The problem is that a tennis player ranked 100 still earns money. If the tables are so tough that Alex and SVB wins all the time, the lesser players will simply quit and start flipping burgers instead.
The Eurotour have made the pockets smaller for a while now. The number of participants has also shrunk. I believe those two factors are connected.
The top pros can whine all they want about "the loose conditions made me lose" (did I get the spelling right? Me stupid foreigner). The point is that if they want money in their pockets, they need the field to fill up. We play pool, not snooker.
That is a VERY short term viewpoint. This sport is going to go nowhere in fan support if it cannot produce a Tiger Woods or a Federer, it needs the top pros to actually become top pros who dominate the sport. Sports live and die on their stars, the Kobe Bryants, the Sidney Crosbys, the David Beckhams, the people who are not only the stars of the sports, but celebrities and who live a life in that sport that is attractive to the fans watching it.
That is what builds amature sports, the dreams of making the pros and living the life of those guys you watch on TV, it gets kids playing the sports in school, it gets them watching those sports on TV, and it drives the youth participation and the new incomming players into the pro ranks and those that do not make it more times then not make up the fan base for that sport and those are the people bringing in the viewership numbers that attract the sponsers.
This sport is going nowhere if you are going to rely on coin flip chances of winning matches and guys like SVB and Alex never being able to dominate the sport because the tables are made easy enough that Joe the plumber upsets them in an event.
You say only Alex and SVB would be making enough money to live and the rest would go flip burgers instead, have you LOOKED at the money list and how deep anything close to a real income exists in pool? You go down to the 20th best pool player on the planet this year and they GROSSED well under $50,000 in winnings for the year, that is before expenses such as travel, hotels, entries, ect... it is pretty much impossible to live on that, after you take out the expenses, pay some taxes, you are living in honest to god poverty.
Things need to change, the public opinion of professional pool needs to change. You cannot have a sport where the pro's are playing on equipment easy enough that anyone can win.
What can help curb some of your concerns though? Going to the actual game the public play. While the tables should be tight and tough the game played on them should be 8-ball, and ALOT of people in the world play 8-ball and figure they are pretty sporty at it once they have a couple beers in them. Those people are alot more likely to get involved in watching pro pool and possibly competing in a amature league system associated with the pros if the game the professionals play is 8-ball. I myself would get ALOT more serious into competitive pool IF the pros switched to 8-ball with tight 10-foots.
