Does anyone take pride in a league anymore

I take an extreme amount of pride in league.

Take last weekend for instance. I've played APA 9 ball with virtually the same team for 7 years now. In general the team is not that great, me being the only person that calls pool my main hobby. But we all love being around each other and have FUN. We qualified for our LTC by the skin of our teeth having to win the session playoffs just last Wednesday.

Well the pool gods were smiling on us last weekend as we all got hot at exactly the same time and managed to win our LTC and will be Vegas bound in August for APA. Now I've attended a total of about 10 national level tournaments between TAP and NAPA but this is the first time any of the rest of my 9 ball team has EVER been and they are so excited.

I'm this team's highest ranked player being an SL7 in 9 ball. This team has seen me improve over the years and they remember when I was a SL3 when we first started playing together years ago. In general I get beat to death when I enter the non-handicapped 9 ball tournaments at my room as out local tournaments draw a very strong field of players but I'm "the hammer" on this team. So we're in the final 8 last weekend and going into the fifth match my team is down 43-37. I'm left to play and the other team has an 8 left who hasn't been beat the whole weekend. I need to win 13-7 for our team to move on which means I can't let the 8 get to 59 points. So we're essentially in a near even race him needing 59 to my 55. So we kick around for a few racks and the score is him 42 me 29. He breaks drys, I have to cheese an early nine to get 6 points out of the rack. I then to proceed to leave this super 8 sitting on his stick for the next two racks as I break and run both of them to beat him 55-42 for a 15-5 win and send us on to the final four!

With each shot the pressure kept building and building and after I sank the last nine ball my entire body was filling with adrenaline because I had 7 other people depending on me. It was an awesome feeling and something that I have NEVER experienced when playing for myself. I'll never forget the look on the 8's face when I looked at him after running the second rack. Then to steal a line from the great Troy Kirkendoll(lame horse) I went over to my team and said, "well I just made their super 8 look like a motel 6!"

In general I hate the APA and our LO is a complete joke of a person. But I don't play the game for him. I play the game to hang out with good friends and for moments like this.
 
Pool leagues are entertainment. If you're doing it to make money, take 2 weeks off and then quit. Sure, there's some payback and such, but for the most part, pool leagues should be just like going to the movies. When the night is over, you've gotten what you paid for and don't really expect anything in return.

Pool leagues play the significant role in keeping pool rooms open. Without leagues, I don't want to know what it would be like.

League operators need to be compensated for their work. Just remember this, if it's not worth paying for, then you probably won't receive anything of any value. The only successful leagues I have ever seen, meaning long term, have all been an income for the League Operator. For most, it was their full time job. I don't think very many people will operate a league out of the shear love of the sport for very long. That love will most likely die.

I'm all for the action, and playing for money. I'm not really a money player, but I know many who are. The thing is, they all pretty much understand that without the leagues putting money into pool, there wouldn't be any money for them to take out of pool. Gamblers don't usually spend a lot of money at the pool rooms, so it's the leagues that keep them a float. As a matter of fact, most of those action players that I know also play in leagues. One of them is actually the BCA league operator! He's a close friend and also an employee of mine so I really get the inside scoop on what it's like being a league operator.

All in all, there's plenty of room for both the action/tourney players as well as the league players. They both actually do good for each other, whether they realize it or not.

Me, I'm just happy to get to hit some balls every now and then.
 
My league has 15 divisions each division has 10-15 teams, that's a Max of 225 teams, and its run by 2 guys who both hold down full time jobs and families. the cost per team for a season is £40 and winners from each division play in a tournament at the end of the season and the top 3 teams get a split of the money. 70% of the total prize fund is split 50% for 1st, 30% 2nd and 20% for 3rd. The remaining 30% of the prize fund goes to the 2 guys who run it.

I honestly don't know how they do it. Its like a full time job all by its self. I wouldn't do it for 100% of the prize fund. Just remember without league promoters the pool scene would be in a worse state than it already is.
 
trob said:
okay a few things...

One to the guy who compared it to a short bus. I'm going to assume you were just having a joke by the smiley face but if not for leagues pool would be even more dead then it already is. God knows the vast majority of you cheap broke ass wanna be hustlers don't keep pool halls or bars alive.

I can say locally that acs is dead and bca seems to be on the downward slide since apa came to town. I think that's largely because our current generation would rather get a handy capp to play even with better players then have to work hard plus apa offers vegas which seems to be a golden carrot to it's members.

