BALL is life, but nowhere to feed your greed?

For those weekend – and weekday – warriors out there who want to reserve a basketball court minus the usual hassle, check out Expresshoops.ph where a venue booking is just a click away.

Launched last July by three young entrepreneurs, the website enables basketball enthusiasts to find and book schedules in some of the known basketball courts in Manila - probably the first basketball court online reservation platform in the metro.

“We all know everybody loves to play ball,” co-owner and Alaska assistant coach Paolo Layug said in a chat with SPIN.ph. “Whether you’re in the school or in the office, parang after work, gusto mo maglaro. We have that urge to play all the time.”

Wanting to play is one thing. Looking for a court is another story, considering the hassles of booking through the phone and having to go to the gym to pay the reservation, before you can finally play.

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“There’s so many inefficiencies … so me and my partners thought, ‘What can we do to improve the system and the entire process?’” said Layug, one of the website’s three owners along with operations manager Mark Carrillo and web developer Carlo Espinosa.

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“We want to make it as easy as one, two, three,” he added of their website where the schedules are reflected real time and you can book 24/7. “You don’t have to call anyone. They payment’s already coursed through us. All you have to do is show up and show your voucher, and that’s it.”

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They have eight partner courts so far: Upper Deck in Pasig, Reyes Gym and G Court in Mandaluyong, Moro Lorenzo inside Ateneo campus in Quezon City, Golden Panda along E. Rodriguez, QC, Northfield along Tomas Morato, QC, Cloverleaf in Makati, and TC Sports gymnasium in Caloocan.

The price range is around P1,500 per hour, with Upper Deck the most expensive at P2,000 per hour, while the most affordable is Northfield at P400 per hour without lights.

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“You can do it for movie tickets, hotels, airlines, so why not for basketball courts?” Layug said, noting they have almost 200 users already. “We’re a basketball-loving nation, right? Everybody’s got Facebook and is online.”

“We know the trend is there’s going to be more and more younger people playing, so that means more and more people are going to be tech-reliant,” he added. “They want everything to be convenient. We’re hoping to pounce on that trend.”