Bonus ball the truth

Try hard Lee and maybe someday you can be an elite flying elephant too. :boring2:


Hey Zeus Crisco that is some serious frikin irony.

Imagine that: a company called "Flying Elephants" that cant seem to get off the ground....





Karma DeLuxe Biggy Sized.
 
Lee I was just over looking at your Facebook page and just wanted to suggest you change your cover photo. It just looks weird knowing how you feel about Bonus Ball and then seeing the Bonus Ball arena as your cover photo.
 
Embrace pool for what it is...

You know, I see a lot of threads on AZ, Facebook; even hear coversations from players and railbirds in pool halls and it's always the same...

"What's going to make pool big again" - "How are we going to get pool into the mainstream again?" - "When's pool going to redeem itself?"

Mr. Griffin of the CSI even said on the phone to me 2 years ago, "Everyone's looking for the magic bullet."

Lee Brett, 50 professional pool players, bonus ball girls and even myself - I am truly sorry that the Bonus Ball experience was dismal. It was for me too, since I friggin' moved to Vegas, believing that it was going to be a Mecca for pool for 26 weeks. Like any normal bottom-feeder in the media, I was hoping to get some good footage of these pros in real life, maybe a good action match or two, a few good streamed events and even some new friends.

Well, I made some friends...:):):)

Personally I think that, expecting something to come along and make pool HUGE again is really just another setup for failure, because the pool community now becomes vulnerable to any snake-oil salesman that comes around to claim they have found that 'magic bullet'.

I really, really, really think that pool needs to just be embraced exactly for what it is, and not for what people all think it should be.

Pool is a borderline, CULT phenomenon!!!

  • - It takes a special breed of person to be a serious pool player.
  • - If you tell anyone, "I'm a pool-player." The first thing they usually respond with is, "Are you a Pool-Shark?" or "Are you a Hustler?"
  • - No other sport/game exists that I know of that a player is willing to travel across the world just to play a couple of $3,000 added tournaments.

Bonus Ball tried what everyone else was hoping for - Something new! They introduced Larry Chiborak's complicated-ass game, made players dress like a bunch of ***Clowns in ***Canadian ***Hockey uniforms and told them this would be the biggest thing since Monopoly. (I did like some of the Team Logos though).

Oh, and the amazing technology that was being used...OOOOhhhhh - AAAaaaahhh!

Trust me, I had many conversations with more than one staff person on BB and they definitely tried selling the farm to me.

All I can say is 'Whatever' it's not really pool to me anyway. It's a new game that is trying to act like NFL or something, but it's not even organized like the NFL, so there's more proof that you can't put a duck in a dress and say it's not a duck. The whole thing to me is just a waste of time. I'm done trying to support them, they've done nothing for me. I've offered every resource to promote them that I have and they've looked down on me like I'm just some nitwit.

So there's my bullet points.

I won't even begin to go into the BAD marketing and personality conflicts that I know about. Let's just say that even today, they can't hold more than 30 people in that arena for the taping.

I'm not even gonna proofread this...It's hardly worth my time.

I will say this though. I make almost no money, and I'm still in business. How do you figure that one out?

***This comment is in no way, meant to offend Clowns, anyone of Canadian descent or Hockey Players.
 
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I just applied for the name, Flying Monkeys.
If BB ever makes another nickel, Monkeys will Fly out of my butt. I will video tape it and it will go Viral.

Lee, are the players so dense as not to realize that if Chibbs hadn't found another investor, they would still be hanging for the money owed. Chibbs and Co. doesn't give a flying FK about them.

Lure them back to Vegas, pay them off a little and change the pay rate.

These guys couldn't smell a big stinky Doberman dump if it were on the end of their noses.

In no time at all, Chibbs and Co. will owe them more and leave them hanging with promises once again.

You're probably doing them a huge favor in the long run. They just can't see it yet.
 
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lee brett said:
According to Nathan i will be the most hated man in pool after the IRS comes in, not my fault his boss is corrupt and not running his company legally, like i told Nathan he will be OK as long as he has Dave, Lenny Eric etc as employees also, since they work for him.