The turn off around here for apa is people don't think that you should financially benefit from running a pool league. all our leagues before this have put all the money they make back out for the banquet and tournaments. I don't have a problem with it! I've helped run a small league and it's a pain in the ass! There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scene and I can only imagine with all the teams apa has and having to send correct stats and money to st louis is a big pain in the ass so if they can make a living god bless them.
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ACS is actually alive and well, and had their best national event to date this year.
The "success" of the APA may be a bit of an illusion. Yes, they have over 250,000 members, but a few years back they bragged about having over 1 million members since they began. Unless you think 750,000 of those one million all died or are in prison, you have to wonder how many have quit the APA because they didn't care for it. What saddens me about this is that I've had many folks tell me they tried APA and would "never play in a league again", never having given ACS, BCA, VNEA or any of the others a chance.

I've played in pool leagues every year but five since 1966. I've watched countless leagues come and go. Many room owners don't even realize how important leagues are to their business, or even if they do, they don't offer what players want, and the leagues die out.

And by the way, there are a number of players in the BCA Hall of Fame who played in pool leagues...
 
And while we're at it, I bet anyone who claims "money is my motivation" is not being honest with themselves. If you wanted to make money, you'd get a degree and a better job.
These days, you're not gonna live like a king off gambling winnings.

Going around every week trying to scare up money games is just another form of recreation, like league.
And if you're getting into fair games rather than robbing people, your odds of getting paid after a year aren't
much better than a league player's.

To the OP: sounds like you're frustrated with your local LOs. But you seem to have an open mind and get
that it's not a fun job. Maybe just write down some the major issues you see and send the LO an email.
Unless the major issue is money. Then you're pretty much gonna be disappointed because they aren't going to
volunteer for a pay cut and the players aren't going to love a weekly fee increase.

Still, something small to show for at least the 2nd place team is normal.
I don't think it'll cost TOO much to get one team a few trophies or patches. Maybe arrange something
with the pool room owner, get them a few hours of free pool on slow nights.
 
CreeDo said:
And while we're at it, I bet anyone who claims "money is my motivation" is not being honest with themselves. If you wanted to make money, you'd get a degree and a better job.
These days, you're not gonna live like a king off gambling winnings.
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My first student loan is almost paid off, I'll be damned if I have to go through all that again. Not live like a king? Then what do you call the $6 I snapped off last night from 11:30 to 2:30? Damn near covered all $9 of my tab(tip included). If that ain't living like a king, I don't know what is.
 
Donny Lutz said:
ACS is actually alive and well, and had their best national event to date this year.
.
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Well that's good to hear. I know locally we had a lot of people going to vegas for there event for over 15 years and I believe about 2 years a go a local league operator who was and adamant acs supporter finally had enough and changed to bca. The national event was at an all time low ..so bad that they were letting masters division players play in all events and complaints of collusion for some canadian players who all managed to get byes and it just so happened they all weren't going to make it for the start of the tournament. again I wasn't there it was what I was hearing from the guys who came back and these were people I thought would never jump ship from acs. But being a fan of pool over all and honestly more a fan of the bca and acs over the apa I hope they are turning things around.
 
Banks said:
My first student loan is almost paid off, I'll be damned if I have to go through all that again. Not live like a king? Then what do you call the $6 I snapped off last night from 11:30 to 2:30? Damn near covered all $9 of my tab(tip included). If that ain't living like a king, I don't know what is.
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You crack me up...that is about par for the course for me as well. Usually best I can do at a bar is a race to3 for 5.....better to play for drinks at that pace.
 
Poke_N_Hope said:
You crack me up...that is about par for the course for me as well. Usually best I can do at a bar is a race to3 for 5.....better to play for drinks at that pace.
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I could probably do better, but I hardly ever go anywhere different. Hard to get games when randoms rarely go there for a serious game of pool. The rest are mostly 3-5 in APA. They know better unless I can tempt them with a spot and even then it isn't going to be for much.

I was playing at a pool hall for a few hours before seeing what my friends were up to after their APA matches. Had my usual PBR and whiskey and got my friend to play for a couple $ as a congrats for his new 7/9 status. :thumbup: I found out the 8 doesn't usually make a difference.
 
Poke_N_Hope said:
Let me add some detail. A league...6-8 teams, runs 30+ weeks, one long session. No awards, t shirts patches or prizes for finishing in league for any team....and the only payout was $1800 for team to go to Vegas for the team that won the finals tourney.

Is this normal procedure...take in $120+ a week in weekly dues for 30 weeks and only payout half. I understand if you have 20 or 30 teams...the prizes and payouts run deeper and taking a chunk for operating is more acceptable...but this seems a bit greedy and much with so few teams.
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So by this calculation the LO is getting $60/week for setting up and recording 3 matches each week. Are you sure he has no expenses other than the trip to Las Vegas? How much "pay" do you feel would be fair? I used to play in a league where the board was all volunteers. I think they didn't get any direct pay but I never saw the books.

