Bigger, better SBA season looms

The stage is set for Draft Day of the Sharks Billiards Association (SBA) Season 2 on 29 July leading up to the actual competition in September.

SBA founder Hadley Mariano said the coming season promises to be even better and more exciting than the previous one won by Taguig. The other teams are Quezon City, Manila, Negros Occidental and newcomer Makati.

From four teams of five players each, the coming season features five teams with six players each. They will vie in a point system round-robin format, each team facing the other teams at least three times leading up to the best-of-five finals.

“Season 1 was very successful. We were very happy. And we introduced the audience engagement where the audience can cheer even when players are taking their shots,” Mariano told the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum Tuesday at the conference hall of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

Mariano said there are three events in the tournament: The King of the Hill, a one-on-one format where after each rack a new player comes in, Doubles, and One-on-One.

“It doesn’t look like an individual event. You have to develop chemistry. It has not turned into a team sport,” Mariano added in the forum presented by San Miguel Corporation, PSC, Philippine Olympic Committee, MILO, Smart/PLDT, and the country’s 24/7 app ArenaPlus.