By 1992, many of the teams were flush with cash, and football was extremely "trendy" with young people, drawing large crowds and big sponsorships. As a result, many teams were able to afford big talent from overseas, including players like Zico (Kashima Antlers), Ramon Diaz (Yokohama Marinos) and Pierre Littbarsky (JEF United). Not surprisingly, the two dominant teams from the JSL -- Yokohama Marinos and Verdy Kawasaki -- were top contenders, but the surprise of the league was Kashima (the former Sumitomo Heavy Industries), which went from an also-ran in the JSL to the first ever Stage champion, thanks to the contributions of Zico and fellow Brazilian Alcindo. In response, Kashima fans adopted Zico as a local hero, if not a local "god". In future years, the Zico franchise in Kashima would continue, but it all started with the eventful campaign of 1993.

When the league was first established, many of the organizers were worried that Japanese fans would have difficulty developing a taste for the sport, and in order to make the matches more "interesting", the J.League adopted some slightly unusual rules. All matches were played to a victory. If there was no winner at the end of 90 minutes, two 15-minute extra time periods were played using a "golden goal" rule. Whichever team scored first in the extra time period was the winner. If there still was no victor at the end of the two extra time periods, the match would go to PKs. Regardless of how a team won, they would receive 3 points for the victory.

The league would tinker with the scoring formula in subsequent years to make it more and more similar to other leagues around the world. However, the early years were characterized by a lot of very exciting contests that were decided in a flurry of action, with a "golden goal celebration. Though the format of the league has changed, the basic game philosophy that developed in those early years has persisted. As a result, even today teams rarely play for a draw, and matches in the J.League are typically nail-biters right to the end. Whatever one might think about the "strange rules" that the League used in its formative years, it is hard to argue that the football which emerged in Japan is uniquely wide-open and exciting. Matches tend to be a lot more evenly contested than those in most European leagues, and scores tend to be higher. Hopefully these characteristics will persist even now that the League has adopted the "global standard" for scoring wins, draws and losses.

In the second half of the inaugural season, traditional powerhouse Verdy Kawasaki (formerly Yomiuri FC) returned to their former dominant form, and achieved an easy stage victory. In fact, this would be one of the earliest-decided championships ever in the J.League. Verdy clinched the second stage crown with three matches left to play.

The first championship series was a very flamboyant affair. The series was held in the January of the following year (1994), and thus came right on the heels of the Emperor's Cup. While this scheduling decision certainly ensured that there were a lot of fans tuned in on TV, for obvious reasons it would become impractical as time went on. Within a few years the series had been moved back to November or December, and it would remain that way until the Championship Playoff system was disbanded, in 2005.