As for SOP.... I've heard that some LOs get about $500/team/year which has to take care of all expenses and wages. They may have to run multiple finals tournaments and such. I've also heard that some LOs have about 1000 teams. I suspect at that point you need to hire some office help, but your gross is $500,000. Hmm... that's more than any pool player makes.
 
Well, here in Memphis they run the leagues here a little different. We have individual member leagues instead of teams.....

Much better.

Ken
 
Invest your time and money in the NAPA.

nuff' said.

Individual & Team oriented. Fair, Honest, and the best payouts. Period.
 
That isn't a bad idea....often times a new league can change the pace a bit....I will look into what it takes. Thanks for the tip
 
What they make

Big old edit:
I was able to actually talk directly to an LO and hear what they thought of my halfassed math...
not surprisingly, I was way off. So for posterity I'm gonna fix this post.

The math is really super simple:
Franchise fees etc. = 1 time payments to the head office.
And usually much cheaper than my 20k guess, a big existing franchise can be expensive
but purchasing unfranchised territory can be quite cheap.
Also the membership fees all go straight to the head office, no part goes to the LO.

What an LO actually makes:

Weekly fee / 2, times number of teams...
minus expenses, employees, etc.

So, if your team pays $40 to the envelope each week, $20 goes to the LO.
The other 20 goes to the prize fund, and 100% of that money gets paid back out,
whether it's cash, trophies, patches, etc.
This 50/50 arrangement is what's typical but a few may have a different split.

Also, having like 500 teams is unusual, a more typical LO might have 100.
And the typical season is maybe 44 weeks a year.

So:
$20 x 100 teams = 2k per week.
44 weeks per year = $88,000 for the LO.
That's to deal with 800ish pool players every week.

Even if they do it all themselves from home, use their personal car, and so on, that's not Donald Trump money.
If they hire an assistant it's suddenly more like local plumber money.
Some really big franchises are paying as many as 15ish full time employees with an office, benefits, and so on.
Hope this clears up the idea that APA operators living in mansions in costa rica.
 
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How much would you charge to deal with 4800 pool players? :eek:

With that many players, I'd imagine they'd also have an office and staff, so you've got to knock at least another 100k off that total. :thumbup:
 
Donny Lutz said:
The "success" of the APA may be a bit of an illusion. Yes, they have over 250,000 members, but a few years back they bragged about having over 1 million members since they began. Unless you think 750,000 of those one million all died or are in prison, you have to wonder how many have quit the APA because they didn't care for it.
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Most probably just didn't care enough for pool in general to make it a priority over the other things happening in their lives. APA leagues are geared toward beginners. Many of those people will try it and decide it's not their thing, just like any other product or activity. Others who have been playing a while have life changes that simply push pool to the bottom of the priority list.

In an APA franchise, a 70% customer retention rate is considered excellent. 70% means every year we lose 30% of our customers from the previous year. We have to gain that many new customers before we can grow at all! The vast majority of that 30% are beginners. They are the ones with the least invested, and are way more likely to quit over one negative experience. It's the price we pay for gearing our leagues toward beginners. League organizations not geared toward beginners should have a much higher retention rate, but then they aren't doing much to grow the sport, are they? When they claim growth, they're usually just shifting the pie, instead of helping create a bigger pie.
 
krupa said:
That's only because the "real" players are already on it and want someone to read "Cat in the Hat" to them.
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That was a cute reply, 2 points for you. I made that post in fun, but, the truth of the matter is that in the APA, you're not playing the game of pool, you're playing a

game of sandbagging, deceit, loophole hunting, and are penalized for improving! They claim that the APA has 250,000 members but have had a million people try it

out. That tells me that 3 out of 4 people who tried it decided it was a waste of time! Those 3 out of 4 people were right. You probably don't have a pool team, you

have a drinking team that plays a few games of pool IF it doesn't interfere with their drinking.

The 23 rule is the biggest problem with the league. It creates a situation where people almost have to sandbag in order to keep their teams together and

competitive with the other sandbagging teams. I believe that it could be great for pool if they would abolish that rule, but as long as it's in play, the league sucks! It's

all about Terry Bell and Larry Hubbard using the 23 rule like a pyramid scheme because of the way teams are forced to break up and finds new low handicapped

players to fill their teams. I'm sure this makes the bottom line much better but I'm not interested in pushing the owners from millionaires to billionaires! What do they

do for the sport? They put nothing into professional pool, into getting young people involved in the sport, or anything that would help the sport flourish. All they're

concerned about is making more money!


I could spend hours telling of personal situations that I've endured with the APA but I don't have the hours. If you're interested do a search on my APA posts on

AZ and it will explain why I feel the way I do. I only want what's best for the sport, the players (APA and real( :) ) pool players), and hate to see players punished

for improving!

NUFF SAID!

Sherm >> Does not care about the money, just wants to play pool the way it was meant to be played!
 
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