbirds	[31]
Carlos Alberto Araujo	VC Nagano Tridents	Enosis Anagennisi Deryneias
Trent O'Dea	Canberra Heat	VC Nagano Tridents	[32]

Foreign players

The total number of foreign players is restricted to one per club. Player from Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) nations are exempt from these restrictions.

The list of 2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's Foreign Players
Club	Player	From AVC
Suntory Sunbirds	Dmitry Muserskiy (CEV)	Yu Yuantai
Wolfdogs Nagoya	Bartosz Kurek (CEV)	Wang Dongchen
Panasonic Panthers	Thomas Jaeschke (NORCECA)	none
Toray Arrows	Krisztián Pádár (CEV)	Xu Ke
Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Sharone Vernon-Evans (NORCECA)	none
JT Thunders Hiroshima	Aaron Russell (NORCECA)	Jiang Chuan
JTEKT Stings	Tine Urnaut (CEV)	Rao Shuhan
Tokyo Greatbears	Rafael Araújo (CSV)	none
VC Nagano Tridents	Trent O'Dea	Xiu Chengcheng
Voreas Hokkaido	none	Chang Yu-sheng

Informal players

An informal player is a player still in high school or university but given a contract. Informal players are formally registered in V.League Organization and able to play on court.

The list of 2022–23 V.League Division 1 Men's Informal players
Players	From High schools/Universities	To Club	Ref.

Competition format

The competition format was approved and released to the public.^[1]

Regular round

1. 10 teams participate in round robin system, playing each other team 4 times.
2. Teams are ranked in the Regular Round by:
   • Winning percentages ->Points ->Set Percentage ->Scoring Rate
3. The top six teams from the Regular Round will advance to the Final Stage
4. Ranking of 7th to 10th place ranking of the Regular Round is the final ranking.
5. As 2024–25 season will be reformed into S-V League, so there will be no relegation in this season.

Final stage

1. Top 6 teams of Regular Round to complete in a tournament format.
2. The teams ranked 3rd to 6th in the regular round will advance to the quarterfinals. The winner of the Quarterfinals advances to the Semifinals and the loser advances to the 5th place match.
3. The top two teams from the regular round and the winner of the quarterfinals will advance to the semifinals. The semi-final winner advances to the final, and the loser advances to the third-place match.
4. All matches will be 5-set matches.

Season standing procedure

1. The teams will be ranked by the winning percentages
2. The teams will be ranked by the most point gained per match as follows:
   • Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 points for the winner, 0 points for the loser
   • Match won 3–2: 2 points for the winner, 1 point for the loser
   • Match forfeited: 3 points for the winner, 0 points (0–25, 0–25, 0–25) for the loser
3. If teams are still tied after examining the number of victories and points gained, then the FIVB will examine the results in order to break the tie in the following order:
   • Set quotient: if two or more teams are tied on total number of victories, they will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of the number of all set won by the number of all sets lost.
   • Points quotient: if the tie persists based on the set quotient, the teams will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of all points scored by the total of points lost during all sets.
   • If the tie persists based on the point quotient, the tie will be broken based on the team that won the match of the Round Robin Phase between the tied teams. When the tie in point quotient is between three or more teams, these teams ranked taking into consideration only the matches involving the teams in question.

Regular round

Regular round standing

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification or relegation
1	Suntory Sunbirds	12	11	1	32	34	10	3.400	360	347	1.037	Qualified for the Semi-finals
2	JT Thunders Hiroshima	12	10	2	28	31	15	2.067	160	165	0.970
3	Panasonic Panthers	10	9	1	27	27	6	4.500	154	127	1.213	Qualified for the Quarterfinals
4	Wolfdogs Nagoya	12	9	3	27	30	14	2.143	142	134	1.060
5	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	12	6	6	18	21	21	1.000	355	318	1.116
6	Tokyo Greatbears	12	5	7	17	22	23	0.957	314	349	0.900
7	Toray Arrows	12	4	8	11	19	29	0.655	349	333	1.048
8	JTEKT Stings	10	3	7	9	13	23	0.565	134	142	0.944
9	Voreas Hokkaido	12	1	11	3	7	33	0.212	159	194	0.820	Relegation
10	VC Nagano Tridents	12	0	12	2	6	36	0.167	163	181	0.901

Source: 2023–24 V.LEAGUE DIVISION1 MEN V・レギュラーラウンド

Results table

TBA

Match results

• All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+09:00).

