MPL Philippines salary ceiling: 900,000 pesos a month and contract rules

Most esports leagues say little in public about what their players earn. MPL Philippines, the professional league of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in the Philippines, writes part of the answer into its rulebook. The official rules for Season 18, the season of the second half of 2026, dated August 2026 and published by the league, set an upper limit on the monthly salaries a team pays its active roster, a lower limit tied to Philippine law, and a list of obligations that follow a contract from the day it is signed to the day it ends.

The question matters to a player weighing an offer, to a team manager building a roster under a fixed budget, to a sponsor reading a team's costs, and to fans who wonder why a roster looks the way it does. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a mobile game in which two teams of five players try to destroy each other's base, and the Philippine league is one of the national leagues Moonton runs for it.

This guide reads the pay and contract clauses of the Season 18 rulebook one by one: the salary ceiling and how it is counted, the salary floor, the written contract and its minimum length, what happens to pay when a roster changes, the rules for inactive, released and retired players, movement between the league and its development tier, the limits on approaching a player under contract, and the prize money the league pays to teams. It describes the rules as the league prints them. How they apply to one contract depends on that contract and on the league's own decisions.

MPL Philippines Season 18 Official Rules, August 2026: sections 3.6 and 7.1.

A franchise league with a rulebook for pay

MPL Philippines has been a franchise league since 2021. On July 14 of that year Moonton, the publisher of the game, announced that the league would move to a franchise-based setup ahead of Season 8, as ABS-CBN News reported that day. In a franchise league a fixed set of teams comes back season after season. Esports Insider reported in February 2026 that the Philippine and Indonesian leagues run fully franchised systems in which the teams had to pay a buy-in fee, a sum paid to the league for a permanent place.

Moonton's press release of July 14, 2021, carried by the Inquirer's esports section, presented the model with a revenue figure: over USD 8,000,000, or 400 million pesos, to be shared among the franchise teams over the following three years. The same release promised the full protection of players' rights and interests, and gave the coming season a prize pool of USD 150,000.

Season 18 keeps that shape. Section 2.2 of the rulebook says eight franchise teams play the regular season, a double round-robin of best-of-three matches, meaning each team meets every other team twice and each match goes to the first to win two games. That gives every team 14 regular-season matches.

The rules bind more than the teams. Section 1.1 applies them to the players, the head coach, the team manager, the other team members and the owners of the admitted teams, and section 1.2 makes agreeing to comply with them at all times a condition of taking part. Section 1.3 lets the league update, amend or supplement the rules from time to time, so the clauses below describe the text of August 2026.

The ceiling: one sentence in section 3.6

The salary limit is a single line, section 3.6(c): "The aggregate maximum monthly salary for all Team Members in the Active Roster shall not exceed 900,000 PHP."

Three words in that sentence carry the rule. Aggregate means the limit applies to the total, not to each person: one player may earn far more than another as long as the sum stays under the line. Monthly means it is measured month by month, not over a season. And the active roster has its own definition. Section 6.2.1 says the starters and the substitutes form the active roster, and section 3.1 requires five starters and between one and five substitutes. An active roster therefore holds between six and ten players, and section 7.4 refers to a maximum roster capacity of 10 players.

A worked example shows the scale. If a team with the largest active roster, ten players, paid each of them the same amount up to the ceiling, each would receive 90,000 pesos a month. With the smallest roster of six, the same equal split would give 150,000 pesos each. Over twelve months the ceiling comes to 10,800,000 pesos. These are illustrative divisions of the limit, not salaries any team has disclosed; the rulebook publishes no actual pay.

The rulebook does not describe a luxury tax, a payment a team makes for going over a limit, of the kind some other leagues use, and it gives no list of what counts as salary beyond the monthly amount. Sanctions for breaking the rules are set by the league's Penalty Index, Appendix A of the rulebook.

The floor: what Philippine law requires

The ceiling has a floor under it. Section 3.6(b) says each team must pay its players, coaches and team manager the minimum monthly salary required by Philippine law, under the agreements the rulebook calls Player Services Agreements. The floor is wider than the ceiling: it covers the coaching staff and the manager, while the ceiling counts only the active roster.

The rulebook does not write a peso figure for that floor. It points to the law instead, so the amount follows whatever Philippine law requires for the person and the place of work, and the rulebook does not say which rule of the law applies to an esports contract.

