Why is pool looked at so differently in the U.S. than in Europe?

XmarathonX

XmarathonX

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In Europe pocket billiards especially snooker is looked at for the legitimate sporting event that it is. It draws great crowds, big TV ratings, major sponsors, gets front page news, results are given on televised news etc etc. Just look at how much attention is given to the World Snooker Championships this week in Europe. 158 articles & counting all over the World but no mention in American media.

https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dq...a=X&ei=ZvBSU7DyMOio2wW17YDoCg&ved=0CDQQqgIwAA

In America it is the complete opposite even though many millions of Americans enjoy playing pocket billiards. I see families & friends gathered to play pool each time I'm at the pool hall & I'm sure you see the same. Yet in America it is looked at as some lowly activity enjoyed by hustlers & hucksters never to get any attention by the main stream media.

In the 90's there seemed to be a bit of a pool boom but ESPN was the only TV coverage to be had & that has all but fizzled. Sure we have local tournaments & leagues, national amateur leagues & such along with some "pro" events dotted here & there. I place pro in quotes because it seems just about anyone with a facebook account who won a local tourney calls themselves a professional pool player now. I really applaud what has been done with the WPBL & Bonus Ball. Time will tell if it has any legs to it or not, I hope it does. CSI, POV Pool, Tony Robles Predator Pro-Am, Ultimate 10 Ball, U.S Open 9-Ball etc are all great & I'm thankful to those that run, organize & promote those events. But what will it take to really get the main street America on board?

Read what the promoter of the Ultimate 10 Ball championships has to say. It was discussed here before but it is well worth another read.

http://www.ultimate10ball.com/2014/

What will it take for the U.S. to have a unified pro circuit that grows & morphs into what we see Europe has with snooker & the such?
 
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Because we are a bunch of cowboys with no sense of history.

Wander just about any town in Europe and they are still using doors that are far older than our country.

Then take a trip to japan or china.
 
I live where the US Open 9 Ball Tournament is held & I can't tell you the number of people, even self proclaimed pool fans, don't know it's here & it's not from lack of publicity or even the little bit of newspaper coverage it gets.
 
dont know what the gambling thing is in europe, but pool in america has always had a reputation for gambling and hustling.
 
Part of the equation is "how many other sports entertainment games are there in the country?"

Of course, the UK is huge on football (soccer). I imagine golf and tennis get good coverage in the UK also.

But do they have comparables for football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR, motocross, skateboarding and the hundreds of other sporting entertainment games we have in the US? Entertainment is a gigantic portion of the US economy (too much IMHO).

I think pool doesn't get the coverage is because it's a boring spectator sport. No sport can be a commercial success if "players" are the only audience; you need to attract LOTS of non-players. And pool is too boring to even get its own players to watch.
 
trinacria said:
dont know what the gambling thing is in europe, but pool in america has always had a reputation for gambling and hustling.
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That right there is main issue for me, I play for the sport and enjoyment of it but most wont play unless theres money involved.
 
This is a good topic for discussion. If I had to formulate some sort of answer, it would be that American sports have an entertainment factor as part of their appeal that isn't prevalent in sports outide of the US. Let's take NFL football as an example. Ask most Americans if they are fans of pro football and they will answer 'yes'. Now strip away the fantasy football, attention-grabbing commercials, Fox TV's robot mascots, player celebrations after a sack/first down/broken up pass, slam dunks over the goal posts (banned for 2014 season!), etc. etc. and you are left with a much different product. I think many of us fans would find this product quite boring.

The NBA is a good example of the entertainment factor taken too far. The league grow tremendously in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Remember those "NBA Action? It's Fantastic" ad campaigns? By the late 1990s and early 2000s the product had become far too reliant on its entertainment quotient to appeal to many true basketball fans. It searched endlessly for a successor to Micheal Jordan and found a bunch of dudes with nowhere near his basketball acumen and competitive instinct. These players craved a certain lifestyle and lacked a burning desire to win. Now I'm pretty sure the NBA is miles behind the NFL is almost every relevant popularity category.

