Mahjong seems to be a game that hardly lets up.

Recently I've been watching the M Tournament and the Saikouisen A1 league. I've become more familiar with Pros and Pro Organizations from around Japan. I've also become more aware at the need to improve my own game. Short term goals on that front is to perhaps make Master in Mahjong Soul, Try to ascend in the Marujan Pro League, and to enter the ARML league in the US to try and climb from the bottom. Lots of venues to play and improve here. 

In addition, I think I might be writing a book centered around explaining the basics of mahjong from a different perspective. I'll let you all know how that comes as I work on it. 

However, trying to find methods of improvement can be really tough sometimes. I feel like as much as mahjong is booming in Japan right now, there's just so much fertile ground in terms of growing the game that's being left unattended.

Mahjong Is Currently In "Pull" Mode

I would consider myself kind of a freak compared to most people I know. I pay for Abema Premium specifically because if I want to watch mahjong on Abema -at all-, I need to be able to watch archives of matches that mostly occur while i'm in bed. In order for Abema to successfully sell a guy like me into the currently offered premium service, a lot of things have to be true about me.  I have to know it exists for one, which means I have to have a latent knowledge about some other country's streaming platforms. I have to know about mahjong, and know enough about it to know that I want to know more about it, I have to want to be interested in signing up to Abema and watching mahjong content, and sometimes that means trying to find ways around geofencing, like using a VPN. I have to want to watch -so bad- that i'm willing to pay for a service that i am really only using like 3% of. This is a giant barrier of entry into the M League of course. If the goal of putting all this content on a streaming platform to convince people to pay to watch it, then you want to try and leverage as many people as possible to pay to watch, correct? Without giving away too much of the paid portion of the article, it seems that even Mr. Ooi thinks as much about the potential of the M league.

While I will always eagerly show anyone how to make the climb up the steep mountain of becoming a mahjong fan, it is incredibly difficult to inspire anyone else to make a similar climb when it just looks like work to so many others. I can shout from where I am to the people on the ground how much fun I'm having, but without the vantage of seeing what I can see, it is hard to convince others that the investment is worth it. When I think of my own mahjong journey and how my life has shaped it, I can see really how many things had to align. Journey with me from the bottom of the barrel to the center of the mahjong universe as I understand it. Think of the gaps between the parts of this mountain as fog that obscures what's above it. From the bottom, you can't even see the top.

The higher you are on the pyramid, the closer you are to the center of the mahjong universe. If you take what I've said earlier in the context of the blog, you may guess that I consider myself right at the bottom of "Investing in Mahjong Improvement". From where I am, I can see what the peak sort of looks like, and who lives up there. But also from where I am, I can only shout so much about it to the people who are below me. The amount of available resources for me to invest in improvement are very slim. I have to "pull" myself closer to the center of the mahjong world in order to enjoy and improve at it. I am the one responsible for closing the distance. 

Now, I am not naive. In this world we live in, there MUST be a financial incentive for any sort of expansion. Mahjong can only grow as an investment. As an industry that has sustained itself through boom and bust periods over generations, and as a foreign born, never been, total outsider, I can only make observations that come from what little research I can do and from the expertise of veterans that I am lucky enough to have read and maybe functionally understand. Currently, there is an issue of not enough overlap between "the awareness of most of America in Mahjong" and "the range of people that can be monetized by the Mahjong industry". However, the state of mahjong awareness in other countries has gone through a VAST expansion in even the last 5 years. Americans are now exposed to "latent mahjong radiation" through localized games with mahjong minigames like Yakuza 0 and Final Fantasy 14. Vtubers have also gained worldwide popularity, and mahjong vtuber content is a subset of that community. Before 2015, I'd say the majority of America lived below "Has been Exposed to Mahjong", but now I'd say many Americans who are familiar with Japanese gaming, anime, idol, or comics culture at least know what the word mahjong means, if nothing else other than "it's a table game they play over there". Still, it seems like there isn't a ton of effort to try and broaden any more horizons over here. Not to insult anyone, as I enjoy their product as much as anyone, but isn't it kind of embarrassing that Cat Food Studios is really the ONLY organization making ANY real money on the fact that there are mahjong players outside of Japan?

What Does a Mahjong "Push" Look Like?

When I say Push, I mean actively trying to develop resources that the Japanese Mahjong industry can "push" toward people in order to get them interested in staying, playing, (and most importantly, spending).

