SOURCES SAY HERE'S WHY THERE ARE NO BIG DOME GAMES IN PBA FINALS
THE Smart Araneta Coliseum will not host any of the seven games of the 50th Season PBA Philippine Cup Finals after it was revealed that the venue, one of the most accessible for many PBA fans, was booked earlier for other activities, one of them a big-stakes cockfighting event and the other, a dog show.
The Big Dome, located in the heart of Cubao in Quezon City and traditionally a venue for many PBA Finals, will give way to the Philippine Circuit 2026 dog show from January 21 to 25, and the World Slasher Cup cockfighting competition from January 26 to February 1, replacing the PBA with non-human competition.
The PBA Philippine Cup Finals will instead be played at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City for Games 1, 2, and 5, and at the SM Mall of Asia Arena for Games 3, 4, 6, and 7.
The Big Dome has been the home of the World Slasher Cup and one of the marquee events of the venue for decades.
It's also been booked years in advance and unless cancelled by some unforeseen circumstances, such as bird flu afflicting the gladiators, it is unlikely the PBA will get a booking.
Fortunately for the PBA, the Mall of Asia Arena was available, and is said to be looking forward to host the league’s finals series.
The last time the PBA didn’t hold a finals game at the Big Dome was in the 2021 Philippine Cup where it played at the Don Honorio Ventura State University Gym in Bacolod, Pampanga where the competition was held under a semi-bubble. - Reuben Terrado
New PVL tournament format revealed
WITH the Philippine Volleyball League (PVL) trimmed to 10 teams from 12, the league has devised a new format that would allow all the teams to continue contending for the trophy even if they finished last in the preliminaries of the 2026 All-Filipino Conference which opens on January 31.
The upcoming conference will open with the traditional single round-robin preliminaries. But as the tournament progresses, significant changes await both the top teams and the survivors.
After the prelims, two additional stages will take place before the semifinals.
First is the modified qualifying round, where only the top four teams from the preliminaries will battle for two outright berths to the single round-robin semifinals.
In this stage, the No. 1 seed faces the No. 4 seed, while the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds clash in knockout matches. The winners secure immediate passage to the semis.
However, if any team manages a perfect 9-0 sweep in the prelims, that team will automatically advance to the semis.
In that scenario, only the 2-versus-3 matchup will be played to determine the other automatic qualifier.
The two losing teams from the qualifying round will not be eliminated but instead relegated to a stepladder play-in phase, joining the bottom six teams from the prelims.
The play-ins will be divided into two brackets. In one group, the 7-seed faces the 10-seed, while the 8-seed takes on the 9-seed in the other.
Winners of those initial matchups move on to face higher-ranked opponents: the 7/10 victor meets the 6-seed and the 8/9 winner goes up against the 5-seed.
From there, the higher-ranked losing team from the qualifying round will square off against either the 6th, 7th or 10th seed for a semifinal slot.
The lower-ranked qualifier loser will contend with either the 5th, 8th or 9th seed for the last semis berth.
The two survivors of these play-in finales will complete the semifinal cast along withe the earlier qualifiers.
Once the semifinals begin, it will revert to a single round-robin format, with the top two teams advancing to a best-of-three finals series.
The bottom two play a best-of-three for the bronze. - John Mark Garcia
2026-01-19T10:15:05Z