Quality life of professional players

S

Slh

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
How is the quality of the pro players? Do they live in good money condition or not? I heard Strickland is struggling. I wonder if it is propitious economically to became a pool player. Looking at the payout of most tournament i could say "no", but i'm not sure.
I'm not talking about only top players.
 
Whats the difference between a Professional pool player and a large sized pizza. One can feed a family of four.

What do you call a poolplayer without a girlfriend, homeless.

Funny, but sadly true.
 
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Pool as a profession

ctyhntr said:
Whats the difference between a Professional pool player and a large sized pizza. One can feed a family of four.

What do you call a poolplayer without a girlfriend, homeless.

Funny, but sadly true.
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I used to play pool for a living. Got tired of eating hot dogs!
 
I cant think of too many people who try to make a living playing darts, miniature golf, competitive shooting, or in one of the many other niche sports or games. But for some reason every third guy to ever pick up a cue seems to try their hand at making a living off of playing pool.

In a sport that probably can legitimately support 10-15 top players there are well over a hundred "professional" players. Not a big surprise most of them starve.
 
How much does a top level pro, say Archer, Deuel, Morris, Van Boening, Mika, etc. make off of sponsorships? Being a house pro (is Mika the house pro at ABC?)? Gambling?
 
westcoast said:
How much does a top level pro, say Archer, Deuel, Morris, Van Boening, Mika, etc. make off of sponsorships? Being a house pro (is Mika the house pro at ABC?)? Gambling?
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A good year for a top Pro is $100K

A great year for a top pro is $200K

This is total income counting sponsorships etc. Most of the male players income comes from winning events. Male pro pool is eat what you kill.

You can count the number of guys who make that on one hand and have some fingers left over to count how many make any serious money off sponsorships.
 
Do the sponsors pay for their travel expenses? (plane fare, hotel, etc.)

For example, the Seminole tour came to Hollywood last year and a lot of the top guys played- they must have gotten their airplane and hotel comped, right?
 
I reckon the Top 10 are making a good living but it's a lot of pressure year to year and they probably aren't earning enough to be able to comfortably retire in 10-15 years like pro tennis players, football players, basketball players etc

A lot of travelling expenses eats into your winnings and if you have a family, even harder. Be away from them long periods of time or pay a lot of money for them to travel with you.
 
the top 15 make over $50,000 (See AZ Money List) (50K to 120K)

They have to pay all of their own expenses & insurance out of that money.

At the bottom, that would be like someone making $35,000 year on a regular job (except that person has a good shot at getting paid next week).
 
I believe Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland and Ralf Souquet have made money from playing competitive pool, possibly Mika Immonen and Daren Appleton over the last few years.
Possibly some hustlers did too, and Grady Mathews claims in one of his tapes that he did support his family mailny through playing for money man to man, not competitive pool.
In another recent thread a lot of members placed an analysis on the reasons why pool is not a major sport.
Pool could be a major sport if people in charge would change their policy and try organising it into a "city" instead of a "village". A village is easier to control and so they just keep on sucking the blood out of most players... They have quite a good profit on this so why would they work hard to make Pool what it can be?...
It is not the players fault. In no other sports players spend so much time studying and so much money just to play at highest level possible, definately darts or other hobbies like that are not so painful..
Imagine how much all these guys love Pool, making all this sacrifice for it..
Millions play Pool, and thousands more than just for fun..
Proper organization will make things happen, but instead of waiting for players to have a common sense the federations will have to really work hard and lead the way..
 
I got a mate who played on the pro tennis tour for a number of years from his late teens. He got to just outside Top 200 in the world so given the number of players, he was pretty damm good. Its a tough life outside the top, he played on the challenger circuit where there is little prize money and few spectators, the idea of the challenger circuit is to get to the main tournaments where the money is but it is so competitive, so many good tennis players out there. Look he doesn't regret his time doing this. he got to travel the world and meet lots of girls along the way, but he didn't come out of it that well financially. When he finished, he went back to uni, got a degree in finance and is now a successful stock broker.

