Last week, KONAMI teased that they would be kicking off their inaugural BEMANI PRO LEAGUE season in 2021, starting with the BEMANI PRO LEAGUE Draft Conference. We now know that the draft will be taking place on 3 April 2021 and will be streamed live on YouTube. Everyone around the world will have the chance to watch this momentous event.
The league was initially intended to start back in 2020. However, because of COVID-19, those plans were put on hold and fans were treated to a sampling of what to expect with BEMANI PRO LEAGUE ZERO.
BEMANI PRO LEAGUE is an esports tournament hosted by KONAMI. Companies will become team owners, and they will compete in league matches, aiming to win as a team. The first year’s game will be beatmania IIDX 28 BISTROVER. There currently is a total of six teams and those teams are:
APINA VRAMeS – Kyowa Corporation
GAME PANIC – Leisurelan Co., Ltd.
SILKHAT – MATAHARI Entertainment Co., Ltd.
ROUND1 – ROUND ONE Corporation
SUPER NOVA Tohoku – Y・K CORPORATION
LEISURELAND – YAMAZAKIYA Co., Ltd.
Each of the six teams will have four players, who will be chosen via a draft similar to how it is done in traditional professional sports environments. The teams will be pitted against each other in a series of games to determine the winner of the season, with the winning team taking ¥20,000,000 in prize winnings.
With the draft happening this Saturday for BEMANI PRO LEAGUE 2021, I’m excited to see the players joining the teams. I wonder how things will go if a team is just overpowered with nothing but the best top-rankers or if KONAMI has something in place to prevent this from happening.