In November last year the AKB48 Group announced that they will introduce a new event, the AKB48 Group Pennant Race. And recently, April 22nd, AKB48 revealed the details on their pennant race ‘AKB48 Group Pennant Race ~AKB48 Group wa Kisoiatte Migakareru~’.
The team shuffle, which was announced back in February, went into effect on April 22nd with NMB48’s new Team BII’s ‘Saka Agari’ performance. To coincide this occasion, AKB48 group general manager Kayano Shinobu wrote on their official blog, “We’ve made you wait for a really long time. We would like to begin the pennant race, which was announced last year.“
The teams of AKB48 (except for Team 8), SKE48, NMB48 and HKT48 will compete against each other in terms of theater ticket applications, ticket sales for theater handshake events and total votes at the Senbatsu Sounsekyo. The race started on April 22 and will continue until October 31.
AKB48 Group Pennant Race ~AKB48 Group wa Kisoiatte Migakareru~
Date: April 22~October 31
Participating Teams: A, K, B, 4, S, KII, E, N, M, BII, H, KIV
(The following details are a summarized translation of the announcement posted in the Official AKB48 Blog )
Points will be awarded for:
1) Rate of ticket applications for AKB48 Group theater shows by paying members
2) Theater version handshake events ticket sales
3) Number of votes obtained at the Single Senbatsu Election
on 1) The new shows from shonichi onward by the new teams announced at the Daisokaku Matsuri will be part of the pennant race. For each show a prediction rate will be revealed when the performing members for that show are announced. After the actual show the final result will be revealed based on which the points gained will be announced.
on 2) The AKB48 theater version handshake events (individual handshake event) will be subject to the race. After the event the points gained by each team that day will be announced.
on 3) The AKB48 37th Single senbatsu election held on June 7 will be subject to the race. Points will be calculated team-wise with the D’Hondt method. They will be announced after the event.
The points gained and the team ranking will be posted in realtime on the Pennant Race homepage. A website for the pennant race will be launched in the coming days. The amount of points and the team ranking will be updated in real time. Beside the team race, members will also be evaluated for their hard work. The calculation will be done by the statistician Torigoe Norio who also helped with the Janken Taikai.
AKB48 also uploaded a video in which the calculation method is explained further.
Source : melosnomichi, oricon