November 7 ------ THE fight for the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference crown will look a bit different than in years and seasons past. Not only will this be the league’s longest conference yet spanning six months, but there will be new rounds of competition introduced to the traditional playoff stage. Here’s all you need to know about the revamped PVL tournament format.
Double round-robin preliminaries
All 12 teams will play each other twice in the double round-robin preliminaries. Games will be staged at the traditional venues in Metro Manila such as the Philsports Arena in Pasig, FilOil EcoOil Centre in San Juan, and the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. Across both rounds of prelims play, the PVL will bring select game days in select parts of the country, including trips to Antipolo (Nov. 16 & 19), Ilocos Sur (Nov. 23), Cebu (Dec. 7), and Iloilo (Feb. 22). In total, 66 preliminary-round games will take place before the new-look PVL playoffs.
Qualifying round and play-in
Here’s where the shakeup begins. By the end of the preliminaries, all teams will be ranked from first to 12th as per the FIVB classification system and no team will be eliminated just yet. The PVL will host what it calls the qualifying round, featuring a series of knockout matches between the No. 1 and No. 12 seeds, No. 2 and No. 11 seeds, No. 3 and No. 10 seeds, No. 4 and No. 9 seeds, No. 5 and No. 8 seeds, and the No. 6 and No. 7 seeds.
The six winning teams will advance to the playoffs while the six losing teams will enter the play-in tournament. In what will be a second crack at a playoff spot, the highest-seeded team from the qualifying-round losers will be classified as the play-in’s No. 7 seed and the lowest as the No. 12 seed. The six-team play-in field will be split in two groups of three, with Group 1 featuring the No. 7, 10, and 11 seeds and Group 2 with the No. 8, 9, and 12 seeds. Each group will then play a single round, and only the top team per group will advance to the playoffs, with the Group 1 winner taking the No. 7 seed and the Group 2 winner securing the No. 8 seed.
Longer playoffs
The PVL has opted for a best-of-three quarterfinals with the usual format for matchup pairings. But it won’t be the same case for the four remaining teams as a single round-robin semifinals will then follow. A one-game playoff will be held in the event of a tie after the round-robin semis. From there, the top two teams will contest the championship and the bottom two teams to fight for bronze, both in best-of-three series. True to the league’s word, a total of at least 99 games will be played in the All-Filipino Conference which starts on Nov. 9.
Source: spin.ph
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