▲Goyang Special Mayor Lee Dong-hwan (third from left) and Goyang Sono Sky Gunners players/Photo = Goyang City © Cheongsol News PINENEWS
[청솔뉴스=윤석성 기자] Goyang Special City is heating up with the heat of indoor sports such as professional basketball and professional billiards that came with the cold wind.
Goyang Sono Sky Gunners, a professional basketball team based in Goyang City, got off to a smooth start in the top rankings in the 2024-2025 professional basketball league. This year, the interest and expectations of basketball fans are increasing as the player base has been strengthened and stable power has been secured.
The Professional Billiards (PBA) Tour features fierce competition and tense games centered on the PBA Stadium in KINTEX, Goyang. KINTEX PBA Stadium is gaining popularity as a place where you can see the skills of top professional players from home and abroad on the PBA Tour right in front of your eyes.
Goyang Special Mayor Lee Dong-hwan said, “Goyang City has excellent indoor and outdoor sports facilities such as Goyang Sono Arena, Goyang Sports Complex, and KINTEX, and has excellent accessibility to Seoul and Incheon airports, making it a suitable location to host various performances and sports events.” “By establishing a cooperative relationship, we will support the development of sports industries such as professional basketball, professional billiards (PBA), and e-sports (computer games) and revitalization of the local economy,” he said.
The Goyang Sono Sky Gunners are off to a good start in the 24-25 KCC Professional Basketball League with 5 wins and 2 losses in 7 games (2nd in the league).
The 24-25 Professional Basketball League will feature 10 teams playing 54 games each over 6 rounds from October this year to April next year. After the regular season ends, the top 6 teams advance to the playoffs to determine the final winner.
When Goyang Day One was expelled from the Professional Basketball League (KBL) last year, there was a risk of the team being disbanded and losing local connections. Accordingly, Sono International, the holding company of Daemyung Sono Group, established the Goyang Sono Sky Gunners as a new 10th team by reflecting the aspirations of Goyang citizens and basketball fans and maintaining regional connections with the players.
Goyang Sono Sky Gunners have strengthened their player base through free agency (FA), foreign player recruitment, and trade this year and have a balanced strength in both offense and defense. Goyang Sono is showing strength in points per game, steals, 3-point shots, free throws, and field goal percentage. In addition to 3-point shooting, which was an advantage enough to be called archery basketball, rebounding and defense have also been strengthened, and the organization of offense, defense, and inside and outside has improved, resulting in stable results.
Goyang Sono Lee Jeong-hyeon ranks among the top in the league in most indicators this season, including an average of 21.4 points per game (3rd), 6.9 assists (2nd), 2.9 steals (1st), and 2.9 3-pointers (2nd), making him a clear ace. It shows its presence.
Jae-do Lee served as a game maker with Jeong-hyun Lee, reducing the burden of managing the game on Jeong-hyun Lee and leading the team’s attack with 5.5 assists per game (5th place). Last year, foreign players were frequently replaced, which was a factor in destabilizing the team’s strength, but this year, Alan Williams added stability by firmly taking control of the goal with a strong average of 19.9 points (5th) and 12.6 rebounds (2nd) per game.
New additions to the team, Hee-jae Jeong, Seung-wook Choi, Dong-seop Lim, and Young-hoon Kim, also energized the team with their fighting spirit.
Goyang Sono Arena, the home stadium, did not spare any active investment in facilities, such as replacing lighting and stadium floor mats to increase the immersion of game spectators. Seats (end line seats) and table seats (table seats) at both ends of the stadium were newly arranged so that visitors could feel the action and be closer to the players. A horizontal electronic display board was installed on the wall between the first and second floors of the stadium, allowing players to view player records in real time, and visual, vocal, and physical cheering was also introduced.
In July of last year, ‘Goyang KINTEX PBA Stadium‘ was established at the 2nd exhibition hall of KINTEX in Goyang, ushering in the era of professional billiards stadiums and serving as a foundation for stable operation of competitions.
The PBA Tour is Korea’s sixth professional sport launched in 2019 and is a billiards tournament hosted by the Korea Professional Billiards Association. Commonly called 3-cushion, it is a carom 3-ball game played with 3 balls on a billiard table without pockets.
The 2024-2025 PBA Tour will run the PBA, LPBA Tour, and Team League from June of this year to March of next year. PBA and LPBA will hold 9 tour matches up to the World Championship. In the team league, 9 teams play 40 games over 5 rounds. From the 3rd to the 11th, the NH Nonghyup Card PBA-LPBA Championship is being held at KINTEX PBA Stadium in Goyang.
Goyang KINTEX Stadium is 904.1㎡ (approximately 274 pyeong) in size and is equipped with two billiard tables in the main stadium, six billiard tables in the auxiliary stadium, filming facilities, and 240 spectator seats. Not only preliminaries where many people participate, but also broadcasts and major games where spectators gather can be held in one place. Fans can watch the game on TV, a sports channel, and visit the stadium to watch the top players play.
The exclusive stadium has been a long-awaited project since the beginning of the PBA Tour. This is because venue rental fees account for a large portion of the competition’s running costs, and it was difficult to resolve secondary issues such as securing space for preliminaries, broadcasting equipment, broadcasting cars, spectator seats, and parking when multiple games must be held simultaneously. The launch of a dedicated stadium has made it possible to operate a more stable professional billiards league.
Goyang KINTEX PBA Stadium hosts professional games more than 250 days a year, and also runs programs such as a 20% discount on admission fees for Goyang citizens and one-point lessons.
