The Premier Volleyball League Invitational Conference is one of three active conferences in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL). The conference was first held in 2022 making it the newest conference out of the three. The conference features foreign guest teams who are invited to compete against the PVL's local teams.[1] The PVL's predecessor, the Shakey's V-League, previously held a SEA Club Invitational in 2011.[2]
In 2024, the Invitational Conference was planned to be merged with the Reinforced Conference as a single "Reinforced Invitational Conference",[4] but that plan was scrapped and the two conferences continue to be held separately.
In 2022 and 2023, all invited foreign guest teams received a bye into the final round. All local PVL teams start at the preliminary round, a single round-robin tournament where each team plays all other teams once. The top four teams join the guest teams in the final round, which is another single round-robin. The top two teams advance to the championship match while the third and fourth-ranked teams compete in a third place match, both of which consist of a single game as opposed to the best-of-three in other conferences.
For the 2023 edition, the local PVL teams were divided into two pools for the prelims. Sister teams cannot be placed into the same pool.[5] The top two teams advance to the final round while teams ranked third through fifth take part in a classification match against the team with the same ranking from the other group.[6]
In 2024, the structure of the conference was changed to only allow a selection of local PVL teams compete against the foreign teams. Instead of competing in an initial preliminary round, PVL teams qualify for the Invitational Conference by reaching the semifinals of the previous conference.[7] Those teams are then invited to compete alongside the foreign teams in the preliminary round, which is essentially the final round from before. Invited teams have the option of backing out Invitational Conference participation, in which the highest-ranked team not qualified is given an invitation.[8]
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