BMPAP set to start pro league

Preparations for the staging of the inaugural National Billiards League (NBL) is now in full swing, ensuring another banner year for the sport dominated by Filipino players.

“The players, the managers, and the rest of the billiards community are all thrilled to see the birth of a pro league aimed at further raising the level of the sport,” said Perry Mariano, co-founder of the Billiards Managers and Players Association of the Philippines (BMPAP).

Patterned after the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), the NBL will have the country’s top cue artists, led by billiards legend Efren “Bata” Reyes, bosom buddy and former World No. 1 Francisco “Django” Bustamante, fellow former world champions Ronnie Alcano and Alex Pagulayan and current world No.1 Dennis Orcollo, along with a bunch of up-and-coming stars playing for corporate teams in a season-long team competition.

Solar Sports will be NBL’s broadcast partner.

For its inaugural season, the NBL will have eight teams of six players each mixing it up in singles, doubles, team, and trick shots competitions.

The league will have its home at the AMF-Puyat Bowling Inn and Billiards Center in Malate, Manila, which is undergoing a P2.5-million renovation to make it a state-of-the-art venue for the world’s first season-long pro league.

“The NBL is definitely a go,” said long time billiards patron Aristeo “Putch” Puyat. “We may have failed to meet our initial target date to start it because we want to make sure that we’ll cover all the bases before we launch it. But there’s really no turning back.”

The NBL is a brainchild of Puyat, which he conceived almost a decade ago while staging and producing several top class tournaments in cooperation with TV partners Viva Vintage Sports.

Backing up the project are fellow billiards patrons Mariano and Jonathan Sy of the Negros Billiards Stable and the rest of the BMPAP members.