So even sports with known big money, it is only the top so many players who do really well. In tennis i would say the Top 50 make a good living, the top 10 exceptional

That's not many really, when you think that the Top 500 accountants in the world would all be doing really really well or the Top 500 systems analysts etc

In pool it's even less top players

If you take Earl and Efren, that's like the Kobe Bryant or the Cristiano Ronaldo of pool, they should be rolling in it

a Better plan for a young talent is to study hard, get a good job, keep playing pool, aim to retire by 50 then travel the world playing tournaments you want to play with no money worries just enjoying the game.
 
money and pool players

There have been several top players that have made quite a bit of money in pool. It is their own fault that they did not put some of it away for their future. That is no different that someone having a job and not putting money into a retirement account for the future. I remember when Earl was in Houston in the early 80's an attorney friend of mine used to watch some of the action and he told me then that if Earl would let someone help him with some retirement issues he could be rich into his late life. I talked to Earl about it and he simply stated he had already been rich twice and he could take care of his self with the money he was making. I believe that is the view held by many top players. Look at Buddy now, he has made a small fortune over the years but never had tried to manage it for his future. In all sports no matter what you make you need help to manage you money, you see football players making millions and then being broke just a few years after they are out of football.
There needs to be a financial management system to help them because they can't help themselves.
 
Petros Andrikop said:
They have quite a good profit on this so why would they work hard to make Pool what it can be?...
It is not the players fault.
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I'm curious who the "they" is that making all this money off of pro pool.

Most events I know consider break even to be a really nice state of events. I suspect if you averaged it out on an hourly basis the promoters of most pro events would be better off working at Wal Mart.

Its like a friend of mine used to say about the restaurant business: "Want to know how to make a small fortune in the restaurant business ? Start with a large one."

Don't you think if there was real money in promoting big pro events we would see at least one a month? The main reason there is so little money in pro pool is the very fact that promoters do not make money at it. If you could make money doing events more people woud do them, competition for top players would increase leading to bigger prize funds to draw them.

As it stands unless you get a sponsor to basically give away $20-$50K for an event you have very little chance to turn a profit on a $20-$50K added event. The only profitable model I see is Allen Hopkins SBE which incorporates everything. Vendors, amateurs, pros, and spectators. Since he only does one a year I suspect the workload to put that event on is such that taking on multiple events is more than what he deems worth it.

Bottom line is this. Pro pool tournaments in this country do not make financial sense. Never have. The people who put them on do it because they love it, for the most part they constantly scramble to survive and eventually either burn out or fade away.

Yes I do have an idea about how to change the paradigm. We'll see if it works in the future.
 
JCIN said:
I'm curious who the "they" is that making all this money off of pro pool.

Most events I know consider break even to be a really nice state of events. I suspect if you averaged it out on an hourly basis the promoters of most pro events would be better off working at Wal Mart.

Its like a friend of mine used to say about the restaurant business: "Want to know how to make a small fortune in the restaurant business ? Start with a large one."

Don't you think if there was real money in promoting big pro events we would see at least one a month? The main reason there is so little money in pro pool is the very fact that promoters do not make money at it. If you could make money doing events more people woud do them, competition for top players would increase leading to bigger prize funds to draw them.

As it stands unless you get a sponsor to basically give away $20-$50K for an event you have very little chance to turn a profit on a $20-$50K added event. The only profitable model I see is Allen Hopkins SBE which incorporates everything. Vendors, amateurs, pros, and spectators. Since he only does one a year I suspect the workload to put that event on is such that taking on multiple events is more than what he deems worth it.

Bottom line is this. Pro pool tournaments in this country do not make financial sense. Never have. The people who put them on do it because they love it, for the most part they constantly scramble to survive and eventually either burn out or fade away.

Yes I do have an idea about how to change the paradigm. We'll see if it works in the future.
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It's so simple and so obvious but most on this forum try their best to ignore the reality of what Justin says.
 
mlalum said:
It's so simple and so obvious but most on this forum try their best to ignore the reality of what Justin says.
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that is exactly why JCIN' first drink is on me at the DCC! I went the way of building a plumbing business over the years......my dream was being a touring pro......fixin toilets isn't all that bad i guess :(


G.
 
Petros Andrikop said:
Pool could be a major sport if people in charge would change their policy and try organising it into a "city" instead of a "village". A village is easier to control and so they just keep on sucking the blood out of most players... They have quite a good profit on this so why would they work hard to make Pool what it can be?...
..
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Who exactly are these "people in charge" that you speak of...and what exactly are they in charge of?

