WPBA seeks partners/investors
- Thread starter Wags
- Start date
I was just thinking the same thing......if they are not for profit then investors really become donators...
NASCAR , like other pro sports , won't come to NYC . Even NYC's "own" pro football teams won't go there anymore !
Now if they'd finally change their names to "Jersey Giants" & "Jersey Jets" . . . .
Here is an example of a not for profit, http://www.clintonfoundation.org/how-you-can-help/.
In that scheme people with money are capital, players that win the rewards are underprivileged members of a third world country and people that take a cut are the ones giving handouts away.
The WPBA has not delayed payments and is taking early action to ensure they don't have to delay payments. How they do that seems to be a discussion people enjoy having here. Unlike other organizers the WPBA knows what they have to do ahead of time and unlike other bigtime names they know it is better to take public action early than to have to hide out until payments are ready.
The type of success they are displaying is that they know the concerns of their players and are addressing them publicly. It is not a financial success it is a planning success. They successfully planned ahead of a problem. My guess is they don't need the investor until two or three years later, that is based on how they have been financing their tour, all public information.
The WPBA has done right to their players by taking such action instead of promising added money and then making up excuses.
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NASCAR , like other pro sports , won't come to NYC . Even NYC's "own" pro football teams won't go there anymore !
Now if they'd finally change their names to "Jersey Giants" & "Jersey Jets" . . . .
The dream of nice roads in NYC could still happen if NASCAR came and did an event around the city. I don't know any other organization that will demand an increase in the quality of the gradient on the roads other than NASCAR.
I thought the owners didn't want them in NYC because of the public partying.
mlalum
Banned
It doesn't. It's a very poor choice of words, etc., in that statement. They need to be a tiny bit more precise in who they are, what they want and what is possible.
Paul Allen basically bailed the PBA out of bankruptcy, but that's about it. He didn't last. Since then the PBA has been through a plethora of sponsors (Denny's, Odor Eaters, LumberLiquidators.com, etc.) and the women's tour folded entirely. Right now, professional bowling is about one rung on the ladder above professional pool. Like pool, there's more money in action (and brackets) than there is in "pro" tournaments. I know a lot of guys that bowl tournaments just to get in a ton of brackets because if there's enough brackets (and there usually are in larger tournaments), you can make more than the guy who wins the tournament.
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A couple walmart heirs live in my town but I've never seen them at the pool hall. That's exactly what the gals need. I'd help them out but I'm just a sharecropper.
That may not be a bad idea.......she definitely knows something about marketing.
The phrase "Investor/Partner" can mean anything, which is probably why they used it. Why limit it to anything particular?
I've served on their board of directors many times. I know what it's like. It's hard and thankless work and you do it for free. The WPBA has ALWAYS needed help. They have done an amazing job over the years with the little resources they have had. I believe that they will survive, regardless of what gets thrown at them, even if it means downsizing, but I'm sure they'd rather grow instead. When they started out 3 decades ago, the total added money for an event was five hundred dollars. I wrote it out in case you thought I might have accidentally left off a couple of zeros.
The world is smaller than it was 30 years ago. There is a lot of money on the other side of the world and it will be interesting to see what comes of their notice. Their deadline of Jan 14th is up, so we may find out relatively soon.
I've served on their board of directors many times. I know what it's like. It's hard and thankless work and you do it for free. The WPBA has ALWAYS needed help. They have done an amazing job over the years with the little resources they have had. I believe that they will survive, regardless of what gets thrown at them, even if it means downsizing, but I'm sure they'd rather grow instead. When they started out 3 decades ago, the total added money for an event was five hundred dollars. I wrote it out in case you thought I might have accidentally left off a couple of zeros.
The world is smaller than it was 30 years ago. There is a lot of money on the other side of the world and it will be interesting to see what comes of their notice. Their deadline of Jan 14th is up, so we may find out relatively soon.