Back to pool...I wish some American would move to Europe and play the Euro Tour, assuming they could secure sponsorship, backing and visa requirements. Action is all the rage on AZ and then every December we act shocked when Europe again makes a mockery of our top players at the Mosconi. It's pretty obvious to me that Europeans in constant tournament action have a heavy advantage over the American players. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon.
 
axejunkie said:
This is a good topic for discussion. If I had to formulate some sort of answer, it would be that American sports have an entertainment factor as part of their appeal that isn't prevalent in sports outide of the US. Let's take NFL football as an example. Ask most Americans if they are fans of pro football and they will answer 'yes'. Now strip away the fantasy football, attention-grabbing commercials, Fox TV's robot mascots, player celebrations after a sack/first down/broken up pass, slam dunks over the goal posts (banned for 2014 season!), etc. etc. and you are left with a much different product. I think many of us fans would find this product quite boring.

The NBA is a good example of the entertainment factor taken too far. The league grow tremendously in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Remember those "NBA Action? It's Fantastic" ad campaigns? By the late 1990s and early 2000s the product had become far too reliant on its entertainment quotient to appeal to many true basketball fans. It searched endlessly for a successor to Micheal Jordan and found a bunch of dudes with nowhere near his basketball acumen and competitive instinct. These players craved a certain lifestyle and lacked a burning desire to win. Now I'm pretty sure the NBA is miles behind the NFL is almost every relevant popularity category.

Back to pool...I wish some American would move to Europe and play the Euro Tour, assuming they could secure sponsorship, backing and visa requirements. Action is all the rage on AZ and then every December we act shocked when Europe again makes a mockery of our top players at the Mosconi. It's pretty obvious to me that Europeans in constant tournament action have a heavy advantage over the American players. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon.
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I hope and think that football will fade in popularity due to the head injury problem and the awful things that many of the players are doing off the field.

The NBA can still be very entertaining if not for the terrible officiating. I guess it has always been bad, but now it is outright awful. The calls seem so arbitrary and have a huge impact on the game.
 
ALL major sports tap into the Public Relations of charity events

You are making a great point. When we were playing in the 90s they always had charity events and PR going on around the events.....this is nonexistent these days. I even got invited and participated at the Pre Academy Awards Party in Hollywood hosted by John Travolta and Jody Foster......it was the "who's who" of celebrities and we had a pool table set up on location.

We did several big charity events at the Bicycle Club and the Hollywood Athletic Club as well......this was GREAT PR for the pool tournaments and we filled up the stands at every event.

Ask someone how well the Bicycle Club Casino events were run, not to mention the "Jay Helfert" events.....Jay knows what I'm talking about, he was right in the middle of a lot of the pool promotion in California at the time.

ALL major sports tap into the Public Relations of charity events and make a point to raise a great deal of money. This is a win/win situation that pool is neglecting for some odd reason.



RobertaAgnor said:
I live where the US Open 9 Ball Tournament is held & I can't tell you the number of people, even self proclaimed pool fans, don't know it's here & it's not from lack of publicity or even the little bit of newspaper coverage it gets.
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the World snooker championship started yesterday, 17 days of network TV coverage by the BBC
and Europsport which will be watched around the world.

Conversely no USA coverage or interest.

So which pool game, size table and rules are we discussing exactly??
 
CJ Wiley said:
You are making a great point. When we were playing in the 90s they always had charity events and PR going on around the events.....this is nonexistent these days. I even got invited and participated at the Pre Academy Awards Party in Hollywood hosted by John Travolta and Jody Foster......it was the "who's who" of celebrities and we had a pool table set up on location.

We did several big charity events at the Bicycle Club and the Hollywood Athletic Club as well......this was GREAT PR for the pool tournaments and we filled up the stands at every event.

Ask someone how well the Bicycle Club Casino events were run, not to mention the "Jay Helfert" events.....Jay knows what I'm talking about, he was right in the middle of a lot of the pool promotion in California at the time.

ALL major sports tap into the Public Relations of charity events and make a point to raise a great deal of money. This is a win/win situation that pool is neglecting for some odd reason.
Click to expand...

That's one very important aspect I had not even considered. Look at the PGA & LPGA tours, they are heavily into local charities for each tour stop. Like you said it is a win/win for everyone involved. Pool needs more of that, you are absolutely correct.

bdorman said:
Part of the equation is "how many other sports entertainment games are there in the country?"

Of course, the UK is huge on football (soccer). I imagine golf and tennis get good coverage in the UK also.

But do they have comparables for football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR, motocross, skateboarding and the hundreds of other sporting entertainment games we have in the US? Entertainment is a gigantic portion of the US economy (too much IMHO).

