Is pool growing or dying based on the total number of players?

Push&Pool

Push&Pool

Professional Banger
Silver Member
This question occurred to me while reading another thread about amateur pool. Most people are saying that pool is a dying game, that the organizations lack money and initiative, prize money in pro pool is getting lower and lower etc. But if we forget pool's tradition and focus entirely on the global number of players and the general sale of pool equipment, how is the game doing. For the sake of this let's include all the bar and recreational players in pool player category, while cheap bar boxes, house cues and similar stuff counts as pool equipment as well. So, based purely on quantity and not quality, is pool growing or dying?
 
I think at least 50 people quit since you started posting, they just knew
there was no way they could master the "RAM SHOT", so what's the sense.
----------------------------------------------- > ^^ Corrected IT ^^


Edit: Ma ha ha
Just reminded me I called "The Shot" the wrong name.
It's the "Ram Shot" THANK YOU
 
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Not sure. Let me check all other 32 threads on this topic. If I can't find an answer, I'll check the 71 threads from last week....
 
I'm not sure anyone can really make a completely informed answer to this.
There's no organization that polls or keeps statistics on the number of pool players.
It's hard to even get a realistic statistic that is accurate to within, say, 10 million.

So most people's comments are based on "general impressions".
If you live in one area it might seem like pool is thriving, and in another are it seems like it's dying.

One thing that I believe to be true, is there are fewer pool halls now than there were
during the peak of pool's popularity. There are fewer pro tours, fewer professionals,
and less money than there was at pool's height (which I believe was in the 1930's).

Whether pool is growing or shrinking, depends on the time scale you want to use.
There might be more pool players today than there were 1 year ago. Or not. Who knows?
There are almost certainly fewer pool players today than there were 85 years ago.

I don't think "dying" is the right word to describe this shrinkage.
The popularity of any sport can go up and down, but dying is a word I'd use when there number of players is measured in the thousands, not in the tens (or hundreds?) of millions.

When pool reaches a point where I can say "ever play pool?" to someone on the street,
and 90% of them don't know what that means, then we can start talking about the death of pool.
 
There is no doubt in my mind that pool is not where it was 25 years ago in NYC. In spite of the large number of league players we have and our strong showings in the BCA Nationals, we have fewer poolrooms, fewer emerging talents and fewer young players.

If you could step into a time machine and go back to 1990 and ask the average 25 year old what are you doing this Friday night, the top five answers would include a pool table. Now, pool wouldn't make the top 20.

We're a tighter-knit community now. We're organized. We've created a niche that thrives in the few surviving rooms but we're in retreat. That's a fact.
 
The comments on the reduction of pool halls raises another question. How many home tables are out there right now compared to when there were many pool halls. Does the home table market grow because pool halls close, or do pool halls close because more people stay home and play on their personal equipment. It would seem with all the pool rooms that closed in the last 20 years and with the popularity of Diamond that the home equipment is much nicer now than it previously was. It seems like there are many people who have commercial tables in their homes. I know it is disappointing for me to go somewhere for a tournament and find horrific equipment to play with, I suppose its really tough to maintain commercial pool equipment the way those of us who have nice stuff at home maintain our pool stuff. It drives me crazy to see people make a mess on tables with chalk, powder, smacking rails with their cue, etc., would they treat the table the same way if they owned it?
 
fastone371 said:
The comments on the reduction of pool halls raises another question. How many home tables are out there right now compared to when there were many pool halls.
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I'm willing to bet a brand new, unused piece of Master Chalk (blue) that there are fewer home tables than there were 15-20 years ago. That's true of pool tables, ping-pong tables, foosball tables, etc.

Home entertainment today is a video game console. It offers endless games, costs less, takes up less space and more.
 
bdorman said:
I'm willing to bet a brand new, unused piece of Master Chalk (blue) that there are fewer home tables than there were 15-20 years ago. That's true of pool tables, ping-pong tables, foosball tables, etc.

Home entertainment today is a video game console. It offers endless games, costs less, takes up less space and more.
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Thats a very good point. It just seems like there are many people here with expensive tables at home. I suppose 20 years that is something you really would not know because of the lack of the interweb or the popularity of the interweb. The interweb just puts you in touch with so many people you would not normally get to socialize with.
 
I've posted this before in similar threads but here's one more time. I live in a retirement community with 166 homes. I know of at least 12 tables here and two or three times as many players. I have a mint condition GC IV in my basement. So, why go to poolroom filled with drunks, greasy overpriced food, loud kids and crappy equipment?

Fifty years ago the only home tables that I ever saw were the cheap particleboard specials that nothing tracked straight on, and I can only think of two.

I do think more bars had tables in them then.
 
fastone371 said:
Thats a very good point. It just seems like there are many people here with expensive tables at home. I suppose 20 years that is something you really would not know because of the lack of the interweb or the popularity of the interweb. The interweb just puts you in touch with so many people you would not normally get to socialize with.
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That maybe true but you can't go by what goes on here. This is a place populated by die-hards. There are forums for all kinds of things that I never even knew existed, yet there are tens of thousands of rabid fans in those pursuits as well. I didn't know that detailing your car was a hobby for many people but go over to the forums on autogeek.com some time and see just how many people are really into it.