One person who could have changed things for the better was John Rousseau, he was not given a fair shot and people's interest were put before the group as a whole. If a businessman is successful and has proven himself then give him a chance to do something. An organization run by pool players just does not seem to work. I think they made a mistake, good luck to them because they will need it.
Re-Imaging campaigns tend to work well. If the WPBA picked up advertising themselves differently or with more emphasis on a player-centric culture or something to indicate a sign of the changing times that is a standard practice.
Say a company that features a service/product was getting old and is finding their audience demographic changing, then the advertising dept. has to readjust to meet the needs of the new demo.
In this case the WPBA seems to be more player-centric then ever, and the ultimate goal might be to attract more players.
How they do that is up to them? The lowest budget ways are building a new website, redesigning the website to include more interaction and giving out new stickers too all its players so people can readily identify a WPBA player at an event or at a pool hall. Something simple like a poster for pool halls that says this pool hall supports WPBA players, it always gives younger and older players something to feel good about. It might be the poster that gets a young female interested in learning more and something to consider aside from the noise at the room.
I hope they do well. They have a great overall mission and even better company culture.
Say a company that features a service/product was getting old and is finding their audience demographic changing, then the advertising dept. has to readjust to meet the needs of the new demo.
In this case the WPBA seems to be more player-centric then ever, and the ultimate goal might be to attract more players.
How they do that is up to them? The lowest budget ways are building a new website, redesigning the website to include more interaction and giving out new stickers too all its players so people can readily identify a WPBA player at an event or at a pool hall. Something simple like a poster for pool halls that says this pool hall supports WPBA players, it always gives younger and older players something to feel good about. It might be the poster that gets a young female interested in learning more and something to consider aside from the noise at the room.
I hope they do well. They have a great overall mission and even better company culture.
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And once again our hero shows that he has lost his clue.
They just cut their tournament fields from 64 to 48.
Doesn't seem like their current problems relate to the need to attract more players.
They absolutely do need to attract more players. They also need to attract more sponsors, spectators and more overall interest in the game by the general public. But the burden shouldn't be only on them. They are simply the result of a systemic failure in our industry in the U.S..
We have millions of people who play pool on an amateur level, yet our industry is falling apart.
What the WPBA is doing is absolutely correct. They are putting a plea out for QUALITY people which this industry had been in desperate need of for so long.
Good for them.
I think they are putting a plea out for money. Quality people have come and gone from the organization. A quality person with no money or connections does them no good. It started with the "telethon" in Atlanta before long they will have players at intersections with signs "Will play pool for donations" You can only go to that well so many times.
I have never been able to get my mind around running the tour as a non profit. If I talk someone into buying the WPBA tomorrow who do they write the check to ? Where does the money go? What do they actually buy ? Same goes for investors or partners. What exactly are they buying and where does the money go? Does their investment go to fund the next tournament?
If someone has $100K(enough for 1 or 2 events) to $2 million (enough for a few years of events) to invest in a tour I doubt they are going to give it to the same people who have put it in the state it is in currently. They are going to want to run the show or have a big say in what happens. Maybe thats what this last plea was all about. Looking for someone to buy out the group in order to keep it alive.
Of course money is important but it's about much more than money, which is why the WPBA has managed to survive for over 30 years while other organizations have come and gone. It's about putting a plan in place that can sustain them and to even offer growth over time. That's what the Classic Tour did for them because they had a forumula that worked. That formula has become obsolete and it's time to look for something else, which is what they're doing.
I know that there are different types of non-profits. The WPBA is not a 501 (c) (3) which I think is the true charitible organization where contributors can get a deduction on their tax returns.Unfortunately, the government changed the laws on that so that all sports organizations can no longer apply for that status and they must be 501 (c) (6), I think. STill, there are certain accounting benefits, because the WPBA doesn't have to pay corporate income tax on their earnings, but still must file tax returns and report their earnings. They also are required to put a certain amount back into the organization. In a lot of ways, it keeps the association honest.