Bonus ball won't last anyways no matter if the IRS close them down or not, no one wants to watch it. But apparently it will be my fault if it fails, they all remind me of the cult leader (Larry) brainwashing them all. Some of the S**t they have said to me on facebook makes me laugh, Nathan after bonus ball you won't have a job in pool.
Click to expand...

Who is going to hate you ? The people that screwed you over ? They stiff you and put you through all kinds of hardship and you stand up to get what youre supposed to get and they threaten you to stand down and youre going to be hated ?
I think not.
They think they got problems now ? Wait till the attorney bills start mounting up, lol.
At least you are out giving lessons and are getting good reviews on here from the students you have taught, you wil be all right. Dont sweat em bro.
Im just kicking myself in the ass that i didnt grab you when you were in town and get some good lessons myself, lol.
I really wanted BB to do well, i truly did. Its a shame they treat people the way they are treating them but it will bounce back on them in ways that will make them sorry for treating people like shit.
 
I met Steve and Lee when my friend and I were having lunch at the BCA's. He was one of the many people Chiborak has screwed over. I felt so bad seeing these guys left hanging in the wind. Lee, you will not be hated by anyone for fighting for what he owes you. Nathan has known for a long time that there was no money and my friend showed me a lot of documentation to prove that. He is as quilty as Larry for this fiasco. It is laughable when he comes on here and denies he never knew anything about Chiboraks financial situation. To stop paying players after two weeks and letting them keep playing telling them he was forgetting checkbooks etc. is proof that Chiborak launched knowing he did not have the funds to last 30 days. There is a whole bunch more that I have been told that I have been asked not to repeat but I just want to say Lee, I'm cheering you on all the way! Big hugs to you! You didn't deserve to be screwed like this.
 
Lee be careful what you say on FB and on Michaela's page. Im not gonna repeat what I saw but you did put it out there. If anything you are doing yourself no favors. Take care of your legal crap and then come on here and let it all fly out in diarrhea fashion. Make AZ look like a pollock painting :thumbup:
 
NYC cue dude said:
Players are independent contractors and are responsible for paying their own taxes.
Click to expand...

Dependent upon what the arrangements and requirements are it can be set up either way. That said, whatever agreement is made must be lived up to.

J
 
POVPOOL said:
You know, I see a lot of threads on AZ, Facebook; even hear coversations from players and railbirds in pool halls and it's always the same...

"What's going to make pool big again" - "How are we going to get pool into the mainstream again?" - "When's pool going to redeem itself?"

Mr. Griffin of the CSI even said on the phone to me 2 years ago, "Everyone's looking for the magic bullet."

Lee Brett, 50 professional pool players, bonus ball girls and even myself - I am truly sorry that the Bonus Ball experience was dismal. It was for me too, since I friggin' moved to Vegas, believing that it was going to be a Mecca for pool for 26 weeks. Like any normal bottom-feeder in the media, I was hoping to get some good footage of these pros in real life, maybe a good action match or two, a few good streamed events and even some new friends.

Well, I made some friends...:):):)

Personally I think that, expecting something to come along and make pool HUGE again is really just another setup for failure, because the pool community now becomes vulnerable to any snake-oil salesman that comes around to claim they have found that 'magic bullet'.

I really, really, really think that pool needs to just be embraced exactly for what it is, and not for what people all think it should be.

Pool is a borderline, CULT phenomenon!!!

  • - It takes a special breed of person to be a serious pool player.
  • - If you tell anyone, "I'm a pool-player." The first thing they usually respond with is, "Are you a Pool-Shark?" or "Are you a Hustler?"
  • - No other sport/game exists that I know of that a player is willing to travel across the world just to play a couple of $3,000 added tournaments.

Bonus Ball tried what everyone else was hoping for - Something new! They introduced Larry Chiborak's complicated-ass game, made players dress like a bunch of ***Clowns in ***Canadian ***Hockey uniforms and told them this would be the biggest thing since Monopoly. (I did like some of the Team Logos though).