Section 3.6(d) adds a cost that sits beside the salary: the team pays for insurance or other welfare costs required by local law.

A written contract for everyone on the roster

Section 3.1.2 lists signed written contracts among the general requirements a team must meet, and section 3.6 states the rule for players in plain terms: every player on a team's active roster must have a written contract with the team they play for. The written contract requirement also reaches the coaching staff and the general manager on the active roster, a role section 3.5 requires every team to fill.

A contract signed but kept between the two parties does not count. Section 7.1.6 requires contracts to be submitted to the Operating Committee, the league body that approves rosters and changes, and closes the point in one sentence: "Agreements that are not recorded with the committee will be considered invalid."

The contract is one of several documents a player brings. Section 3.2 sets a minimum age of 16 to play in the league; a younger player may be signed as a free agent but may not be on the active roster, and the team must check age against an original government ID or passport. At least three of the five starters must be citizens, and no more than two non-citizen players may be listed in a starting lineup. Non-citizen players need a work visa, every player needs legal proof of the right to reside in the host country, and players and coaches must hold a valid Pro Esports License from the official sports governing authority; the rulebook names the Games and Amusements Board as the example for the Philippines.

That board licenses professional athletes in the Philippines. Its fee schedule lists an esports player's license at 800 pesos, plus 10 pesos in a second column headed LRF 1% Fees, and a team manager's or a team trainer's license at 1,000 pesos, plus 10. An analyst pays 800. The esports part of the schedule has no separate line for a coach.

How long a contract must run

Section 3.6(a) sets the length. A Player Services Agreement runs for no less than one season, and its end date must fall on the final day of June or the final day of December, the two halves of the year in which the league plays its two seasons, which the rulebook calls splits. A contract that ends mid-season is not allowed unless it is extended under the same section.

The extension in question concerns international events. MPL Philippines holds two places at MSC and two at the M-Series world championship, according to sections 2.4 and 2.5, and the two teams of the grand final take them. Section 3.6(a) requires a contract to remain valid through the end of any official international tournament the team qualifies for through that season, by an automatic conditional extension or another binding arrangement.

In practice, once the clause applies, a contract written to end on the last day of June or December stays valid until the team's international event is over, along with the obligations tied to it.

Changing the roster without dropping the pay

Section 7.1 lets a team change its active roster through transfers, through signing or ending contracts, or through individual movements, each with the approval of the Operating Committee. Two sentences protect the player's pay through those changes. Section 7.1.1 makes each team responsible for every payment to its players under their contracts, and says no voluntary change to the active roster relieves a team of that obligation.

Ending a contract has its own rule. Section 7.1.3 bars teams from terminating Player Services Agreements unilaterally and arbitrarily, and requires a team that ends a contract to notify the league officials at least two weeks before the termination. Whatever changes, a team must keep its minimum roster of five starters and one substitute.

Transfers between teams follow section 7.4. A trade is submitted in writing with all the agreements behind it, signed by the general manager of each team, and completed before the end of the transfer window of the split. For the second half of 2026 the rulebook opens the window on seven Tuesdays, weekly from August 25 to October 6, 2026, each time from 10:00 to 18:00 Philippine time (GMT+8). The request form lists the compensation paid between the teams, but the rulebook sets no transfer fee or buyout, the price of releasing a player before the end of a contract. The team that holds a player's contract may refuse negotiations between that player and other parties. Loans are allowed only in the off-season, and trades between regions are permitted.

Free agents, players with no valid written agreement with a team, cannot be added during the season. Section 7.6 says signing free agents during the active season is strictly prohibited, whatever the circumstances. Coaching staff transfers, under section 7.5, use the same window and require a data package that includes the coach's contract and salary.

The roster lock in that sequence is section 3.7. A roster submitted at the preseason lock is a formal commitment that it complies with the rules and rests on genuine commitments. The violation occurs when the deadline expires, and adding people afterwards does not cure it.

Inactive, released or retired

The rulebook separates three ways a player can leave the active roster, and each has a different effect on pay.

Inactive status, under section 7.7, covers a player set aside for reasons such as injury or personal circumstances. The player's contract remains in effect, the player is not a free agent, and a player made inactive during the season stays inactive for the rest of it.

