The Professional Billiards Association (PBA) Tour Team League opens its seventh season Friday.
The PBA held a media day for the "2026-2027 Season Welcome Savings Bank PBA Team League" at the Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday, announcing the start of the new season with team captains and key players in attendance.
This season will be played under a 10-team system, the same as last season. SK Rent-a-Car ended its sponsorship after last season, but a new franchise directly operated by the PBA, the "PBA Breakers," has joined.
The Team League will again be played over a total of five rounds. Starting with Round 1 at the Gwangmyeong Citizens' Gymnasium in Gyeonggi Province on Friday, the tour continues with Round 2 in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, in August and Round 3 in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, in September, before Rounds 4 and 5 and the postseason are held at the KINTEX PBA Stadium in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.
A new round-by-round championship prize of 10 million won has been introduced to stir players' competitive spirit. The overall champion team receives 100 million won and the runner-up team 50 million won, while the postseason Most Valuable Player (MVP) and each round's MVP receive 5 million won and 1 million won, respectively.
A change in the format of the second set, the women's doubles match, is notable. Instead of the existing "K-Double" method (in which the scoring player continues to attack), it will be unified into the "Scotch Double" format, in which two players take turns. This is intended to limit high scoring by stronger players and enhance the appeal of doubles matches. The postseason matchups will change to a method that gives round-winning teams priority placement in higher rounds. Teams that earn a berth through their overall ranking without winning a regular round must go through lower rounds such as the wild card match.
At the media day, each team's captain and the women players representing their teams expressed their resolve for the new season. Kim Byung-ho, captain of last season's champion Hana Card, stressed, "Newly recruited Han Seul-gi has great skills. There will be checks from other teams, but we will also prepare hard." Lee Seung-jin, captain of the new team Breakers, which was singled out by many other teams as "a beatable opponent," said, "Once the early stage passes, our teamwork will come together."
