The pros are pretty savvy as to the state of streaming. They know that no one is making any real money at it, and that most are still under water financially as they have not yet recouped the cost of equipment and personnel.
They also are aware that the exposure is very good for them. They have current and potential future sponsors and the more exposure a player gets the happier these sponsors are. So the players DO have a financial advantage to being on the stream. Plus, I am not aware of any streamers who capture their matches and put them out on DVD who do not share the revenue from those DVD's with the players. There may be some, it is not something I have tracked, but I know of streamers who do share the income.
The big advantage of streaming to the pros is the exposure that streaming gives the game. Anything that promotes the sport is good for the pros. A rising tide lifts all boats. This is like anything else in pool. If promoters and streamers and billiard firms were all making a lot of good money then the pros would be making a lot more money. It is all about getting money to flow again in the billiard world.
So for players to make demands on streamers now, while streaming is in its infancy, would be very short-sighted and would be a form of self-destruction if it chased the streamers away from the market. The relationship is symbiotic and both the players and streamers need each other. We at AZB do not do PPV, we only do free streams as we need as many viewers as possible to build the game and, hopefully, AZB can grow with it. But we use streaming as a loss-leader. It brings more people into our universe and that is to our advantage. But most streamers do not have that advantage or ability, so we know the PPV model will be around for a while, at least until everyone can use their remote controls at home to tune their TV's to internet channels like Ustream. That day is coming, but it is not here as yet.
Streaming faces hurdles in the US that it does not face in other countries because we play tournaments here in very dark rooms. For streaming to mature every table in the room must be lit well enough to be streamed. We get one table at Derby, one table at the U.S. Open and one table at most other large US events. That does not portend growth. The fans want choice. They want to be able to pick the table that they watch. That is where we really need to go. As the internet bandwidth continues to expand and the pipes become large enough to handle the load then we need to get cameras on every table so that fans can watch whomever they want. But before we can do that we must stop playing in dark rooms. They light them up everywhere else in the world. The rooms are so bright that often there are no lights required over the tables. And in those countries pool is very, very popular. Here we continue the dark, negative connotations with our staging of the game.