I think pool doesn't get the coverage is because it's a boring spectator sport. No sport can be a commercial success if "players" are the only audience; you need to attract LOTS of non-players. And pool is too boring to even get its own players to watch.
Click to expand...

The UK has plenty of sporting events. Cricket, football, rally cross, moto cross, cycling, European Basketball League, NFL style football is growing in popularity as well.

Want to talk boring, poker. I love poker but it is about as exciting to watch as paint is to dry but it has exploded the past decade even though it is waning. Earl said that the spectacle of Vegas was the only reason poker became so big. Maybe he's right, who knows? Perhaps it is also the amount of money that is involved. So many rank amateurs enter the "WSOP" main event even with a $10,000 entry fee that the total prize pool is huge which draws viewers in, players & non players alike.
 
XmarathonX said:
In Europe pocket billiards especially snooker is looked at for the legitimate sporting event that it is. It draws great crowds, big TV ratings, major sponsors, gets front page news, results are given on televised news etc etc. Just look at how much attention is given to the World Snooker Championships this week in Europe. 158 articles & counting all over the World but no mention in American media.

https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dq...a=X&ei=ZvBSU7DyMOio2wW17YDoCg&ved=0CDQQqgIwAA

In America it is the complete opposite even though many millions of Americans enjoy playing pocket billiards. I see families & friends gathered to play pool each time I'm at the pool hall & I'm sure you see the same. Yet in America it is looked at as some lowly activity enjoyed by hustlers & hucksters never to get any attention by the main stream media.

In the 90's there seemed to be a bit of a pool boom but ESPN was the only TV coverage to be had & that has all but fizzled. Sure we have local tournaments & leagues, national amateur leagues & such along with some "pro" events dotted here & there. I place pro in quotes because it seems just about anyone with a facebook account who won a local tourney calls themselves a professional pool player now. I really applaud what has been done with the WPBL & Bonus Ball. Time will tell if it has any legs to it or not, I hope it does. CSI, POV Pool, Tony Robles Predator Pro-Am, Ultimate 10 Ball, U.S Open 9-Ball etc are all great & I'm thankful to those that run, organize & promote those events. But what will it take to really get the main street America on board?

Read what the promoter of the Ultimate 10 Ball championships has to say. It was discussed here before but it is well worth another read.

http://www.ultimate10ball.com/2014/

What will it take for the U.S. to have a unified pro circuit that grows & morphs into what we see Europe has with snooker & the such?
Click to expand...

Europe allows on line gambling, which brought millions of $$ to afford decent prize money, decent venue, lots of paid people to help and support; lots of $$ for marketing...on and on.
In US if you get 500 people to watch a stream you will be lucky! not enough people watching for marketing, which keeps pool out of mind out of site for the majority of the public.
 
I nominate myself. Now if only I could get someone to shoot for me!

axejunkie said:
This is a good topic for discussion. If I had to formulate some sort of answer, it would be that American sports have an entertainment factor as part of their appeal that isn't prevalent in sports outide of the US. Let's take NFL football as an example. Ask most Americans if they are fans of pro football and they will answer 'yes'. Now strip away the fantasy football, attention-grabbing commercials, Fox TV's robot mascots, player celebrations after a sack/first down/broken up pass, slam dunks over the goal posts (banned for 2014 season!), etc. etc. and you are left with a much different product. I think many of us fans would find this product quite boring.

The NBA is a good example of the entertainment factor taken too far. The league grow tremendously in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Remember those "NBA Action? It's Fantastic" ad campaigns? By the late 1990s and early 2000s the product had become far too reliant on its entertainment quotient to appeal to many true basketball fans. It searched endlessly for a successor to Micheal Jordan and found a bunch of dudes with nowhere near his basketball acumen and competitive instinct. These players craved a certain lifestyle and lacked a burning desire to win. Now I'm pretty sure the NBA is miles behind the NFL is almost every relevant popularity category.

Back to pool...I wish some American would move to Europe and play the Euro Tour, assuming they could secure sponsorship, backing and visa requirements. Action is all the rage on AZ and then every December we act shocked when Europe again makes a mockery of our top players at the Mosconi. It's pretty obvious to me that Europeans in constant tournament action have a heavy advantage over the American players. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon.
Click to expand...
 
naji said:
Europe allows on line gambling, which brought millions of $$ to afford decent prize money, decent venue, lots of paid people to help and support; lots of $$ for marketing...on and on.
Click to expand...