It's tough to say. Leagues seem bigger than ever though they may be at the end of their growth. Outside of leagues it would seem the number of players is going down since certainly more rooms are closing than opening. If it wasn't because people were leaving the game then the rooms that remained should be packed with the players that lost their home rooms. So it is difficult to say if the number of total pool players out there players is going up or down. When the leagues start hurting it's the beginning of the end. Though I don't think the game will ever go away completely.

Some places seem to have the right business plan and do OK. The place where my league plays has ten 9 footers. During the week (except Wednesday, which is league night) they get a younger crowd blasting loud music. They have made some good arrangements to bring in crowds, like on Tuesdays a bunch of sport bike clubbers come in. On the weekends they have live bands and attract an older crowd with classic rock and stuff, and part of the place is occupied by a social meet-up group. The tables are all in play pretty much every night and the bar and kitchen appear to do well. It's definitely not your hard core pool hall but it is a place to go shoot some pool.
 
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MahnaMahna said:
This sentence is the reason why pool is so popular in your area. If there was a community only with people aged 18-35 years old, I think the story would be totally different.
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Not necessarily, a large portion of players I see are quite young, many are under 25. It all depends on the general status of pool in the community. We've got some fine bars with pool tables, many are close to schools and colleges, a few of them play good music as well. Those kind of places attract teens and youth, and once you have a bunch of guys going there more or less regularly, it's guaranteed they'll take their friends along as well. Pool could always do better, but I'd say it's at least stable and doing fine in my area.
 
Push&Pool said:
Not necessarily, a large portion of players I see are quite young, many are under 25. It all depends on the general status of pool in the community. We've got some fine bars with pool tables, many are close to schools and colleges, a few of them play good music as well. Those kind of places attract teens and youth, and once you have a bunch of guys going there more or less regularly, it's guaranteed they'll take their friends along as well. Pool could always do better, but I'd say it's at least stable and doing fine in my area.
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Bullshit. You play in crappy bars with other bangers who don't have a clue about the game of pool. The drinking scene is stable in your area and there just happens to be some pool tables around.

You calling the environment you are in a part of the "pool community" is like me using the calculator on my iPhone and saying I am a part of the advanced mathematics community.

You are clueless, as usual.
 
in manila i think its less than 1/3 of players/poolhalls compared 15 years ago... newer generation spend their free time on internet games, loads on mobilephones and other activities plus lack of televised tourney / new efren?
 
Are pool halls dieing, ad least pool halls that I remember in the 60s and 70s ones with big tables.I wood have to say yes ad least in the Midwest. Some of the reason, I think happens to be the room owners fault. Back I the late ninties, I was going to open a room with the thought of giving free table time to qualified players that could give lessons to different level players,from beginners to advanced. Sadly I opened a golfing establishment,it was successful,but as they say I digress. The rooms ( old style ) around here give player free practice time in order to keep them in the room incase their is action, every thing is based on action. That is what has help kill the sport for a long time. If you were to promote the game keep lesson affordable, you would bring up a whole generation of players. Players that instead of playing computer games at home would come out for a real hand eye challenge.and that is where group lessons come in,so players with same ability play together instead of coming in a room and be jump on for five or ten dollar action. I play in a room that one of the owner is a champion in his younger days and he would rather play five dollar 9 ball then give promote lesson anyway you ask if it dieing no we have help kill it.
 
linds said:
in manila i think its less than 1/3 of players/poolhalls compared 15 years ago... newer generation spend their free time on internet games, loads on mobilephones and other activities plus lack of televised tourney / new efren?
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Yes, but in the small Polish farming community Push&pool is from, the bar has a pool table, where he and his friends make up stupid rules on the fly while taking a running start for power shots, and they get like 15 people on weekend nights, so the line is like really long, and he held the table for 30 minutes without losing due to advance and unconventional strategies.

And by the way, the above quoted post reinforces my point about the retirement community and the culture today for the younger crowd.
 
What MahnaMahna is pointing out is simple demographics. In my case a bunch of geezers who grew up playing in bars in college towns, student unions, or on military bases. We now have the security of our own homes with nice tables in the basement. We are surrounded by like minded folks. And just like 40 or 50 years ago it is a social gathering.

As to that 18-35 year old grouping, he's right. I have a nephew who grew up never owning a baseball glove, football or hockey stick. The only way he relates to others of his age group is with smart phone or computer games. All geek, all the time. That does not bode well for pool which is a social game or sport.

I don't know what the stats might be for the numbers of players per 100,000 now vs. the 1930's. I do know it's moved from the public hall to the private basement. Even with all the basement tables in my neighborhood there are still three pool halls within five miles of me. (Winchester, VA.) Considering the population density, that is amazing.
 
I heard pool is doing great in China, especially with the growing middle and working class. I remember reading here last year the APA faced with conflicting dates between Super Billiards Expo and the Guangzhou trade show choosed the latter.
 
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