Oh, and the amazing technology that was being used...OOOOhhhhh - AAAaaaahhh!

Trust me, I had many conversations with more than one staff person on BB and they definitely tried selling the farm to me.

All I can say is 'Whatever' it's not really pool to me anyway. It's a new game that is trying to act like NFL or something, but it's not even organized like the NFL, so there's more proof that you can't put a duck in a dress and say it's not a duck. The whole thing to me is just a waste of time. I'm done trying to support them, they've done nothing for me. I've offered every resource to promote them that I have and they've looked down on me like I'm just some nitwit.

So there's my bullet points.

I won't even begin to go into the BAD marketing and personality conflicts that I know about. Let's just say that even today, they can't hold more than 30 people in that arena for the taping.

I'm not even gonna proofread this...It's hardly worth my time.

I will say this though. I make almost no money, and I'm still in business. How do you figure that one out?

***This comment is in no way, meant to offend Clowns, anyone of Canadian descent or Hockey Players.
Click to expand...

Good post! That's what I've been saying for awhile. There is no problem with accepting that pool is a niche sport. There are a lot of niche sports that do quite well in their own way. Pool could do the same if the people involved would realize that. Some have and it works for them. Make it a really good niche sport. Get some momentum and go from there.
 
Jun 2

this was my very 1st post @ JUN 2, and the reason i joined AZB.
as a layperson, i knew that night, that they had no-oooooo $,$$$,$$$....

GOOD FOR YOU ENGLISH, for "coming-out" of the closet! (payback's a b*tch)


PINKLADY said:
VEGAS
yes - VEGAS
one more time - VEGAS.

yáll couldn't have one of your "Casino investors" (MGM Intl/Harrah's) pick up the phone & have this fixed in 20 mins flat?
Click to expand...
 
Given the BS that they keep trying to pull over and over, it raises suspicion as to how legitimate their numerous stalls were (which they blamed on contractors). Not saying it didn't happen, but it might have been grossly exaggerated or used as an excuse for other BS.

Once a flake, always a flake.
 
Vern from Kennedy Construction told me Larry never came up with any cash and cheques bounced so that was the main delays. It is a fact that he did get his licence revoked by the city of Las vegas so the construction fiasco was partly true but not the first delays. You know, Chiborak should have been honest with everyone and it may have all worked out. Got to feel sorry for all these investors that Nathan said were so happy when they finally opened the doors. Imagine the horror it would be to them when Chiborak had to turn off the cameras a few weeks later! That was just wrong! We will all have to wait until the book comes out to hear of many other horror stories about this train wreck! .
 
I look at this situation from a different perspective because both Lee and Michaela are friends of mine. Both of them are nakedly ambitious but both are still not graduates of the University of Life.

Lee would probably have offered his services free to Bonus Ball but he was promised a contract and in the normal scheme of things he should have expected it to be honored.

But normal and honored are not words that carry much weight in the pool world.

But Lee's naievity is showing through in his handling of his attempts to recover what he feels is owed to him.

Sometime soon the Man of Straw will put in an appearance and Lee and many others will be left ruing their involvement especially as the US legal and taxation present their bills.

I think that he should take a more low key approach and save himself the embarrassment of a failed legal action.

With Michaela waxing lyrical about the game on other sites I hope that she is not being hoodwinked into being some sort of standard bearer for this flawed enterprise. I also hope that she had her expenses and fees banked before she left Scotland (or at least before she got back there).

She is a high profile professional and understandably she would accept working opportunities. But I hope that she is not risking her impeccable reputation by being associated with this Titanic venture.
 
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On the surface, Michaela being involved with Bonus Ball is like Emeril Lagasse working at MacDonalds. Hence, one needs to dig down beneath the surface.

She is a very well known and well liked personality in our game. She is the one referee in pool that regularly appears on television in Europe and Asia, so her hire, on the surface, gives Bonus Ball some credibility. She is very good a nad t what she does and is easy on the eyes.