Matchday 1

14 October 2023 12:10	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	3-1	Toray Arrows	Ohama Daishin Arena Attendance: 1,774 Referees: Shin Muranaka, Tomohito Shiro
	25-22, 20-25, 29-27, 25-23 Report Statistics

14 October 2023 14:05	Suntory Sunbirds	3-1	Tokyo Greatbears	Daiichi Sports Complex Attendance: 1,032 Referees: Taisuke Togawa, Seiji Kiuchi
	16-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-17 Report Statistics

15 October 2023 12:00	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	3-0	Toray Arrows	Ohama Daishin Arena Attendance: 1,737 Referees: Junichi Hayashi, Shin Muranaka
	25-19, 25-21, 25-18 Report Statistics

15 October 2023 13:35	Suntory Sunbirds	3-2	Tokyo Greatbears	Daiichi Sports Complex Attendance: 968 Referees: Hiroyuki Hara, Taisuke Togawa
	18-25, 25-23, 25-18, 21-25, 15-13 Report Statistics

Matchday 2

21 October 2023 13:00	Wolfdogs Nagoya	3-0	JTEKT Stings	Toyoda Gosei Memorial Gymnasium Attendance: 2,018 Referees: Yutaka Moriguchi, Hiroyuki Hara
	25-20, 25-22, 25-17 Report Statistics

21 October 2023 13:00	JT Thunders Hiroshima	3-1	Suntory Sunbirds	FPCO Arena Fukuyama Attendance: 1,280 Referees: Shingo Yamamoto, Akira Honma
	25-23, 25-23, 20-25, 25-19 Report Statistics

21 October 2023 14:00	Toray Arrows	3-1	Voreas Hokkaido	Mishima Citizen Gymnasium Attendance: 1,080 Referees: Tomohito Shiro, Taisuke Togawa
	25-13, 25-16, 23-25, 25-16 Report Statistics

21 October 2023 14:00	VC Nagano Tridents	2-3	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Matsumoto City Gymnasium Attendance: 981 Referees: Hiroaki Takahashi, Hajime Sawada
	17-25, 25-18, 22-25, 25-22, 14-16 Report Statistics

21 October 2023 15:05	Tokyo Greatbears	0-3	Panasonic Panthers	Yoyogi National Gymnasium Attendance: 2,783 Referees: Takashi Masaoka, Yui Asai
	22-25, 19-25, 17-25 Report Statistics

22 October 2023 13:00	Wolfdogs Nagoya	0-3	JTEKT Stings	Toyoda Gosei Memorial Gymnasium Attendance: 2,271 Referees: Hiroyuki Hara, Tomohiro Kurukawa
	22-25, 23-25, 22-25 Report Statistics

22 October 2023 13:00	VC Nagano Tridents	0-3	Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers	Matsumoto City Gymnasium Attendance: 940 Referees: Tatsuhiro Sawa, Hiroaki Takahashi
	18-25, 23-25, 19-25 Report Statistics

22 October 2023 13:00	JT Thunders Hiroshima	0-3	Suntory Sunbirds	FPCO Arena Fukuyama Attendance: 1,625 Referees: Akira Honma, Yasuo Chiyonobu
	22-25, 23-25, 20-25 Report Statistics

22 October 2023 14:00	Toray Arrows	3-1	Voreas Hokkaido	Mishima Citizen Gymnasium Attendance: 1,211 Referees: Taisuke Togawa, Tsuyoshi Komatsu
	25-22, 25-20, 21-25, 25-22 Report Statistics

22 October 2023 15:05	Tokyo Greatbears	0-3	Panasonic Panthers	Yoyogi National Gymnasium Attendance: 2,745 Referees: Yui Asai, Hiroyuki Nitta
	27-29, 21-25, 21-25 Report Statistics

Final stage

	Quarterfinals				Semifinals				Final
					Date
					1
	Date
	3
									Date
	6
					Date
					2
	Date
									3rd place match
	4
									Date
	5

	5th place match
	Date

Quarterfinals

		v

		v

5th place match

		v

Semifinals

		v

		v

3rd place match

		v

Final

		v

Final standing

Rank Team Suntory Sunbirds Panasonic Panthers Toray Arrows 4 JT Thunders 5 Wolfdogs Nagoya 6 Osaka Blazers Sakai 7 Tokyo Great Bears 8 JTEKT Stings 9 Voreas Hokkaido 10 VC Nagano Tridents Qualified for the 2025 Asian Club Championship

Awards

Individual awards (technical performance)

• Best scorer

• Best spiker

• Best blocker

• Best server

• Best receiver

V.League Honour award

The award was distributed to players who participate in 10 seasons or more , 230 games or more.

Outstanding personal records

Final stage

• Most valuable player

• Fighting spirit award

• Best Six

• Best libero

• Receive award

• Best newcomer award

• Best coach award

• Matsudaira Yasutaka award

Notes

1. For season 2023–24 only