This is where you aren't really getting it. There is no one "in charge", because there is nothing to be in charge of. There are some groups who have put together their own businesses, such as the BCAPL or the APA, but they are not in charge of pool. There's a guy in Virginia who throws a pretty big tournament every year....but he isn't in charge of pool. There is a group of ladies who have put together their own little tour, but they aren't in charge either.

The painful truth is, there really isn't anything to be in charge of, therefore, nobody is in charge of much of anything in the pool business.

Steve
 
pooltchr said:
Who exactly are these "people in charge" that you speak of...and what exactly are they in charge of?

This is where you aren't really getting it. There is no one "in charge", because there is nothing to be in charge of. There are some groups who have put together their own businesses, such as the BCAPL or the APA, but they are not in charge of pool. There's a guy in Virginia who throws a pretty big tournament every year....but he isn't in charge of pool. There is a group of ladies who have put together their own little tour, but they aren't in charge either.

The painful truth is, there really isn't anything to be in charge of, therefore, nobody is in charge of much of anything in the pool business.

Steve
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Again this is the reality. People need to get that. You need to understand what bottom is before you can start looking up. There is no demand for pro pool. that's just a fact by all definitions. Could there be demand? It's possible. But you have to be willing to give up on what pool WAS.
 
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I'm refering mostly to federations, especially considering the European reality.

Most of the people inside them are failured players who never played a decent game of Pool (they were too lazy to practice enough) but always had the time and will to pick up the phone and "organize" things... That was easier for them and the true players had no time for it since they had to subject themselves to countless hours of practice (and countless expenses) in order to perfect their game.

For the work they do their profit is not huge but it's quite good and that's more than enough for them, definately more than most of the champions!!

Those people never really wanted to have Pool grow, that way it would be out of their control..

You cannot blame the players, they have put so much money and time into Pool for nothing. Sure they have no common sense, but sports that are doing better do not wait for the players to have common sense. Just imagine all these players how much they truly love the sport, giving so much without expecting anything..

The way I see it the billiard industry has not worked right either over the last two decades. People there do not realize they can live with a few less millions each year and just because there is no proper control they built nowdays most of their components in China with the lowest cost possible and the poorest quality control posssible.. All they mind about is next month's balance and not true support of Pool. If Pool would be what it can they would make even more but they would have to work harder.. So why work hard when you can make enough money doing a louzy job?...

I see a lot of complains here in az about the situation in USA as well.

Instead of supporting those "poor" organizers who "suffer" from critics now and then someone has to speak up the truth finally.

They have sucked the blood of the players over the years and today we have people that have played this extremely difficult sport in a magnificent level and made nothing out of it for their effort. People who have practiced 8 hours a day or more just to have the joy of beating the best players every now and then, only to hear now that their sport is not a sport and they are not true athletes and they should just accept things they way they are.. 8 hours a day studying the game in depth (not just throwing balls into pockets) for months some times, spending and spending and supporting Pool.. All these A players who have even managed to beat world champions deserve what? nothing?...

Pool is higly addictive, millions play and thousands for more than just fun, spending a lot of money in equipment and expenses in order to play, almost more than any other sport. All these people are the reason Pool exists and they get no respect, but why would they if even champions of the world don't get the respect they deserve?... The organizers with their great mind figured out that it is a good thing to apply every rule possible so that the better players loose for e.g., that's the respect a world champion gets after performing all these years great Pool, promoting the sport so that more players come into it and make money for the organizations and the industry...

Even when a champion of the world speaks his mind freely from time to time he gets replies like "cry baby" and so on...

Last year the living legend Grady Mathews asked here in public why wasn't he invited in a great event. He did not get the responce he should have by people here and certainly not the respect he deserves from those organizers who forgot how much money they made in their lives due to players like Grady Mathews... Players like him are the ones that attracted so many players into the sport, players who supported every organization and the industry..

Pool can be great if the direction is right, but if it grows it will be possibly out of reach of todays semiprofessional organizers...
Players do not gother together and demand things so this story will keep going on. After years of frustration most players give up, but no problem for these so called organizers:
New "suckers" will always show up...
 
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You know what's sick is that Earl actually broke and ran 10 when there was a million dollars on the line and never got paid. Sick and sad as well.

I have nothing but respect for anyone out there playing pool for income.They have a ton of heart for grinding it out.
 
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