The Philippines, home of the best billiard players in the world, will soon be the first country to have a professional league, an initiative that organizers are hopeful will result in the resurgence of the sport and development of more players in the grassroots.
Billiard enthusiast Hadley Mariano, an architect by training, founded Shark’s Billiards Association, a league for professional players that will initially have four teams each with five players who will be drawn from a draft pool.
Certainly, the SBA is an off-shoot of the league, the Shark’s Billiards League, that Mariano and his father Perry, himself a well-known billiards patron, brought to the Philippines some of the best players in the world to compete in last July’s international 9-ball tournament.
“This league will give professional Filipino players who haven’t been given a chance to compete abroad to showcase their talent,” said Mariano, a former billiards varsity player.
Sports analyst Chino Trinidad, who was tapped as commissioner of the league, said SBA will provide professional players a steady income stream that would allow them to hone their talent.
“This is a league built for players and this is meant to be played by the best players in the world, which fortunately are mostly in the Philippines,” said Trinidad, who has previously served as a long-time commissioner of a premier amateur basketball league.
Mariano said each team will be required to have at least one grassroots players starting the second season, when more teams are expected to join.
“We will have four teams in the inaugural season, which we plan to complete in three months so we could add more teams and players in the second season,” said Mariano. “Eventually, we will go for 20, 30 teams. The league is open for national team players and foreigners,” he added.
Trinidad said while an age limit won’t be set, league players will be required to have a license from the Games and Amusement Board. “From about 100 professional players, we will trim it to 20 for the inaugural season. This will be three months of intense billiards action,” he said.
Mariano said talks are in the final stages for the award of the broadcast rights for the league.
Shark’s Billiard last year dangled a USD100,000 prize money for the 9-ball open international tournament held in Quezon City in July. Former world champion Ko Ping Chung of Chinese Taipei won the tournament against unheralded Filipino player Michael Feliciano.
