# 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.
Voreas Hokkaido is promoted to V.League Division 1 after winning the 2022–23 V.League Division 2.

## Club
### Personnel

2023–24 V.League Division 1 Men's :
| Club | Head Coach | Captain | Province/City | 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 |
| Japanese players ||||
| Yuma Nagatomo | Tokyo Great Bears | Fragolad Kagoshima |
| Issei Maeda | Wolfdogs Nagoya | JT Thunders Hiroshima |
| Taishi Onodera | JT Thunders Hiroshima | Suntory Sunbirds |
| Akihiro Fukatsu | Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers | Tokyo Great Bears |
| Shohei Nose | Tokyo Great Bears | SWD Powervolleys Düren |
| Wataru Taniguchi | Tokyo Great Bears | Pallavolo Padova |
| Shunsuke Watanabe | Dinamo București | Toray Arrows |
| Ryu Yamamoto | Suntory Sunbirds | Dinamo București |
| Masahiro Yanagida | JTEKT Stings | Tokyo Great Bears |
| Cole Hogland | Hawaii Rainbow Warriors | Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers |
| Dai Tezuka | Toray Arrows | JTEKT Stings |
| Yuji Nishida | JTEKT Stings | Panasonic Panthers |
| Tomohiro Yamamoto | Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers | Panasonic Panthers |
| Shohei Ono | Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler | VC Nagano Tridents |
| Shota Fujiwara | Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler | VC Nagano Tridents |
| Kosuke Hata | Suntory Sunbirds | JTEKT Stings |
| Takahiko Imamura | Panasonic Panthers | Kladno volejbal cz |
| Hiromasa Miwa | VC Nagano Tridents | JT Thunders Hiroshima |
| Kenta Koga | Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler | Voreas Hokkaido |
| Kandai Goto | Biwako Seikei Sport College | Tokyo Great Bears |
| Kenshi Morisaki | VC Nagano Tridents | Reve's Tochigi |
| Ito Tatsuki | VC Nagano Tridents | Hokkaido Yellow Stars |
| Kota Yamada | Oita Miyoshi Weisse Adler | Hokkaido Yellow Stars |
| Hirohito Kashimura | Voreas Hokkaido | Suntory Sunbirds |
| Kouhei Yanagisawa | JTEKT Stings | Diamond Food VC |
| Koki Yonemura | Hokkaido Yellow Stars | Voreas Hokkaido |
| Foreign players ||||
| Rao Shuhan | Shanghai Bright | JTEKT Stings |
| Thomas Jaeschke | Halkbank Ankara | Panasonic Panthers |
| Xiu Chengcheng | Shanghai Bright | VC Nagano Tridents |
| Xu Ke | Bao Ding | Toray Arrows |
| Michał Kubiak | Panasonic Panthers | Shanghai Bright |
| Yu Yuantai | Al Arabi | Suntory Sunbirds |
| Carlos Alberto Araujo | VC Nagano Tridents | Enosis Anagennisi Deryneias |
| Trent O'Dea | Canberra Heat | VC Nagano Tridents |

### 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.

### Regular round

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

### Final stage

* Top 6 teams of Regular Round to complete in a tournament format.
* 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.
* 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.
* All matches will be 5-set matches.

## Season standing procedure

* The teams will be ranked by the winning percentages
* 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
* 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 | Qualified for the Semi-finals |
| 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 | Qualified for the Quarterfinals |
| 5 | Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers | 12 | 6 | 6 | 18 | 21 | 21 | 1.000 | 355 | 318 | 1.116 | Qualified for the Quarterfinals |
| 6 | Tokyo Greatbears | 12 | 5 | 7 | 17 | 22 | 23 | 0.957 | 314 | 349 | 0.900 | Qualified for the Quarterfinals |
| 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 | Relegation |

### Results table

TBA

### Match results

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

#### Matchday 2
## Final stage

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

### Final
## 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.

### Final stage

* Most valuable player
* Fighting spirit award
* Best Six
* Best libero
* Receive award
* Best newcomer award
* Best coach award
* Matsudaira Yasutaka award