Why is she there? Can't say for sure, but any of these are very possible:

a) She's sizing up the WPBL for Matchroom, which might either invest in it, purchase it cheap, or might consider buying the TV rights cheap.

b) She's there to lure future investors or to make current investors a bit more comfortable in their investments.

c) She's there to build on the mirage that is the WPBL, a supposed inter-city tussle that will appeal to those based in those cities. Of course, she'll soon see that these teams have nothing to do with these cities. She'll see that the Chicago Rockets consists of Raj Hundal, Mika Immonen and Rodney Morris, and that none of them are from or will ever play a match in Chicago. They could just as easily be called the Bulgarian Bombers or the Malaysian Maulers. Furthering of this mirage may be the WPBL's only hope of attracting additional financing.

d) She is there with an equity stake in the WPBL and will do very well if she helps to bring it back from the dead.

Time will tell, but her presence in Bonus Ball matches seems very strange.
 
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sjm said:
On the surface, Michaela being involved with Bonus Ball is like Emeril Lagasse working at MacDonalds. Hence, one needs to dig down beneath the surface.
Click to expand...
Michaela works on Bonus Ball strictly based on the fact that they offered a new experience, money, with a few players and a city she knew. Nothing to dig.

sjm said:
a) She's sizing up the WPBL for Matchroom, which might either invest in it, purchase it cheap, or might consider buying the TV rights cheap.
Click to expand...
a) Matchroom has no intention to touch Bonus Ball with a ten-foot pole. Barry met Johnny in NYC to chat about BB's plans and give his advice, because they were in the same city at that time and Barry's been running events involving Johnny for a while.
Matchroom doesn't own Michaela, she's freelance.

No ties here.

sjm said:
b) She's there to lure future investors or to make current investors a bit more comfortable in their investments.
Click to expand...
That's of course one of the reasons.


sjm said:
c) She's there to build on the mirage that is the WPBL [...] Furthering of this mirage may be the WPBL's only hope of attracting additional financing.
Click to expand...
Another way to put it. Yes Michaela helps the WPBL more than she should without even being aware of it.


sjm said:
d) She is there with an equity stake in the WPBL and will do very well if she helps to bring it back from the dead.
Click to expand...
Nope. Like others she gets a flat fee plus flight and expenses, and anyway, at that point anybody taking stakes in BB would have to be considered mentally ill and locked right away.


sjm said:
Time will tell, but her presence in Bonus Ball matches seems very strange.
Click to expand...

It does help BB far more than it helps her, but in a few weeks when all this has been buried under dust, nobody's going to remember any of it.

BB will just leave a large amount of disappointed promoters, and frustrated pool players who've proved once again that treating them like crap isn't any problem as long as you promise them the moon.

To me this thing is the biggest blow given to an industry that's already on its knees, since maybe the days when ESPN stopped broadcasting the Camel Pro tour, which then stopped.

The IPT doesn't even compare to Bonus Ball, as it paid massive amount of money, was actually broadcasted live in Europe before it met its demise.


BONUS BALL BABY
 
pro9dg said:
I look at this situation from a different perspective because both Lee and Michaela are friends of mine. Both of them are nakedly ambitious but both are still not graduates of the University of Life.

Lee would probably have offered his services free to Bonus Ball but he was promised a contract and in the normal scheme of things he should have expected it to be honored.

But normal and honored are not words that carry much weight in the pool world.

But Lee's naievity is showing through in his handling of his attempts to recover what he feels is owed to him.

Sometime soon the Man of Straw will put in an appearance and Lee and many others will be left ruing their involvement especially as the US legal and taxation present their bills.

I think that he should take a more low key approach and save himself the embarrassment of a failed legal action.

With Michaela waxing lyrical about the game on other sites I hope that she is not being hoodwinked into being some sort of standard bearer for this flawed enterprise. I also hope that she had her expenses and fees banked before she left Scotland (or at least before she got back there).

She is a high profile professional and understandably she would accept working opportunities. But I hope that she is not risking her impeccable reputation by being associated with this Titanic venture.
Click to expand...


Excellent post Doug. I wish I would have wrote this myself! I feel 100% the same.
 
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