Pretty ridiculous
That there is no info posted about this world class event going on in our own backyard. I refrained from chiming in on the debate over taping - because I agree with both sides (if no professional taping, spectators should be allowed to...and that unless you do it right taping does not come out that well and it will get very expensive with all the correct camera angles/ops/commentary).
But this...this is exactly why there is no mens pro tour, why there's no money in pool etc etc etc.
It is beyond simple to have a little website, where the whole thing is backended by a simple database. From onsite you use a laptop with some wireless, update scores/brackets as they happen - in real time. The cost for such a thing is absolutely zero...the time required to do it in a rudimentary (read who cares what it looks like so long as the data is out there) fashion is also very minimal.
No one is ever going to put money into advertising on pool if there aren't well advertised, well kept track of events. Even the simplest website with current finished game scores would be attracting hundreds to thousands of visitors. Now that's small in terms of a worldwide audience, but to pool specific advertisers knowing that several thousand die hard pool fans will be looking at a given web site is where good advertising dollars get spent.
For that matter real time updates wouldn't be hard either - it's only a tiny bit more to allow full game scores (inning number/number of balls made) to be posted in real time as well. I understand onsite there are volunteers doing scorekeeping - if so it would be trivial to do that on computer and have those scores pop up on a website in real time as well.
Time and time again I'm amazed at the poor lack of planning even these "world class events have". Would it really have been so hard to stick a flyer in all the APA packets that stuart and ross hand out every week in manhattan and brooklyn. Would it really have been so hard to walk around manhattan and put up flyers in every bar with a pool table? I'm pretty active in the APA here in manhattan and with 1000 weekly players only a handful probably know about this event going on - none of the people on my own team know about these sorts of things unless I tell them.
Even the 2005 world summit of pool, which was televised had none of this simple, local and free advertising. It's really not surprising why even the most interesting/biggest events in the pool world have poor attendance.
The BCA open, arguably one of the biggest events in the pool world (at least in the US) only has a decent crowd for the televised events. And between every match and game Steve has to rile the crowd up just so it doesn't appear boring on tv...
We've got 8M just in NYC, another bunch of million in the directly surrounding easy drive distance and still barely anyone hears about these events except for the "in the know" community.
hmm...nice rant
Unfortunately I'm working in boston this week (oh my god does it suck to have to miss watching this tournament) *and* I had prior travel plans for this weekend - otherwise I'd gladly bring a laptop and do a play by play for matches I watched...
SJM seems to be the only person actually doing any decent play by plays for the rest of us that can't make it...hats off to you SJM.
Also hats off to Dragon Promotions for putting the event together. I'm not knocking pool promoters in general. It's just amazing how little thought seems to go into getting details out about these things - arguably making sure the players get there and the event goes on is important, but there's a lot of other things that should be looked after.
We live in the 21st century (well maybe not Danny B...but most of us;-) and should be able to keep up with things even if not there.
