I agree with you on one thing here...
IMO, BB is DOA.
They are throwing cash at the project, true, but from what I've read here, they are doing so without a true understanding of the game and its players. (Other than: if you pay them, they will come.). I think one of the prime mistakes they are making is trying to force feed the game (BB) from the top down,when they should have spent some of their dough building interest and support for the game at the grass roots. A secondary issue is having all the teams and matches play in Las Vegas and not generating support in the cities these guys are supposed to be representing.
Also, presenting their case here amongst the hardcore, with substantial chip on shoulder, is doing their organization and product incalculable harm in terms of lost goodwill in the industry.
Some key BB representatives don't seem to understand any of that.
Lou Figueroa
They kind of negate the advantage they create by having city based named teams by NOT having the matches in the cities they are from.
I had actually considered something similar only using familiar games. I had discussed it briefly with Mark Griffin a couple of years ago and was considering doing a pilot program in San Diego and LA.
Tv is only necessary to become as large as some other professional sports, but like those sports, tv is impossible without being able to get butts in seats first.
Football and Baseball were huge butts in seats sports long before they were tv sports.
To get mainstream interest, having team based city based groupings is necessary. It gives you a marketing base of "oh that's my team, I gotta route for them".
I can't imagine BB having the means to build arenas in every city they are doing this though. I personally would've considered booking a venue in each city and doing it that way with traditional local radio and print advertising to get butts in seats, once that is done and interest can be shown, the tv side will come banging on your door, not the other way around.
I can see, or at least I could've seen a reason for doing it in Vegas as opposed to other places, since people from all over go to Vegas. With advertising marketed to vacationers from the various cities where the teams are based, it could very well end up being possible to generate interest in vacationers to come to the show and could eventually be built up with arenas in each of the cities and even more cities if it gets as big as I'm sure the founders are hoping.
The game CAN be played without their ballset using solids for purple and stripes for orange so the ball set thing isn't necessary for the game to catch on.
In fact, I don't own a ball set and played some teaching the rules to another player on Friday night.
It's a great game in my opinion and a game to separate the pros from the amatuers may be a great method of generating interest in pool.
We don't know the marketing plan, or the business plan of BB founders, but it's hard to believe that they would've been able to get the investment capital that they appear to have without a half way decent foundation.
I have to kind of laugh at the people "in the know" of the billiard's industry saying that it isn't viable because if they knew what was viable, pool wouldn't be in the state that it's in today...
It may have been necessary for pool to degenerate to the state that it's in for something like this to be able to take hold.
I'll tell you another thing about bonus ball that other games do not have from what I've seen from the pros that I've watched play it.
The illusion of amatuers holding their own against pros (One of the reasons that high school ballers and golf players enjoy watching the sport) is more available in this game than other games.
Especially considering that most sports have highlighted mistakes (think golf) while pool has historically edited them out (think WPBA on ESPN).
Some things to chew on when considering the viability of the success of BB.
Jaden
