A jam-packed 2019 PBA Tour season got a little fuller Wednesday when the PBA announced the return of the PBA Tour Finals in July.

A new four-year agreement with CBS Sports Network will provide 10 hours of live coverage of the PBA Tour Finals, which will be held July 20-21 at Red Rock Casino Resort & Hotel in Las Vegas.

Although some specific details about the schedule have not been announced, the PBA did reveal the top eight players in points from the 2018 and 2019 season through the USBC Masters in April will make up the field.

Jason Belmonte is the defending PBA Tour Finals champion, a title he won in Detroit earlier this year. EJ Tackett won the event in 2017 in Orlando. In those years, players earned eligibility for the event through the earnings list but that changes to points in 2019.

The PBA reported the 2019 PBA Tour Finals will incorporate the same format as 2018 with the eight-player field divided into two four-player groups.

The field will bowl four games of qualifying in their respective groups on a different oil pattern each game. The four game scratch totals for each player will be used to determine the seeding for a separate stepladder finals in each group.

The final match of each group’s stepladder will be a best of three-game match with ties broken by a 9th and 10th frame roll off. The two group winners will then meet in another best-of-three game championship match that will also use a 9th and 10th frame roll-off should there be a tie after two games.

Current 2018 PBA Tour Points List

(Top 25 as of Dec. 26, 2018)     

1. Andrew Anderson, 24,195    
2. Anthony Simonsen, 20,909
3. EJ Tackett, 19,842
4. Kristopher Prather, 18,546
5. Stuart Williams, 18,026
6. Jason Belmonte, 17,469
7. Marshall Kent, 16,867
8. Bill O'Neill, 15,737
9. Jakob Butturff, 15,607
10. Dom Barrett, 14,075
11. Tom Smallwood, 12,853
12. Kyle Troup, 12,613
13. Sean Rash, 11,946
14. Tom Daugherty, 10,617
15. Matt O’Grady, 10,185
16. Richie Teece, 9,831
17. Wes Malott, 9,646
18. Darren Tang, 9,140
|19. Tommy Jones, 9,009
20. Matt Sanders, 8,945
21. Francois Lavoie, 8,898
22. Jason Sterner, 8,577
23. Ronnie Russell, 8,570
24. Chris Barnes, 8,565
25. Ryan Ciminelli, 8,236