A release, under section 7.8, is the team's decision. The team files an Individual Release Request Form, the Operating Committee approves it, and the player may sign elsewhere at once, subject to the transfer rules. Section 7.8.2 says teams remain responsible for fulfilling any outstanding contractual obligations to the released player or coach.

Retirement, under section 7.9, starts with the player. A negotiated retirement goes through the team with a league official, and the remaining obligations can be discussed. A retired player may return to the league only after one calendar year. A retirement that is not authorized is not valid for roster purposes and may bring a 365-day ineligibility period, subject to review.

Moving between MPL and MDL

The rulebook also covers MDL, the second competition run beside MPL, where MPL teams can have affiliated rosters. Section 7.11 governs movement between the two. An MPL team may promote an MDL player during the season, but only before the mid-season roster lock, and a review of a promotion or a demotion takes one working day.

Pay follows the player up. Section 7.11.1(c) says the service fee paid to a promoted player must not be lower than the minimum standard set by the MPL and MDL officials. A team that pays more files a signed confirmation of the additional fee with the officials. The rulebook does not print that minimum standard.

Pay also holds when the player goes down. Under section 7.11.2(c), a team and a demoted player may change their agreement by mutual consent, but the team may not refuse to fulfill its contractual obligations on the grounds of the demotion. A free agent can enter the league through the same route, after at least one week on an MDL roster before promotion.

Approaching a player under contract

Salary talks with a contracted player go through the team. Section 7.2 says that while a player or a coach is under contract, other teams may negotiate only through that person's team, and treats private communication with the individual about a trade as a violation. The rulebook's own examples of poaching include asking a player's desired salary, when the contract ends, or whether the player wants to leave. One of its examples is a player telling another that his team can offer him a 10,000 US dollar salary, written as 10k USD in the table.

The rule extends beyond the country. Section 7.3 allows each team to appoint one representative to the International MPL Transfer Group, where talks and documents are strictly confidential, and bars disclosing them to outside parties for personal gain or competitive advantage. Penalties for poaching and for breaches of confidentiality follow the Penalty Index, at the committee's discretion.

Prize money is paid to the team

The league's own money reaches players through their teams. Section 2.3 pays prizes to the teams within one month, counted from the close of the split or from the day the team provides its receiving account details, whichever is later, and each team is responsible for its own taxes and commission charges. The rulebook prints prize amounts with a dollar sign and no currency code, while it writes the salary ceiling in pesos.

The playoff prizes fall steeply from first place.

The six playoff prizes add up to $75,000. The regular season pays on a different basis. Every team receives a match allowance of $170 for each match it plays, or $2,380 over its 14 regular-season matches. Each best-of-three match also carries $900: all of it to the winner of a 2-0 match, or $600 to the winner and $300 to the loser of a 2-1 match. Across the 56 matches of the regular season, that is $50,400 in match prizes.

Individual awards sit beside the team money. The Regular Season MVP and the Finals MVP each carry $1,000, and the Most Improved Player and the Coaching Staff of the Season $500 each. Players named to All-Star Team 1 receive $500 each; All-Star Team 2 and the Fans' Choice All-Stars are honorary.

The rulebook sets no split between a team and its players for the team prizes. How much of a placement prize reaches the players is therefore a matter for each Player Services Agreement, not for the league's rules.

What the rulebook leaves to each contract

Read together, the clauses fix the frame of a contract and leave its content to the parties. The league sets the maximum a team may spend each month on its active roster, ties the minimum to the law, requires a written agreement of at least one season recorded with the Operating Committee, and protects pay through transfers, inactivity, releases and demotions. It does not set individual salaries, a prize split, a transfer fee or the peso amount of the minimum.

Money from sponsors is outside the salary clauses too, but not outside the league's view. Section 6.1 requires a team to disclose its partnerships to the Operating Committee, financial terms included, and section 6.1 also limits each owner to one team in the MPL and MDL, with each team run by its own company.

Two points remain for the league to settle in practice. The fines and sanctions attached to each clause are in the Penalty Index, applied at the committee's discretion. And the rules themselves can change during the year under section 1.3, so the text in force on a given date is the one that applies to a contract.

The ceiling tells a team how much it may spend on its roster each month. What each player receives, and what share of a prize, is written in the contract the league requires but does not draft.

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