All 12 NPB club presidents gathered in Tokyo with a team of experts and have agreed to make preparations to start the regular season on April 24.
It was the fourth such gathering, and while the season was first rescheduled to begin on April 10, it has now been determined that doing so would be unsafe. Still, the league wanted to set a starting date and reached an agreement to aim for the 24th.
To help make proper preparations, the Pacific League will cease playing practice games from the 24th until April 9th, and the Central League will also not play any intersquad games from March 27th until April 13rd.
NPB Commissioner Atsushi Saitoh said, “We cannot say with absolute certainty that we will absolutely start the season on the 24th, but we will make full efforts towards that goal. As long as there is no major outbreak or that the medical community is unable to take appropriate measures, we aim to start on the 24th.” He has also said that they are not making contingency plans to further delay the start of the season.
At the same meeting, it was decided that the farm leagues would start on April 24th as well. However, they will play practice games according to the original schedule until then. They intend to have a full 110-game schedule without having to play into October.