About AZBilliards

  • 1998
    AZBilliards.com 1998

    Mike Howerton of Phoenix, AZ founded AZBilliards.com in June of 1998. Originally intended as an online news source for Arizona pool players, it quickly spread to national and then international coverage of all the cue sports.

  • 2000
    AZBilliards.com 2000

    In September 2000 the first forums alongside AZBilliards.com were launched, based on the platform WebBBS. It was an instant success, as every pool lover had a place to discuss topics about the game they love, exchange ideas and plan tournaments.

  • 2001
    AZBilliards.com 2001

    The site underwent its first facelift (Version 2) in 2001 when the design of the web site was modernized. The first Major events covered live online by AZBilliards that year included the Derby City Classic as the first National coverage and the Mosconi Cup as the first International event to be covered in depth.

  • 2002
    AZBilliards.com 2002

    2002 brought more changes as new sections were added inside an even newer interface and photo galleries were introduced for the first time. AZBilliards quickly grew in popularity as its Forums drew members from around the world to chat about their favorite pastime.

  • 2003
    AZBilliards.com 2003

    2003 was highlighted by the introduction of the Vbulletin forum structure. We still use this forum software to this day.

  • 2007
    AZBilliards.com 2007

    Jerry Forsyth came to AZBilliards in 2007 to help AZB initiate new areas of coverage, video and audio. At first AZB did streaming on its own, but soon partnered with Accu-Stats to provide better quality and to be able to truly cover an event in depth with video, live scoring and news and photos. AZBilliards first offered its now standard live brackets at Turning Stone in 2007. For the first time pool fans anywhere in the world could open a browser window and follow the progresss of players through a tournament chart in real time. This soon became one of the most popular features. This was also the year that AZB launched the first episode of the popular podcast "RunOut Radio" with Johnny Archer and Allison Fisher as guests.

  • 2008
    AZBilliards.com 2008

    In 2008 the first live scoring was done at the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championships. Now fans could do their desk work and open a browser on their desktop that allowed them to keep track of a tournament with real time scoring of every table in the tournament room. Combined with the live brackets this meant that for the first time fans did not have to attend a tournament in order to keep close track of the action there. No longer did they have to wait a month to find out who won and what the best matches were. Now they could follow it rack by rack on every table as well as follow the players through the charts, have dozens of daily photos and daily written news reports as well.

    After this, at any tournament where Accu-Stats and AZBilliards were present for its online coverage, pool fans were able to watch free live streaming video of the highest quality, follow all the tables in the room with real-time scoring, and know the position of every player on the charts. This year marked the first truly complete coverage of a billiard event on the Internet.

    Also In 2008 AZBilliards released Version 3 which updated the site to modern standards and allowed space on the front page for video as well as improving the capacities for brackets and live scoring.

  • 2010

    More improvements came in 2010 when AZB upgraded the photo gallery software. An easier and quicker interface combined with excellent display quality improved the photo experience for every viewer.

  • 2013

    In 2013 AZBilliards unveiled Version 4 as a much larger and more interactive site to finally give the game a one-site resource that contained more information, history, pictures and news than any other source. Version 4 also introduced two new European Team members to the AZBilliards staff. JP Parmentier became our chief photographer and photo editor, and was the lead designer for the new AZBilliards. Jerome Desroziers was our Lead Programmer and lead our programming efforts as we improved and met the challenges of the future. Mike Howerton remains CEO of AZB and is the rudder that controls the entire ship. He is also heavily involved in the programming effort and is the heart of AZBilliards. As our founder this is always his child to raise. Jerry Forsyth continued in his role of attempting to do as little as possible and still be kept on the staff.

  • 2017

    In 2017, after a lifetime spent reporting on the billiards industry, Jerry Forsyth retired from day to day operations of the website. Jerry agreed to stay on board to help with client relations, but he turned over the day to day site operations and maintenance to Mike Howerton.

  • 2018
    AZBilliards.com 2018

    Dave Bond of American Billiard Radio passed unexpectedly and Mike didn't want Dave's vision to disappear. With that in mind, poolpodcasts.com was launched with the archives from Runout Radio, as well as new and archived episodes from American Billiard Radio.

  • 2019
    AZBilliards.com 2019

    In 2020, the global site redesign of azbilliards.com was launched. The entire main structure of the site was retained, but the appearance was changed for the better. True responsive mobile pages, along with a facelift for the entire site was completed.

    With this new redesign, Mike has taken back responsibility for the coding of the site, and along with the assistance of Traci Sibel, will continue to maintain the largest database of information in the Billiards industry.