So in our model, what does a more aggressive "push" mentality to growing the game look like? For one, being more aggressive in developing ways for foreign audiences to enjoy the game is increasing awareness of the whole of the industry at a lower level. Let me give an example: I don't really know anything about chess, but I am aware that there is a ranking of Grand Master, and that basically everyone wants to be one. From the bottom of the Chess pyramid, I know what the top is shaped like. I don't know how far it takes to climb, or how many people are there, but I do know what it looks like. As of now, there are quite a few mahjong fans in America that do not even know that mahjong is something that anyone can even become a professional player of. Without being able to see what's at the top, it's hard to justify spending time climbing.

Another thing an aggressive push can do is increase the range of people that can be monetized by the industry. It seems that M League has increased a lot of casual support of mahjong professionals that are associated with it, and now that attention is starting to more seriously siphon off into the professional organizations that generate and cultivate the professional players that M recruits from.  Interest in M increases the amount of people trying to make their Jansou debut, and trying to invest in the books, seminars, and other resources to improve their play. Some of them may be inspired by the dream of climbing to the top, but most just want to climb a little higher than where they are. If there are products and services for EVERYONE to spend money on, whether casual fan or hardcore player, then there's more money and more eyes on mahjong in general, and that means the players at the top should be able to make more money and create more opportunities for themselves, as well as create more opportunities for players to BECOME "players at the top".

All of this is money for the industry, but how much of it can be profitable if localized? I don't know about the specifics, I'm just an idiot writing a blog, but what I can do is relay an example I can think of of a more popular Japanese industry pivoting from a "pull" to a "push" mentality.

When Puroresu Went From "Pull" to "Push"

There is a split in puroresu fandom (foreign interest in japanese professional wrestling) that mostly formed December 1st, 2014 with the debut of NJPW World.

Now of course, puro existed in all sorts of forms and went through all sorts of developmental phases before this platform existed, and there were plenty of dedicated puro fans, but they would have to use VPNs and foreign payment solutions to watch the content they wanted to watch, or wait for dutiful fans to pirate and distribute the content. Fans who would go to any length to enjoy puro would buy the foreign dvds or pirate the match content, often enjoying it at a much lesser than live quality.

NJPW World allowed overseas access and subscription without a VPN. (Dearest Abema-san, you can't even clear this bar!). It because a point of entry WAY closer to the average fan. I didn't have to go find a torrent or dubious dailymotion link, I could just pay the 10 dollars and watch it directly myself. Part of being a fan is being able to pay for the stuff you like, and it was so much easier to pay and watch the correct way than it was to go look for the unlicensed content. Most people want to pay for the stuff they like if they don't have to work too hard to enjoy what they paid for.

Eventually, NJPW hired an english commentary team. This increased NJPW's popularity. Now fans could hear the official broadcast give them the additional layer of understanding to take their fandom to the next level. I can enjoy NJPW with a level of understanding that is way closer to that of the average Japanese fan of NJPW. There have been several other Japanese puro companies like DDT and Stardom that have incorporated English teams and overseas audiences into their content delivery strategy. 

Now lets of course assume that in general pro wrestling is gonna be more popular to a broader amount of people than mahjong. That seems like a safe, rational assumption. 
NJPW's latest capstone event, Wrestle Kingdom 17, drew in 92k unique viewers, with NJPW noting that around 30% of them, or around 28k, being oversees viewers watching LIVE on a WEDNESDAY MORNING. That basically means 28K non Japanese people likely skipped work or school to watch it.

(For the curious, the viewership for the final hanchan and awards ceremony for M League 2023 clocks around 55k views, no idea if that is unique or not)

NJPW and other puroresu companies that went from starting with "lets put out english language content" now have lucrative deals with sister companies in America, as well as the ability to sell out shows in the country. Even a tiny portion of this overseas success seems like it would be lucrative for mahjong professionals as well as the overall industry.

I personally think the start of a successful mahjong push has to come from Abema. They have the broadcasting rights to the hottest ticket in mahjong right now, and so it falls on them to try and negotiate a way to broaden their audience. I really hope that in the off season, Abema is trying to negotiate rights with all of the major league sponsors that clears the way for a wider broadcast. I would rather subscribe to some sort of "Abema Mahjong" service where all of my subscription fee is invested toward the production of Abema's mahjong content. I would happily pay the money I pay now to be able to watch what I watch with additional content delivered in English. I don't know how many people are like me, and there may not be enough to justify that sort of investment, but eventually if you are going to grow a market, you have to plant the seeds first. You can't know how big it's going to grow if you never try!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!