Agree with above.

Before gambling sponsorship, it was tobacco. Embassy (cigarette company) must have put millions into sponsoring snooker tournaments back in the 80s and 90s but that was banned about 10yrs ago and gambling sponsors took over.

I remember watching in the 80s and the players all looked like out of work guys smoking roll ups and downing pints during matches. It was all a bit seedy.

Switching from tobacco to gambling is hardly much of an upgrade when it comes to 'legitimacy' - it's not like they're sponsored by rolex or mercedes benz and suddenly they're a high end product. I think the governing body made a real effort to change the image of snooker - both the professionalism of the players, and the production values of televised events.

There is a comedy sketch show in uk and they make fun of snooker in the 70s...1min in it gets to the table and it's really pretty accurate of snookers image problem 25yrs ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37JAQIiUEOE
 
Pool's not on TV for one simple reason ........

The key is creating an emotional attachment between the players and viewing audience. Let's face it, that hasn't even been attempted in the last 15 years.

Sports and games don't just put themselves on TV, there's actually professional promoters behind the scenes. These promoters also work with professional directors, producers, marketers, advertisers and yes, even the players behind the scenes.

Pool's not on TV for one simple reason "No one is behind the scenes making sure it's professionally produced, marketed and promoted". The business of TV wants pool or any other entertainment that can provide content that's new, exciting, and charismatic.

There's a formula that's used and the world of pool is full of exactly what's needed to succeed......and the game can't do it alone, it needs the same components that other sports already have in place......it's coming though, I'd wager in the next 6 months.

Not having charity events is the basics, however, none of this is complicated to those that do it for a living......for anyone else it's "rocket science". ;) 'The Game will be the Teacher'

XmarathonX said:
That's one very important aspect I had not even considered. Look at the PGA & LPGA tours, they are heavily into local charities for each tour stop. Like you said it is a win/win for everyone involved. Pool needs more of that, you are absolutely correct.



The UK has plenty of sporting events. Cricket, football, rally cross, moto cross, cycling, European Basketball League, NFL style football is growing in popularity as well.

Want to talk boring, poker. I love poker but it is about as exciting to watch as paint is to dry but it has exploded the past decade even though it is waning. Earl said that the spectacle of Vegas was the only reason poker became so big. Maybe he's right, who knows? Perhaps it is also the amount of money that is involved. So many rank amateurs enter the "WSOP" main event even with a $10,000 entry fee that the total prize pool is huge which draws viewers in, players & non players alike.
Click to expand...
 
CJ Wiley said:
for anyone else it's "rocket science". ;) 'The Game will be the Teacher'
Click to expand...

Hello CJ, Regards from Poland :wink:

I must admit you got me worried:

The Game is the Teacher
The Game WILL BE the Teacher

BACK to the FUTURE ??? :eek:
 
I expect once streaming and production prices go down, pool will find itself more money via the WWE / UFC route of monthly passes to watch regular tournaments and back catalogs.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/the-turnstile/wwe-announces-24-7-streaming-network-ces-082921111.html

10yrs time NFL, NBA, PGA, Nascar etc. will be selling exclusively to customers for $10 a month rather than giving all that beautiful subscriber info and ad revenue to the cable companies.

Don't see why pool couldnt do the same. Smaller but highly targeted audiences are the future. Who the hell watches primetime anymore?
 
The short answer is, everyone has different tastes and sometimes that applies to entire countries.

Why isn't kimchi popular in the USA? You can argue that it's really tasty or that it's really nasty,
but basically whether someone likes it or hates it has a lot to do with their culture, their history,
their media, their upbringing, and the people they're surrounded by.

How kimchi actually tastes, is like #10 on the list of "Top 10 things that decide whether or not you like kimchi."

Whether pool is better than snooker or worse than snooker, or fun to play or boring,
or fun to watch or boring to watch, may not really matter as much as we think it does.
 
Nature is always the best teacher - Pro Pool Metamorphosis

There's some exciting things brewing in the world of pool....it's awesome to see the cycle being broken and new life pumped into the horizon.

The "old pool" image had to completely die before the "new age of pool" could blossom....and such is nature, business and life in general. 'Nature is the Teacher'

9f3ab97e5a177420e8ff039ef930d979.jpg



pooler said:
Hello CJ, Regards from Poland :wink:

I must admit you got me worried:

The Game is the Teacher
The Game WILL BE the Teacher

BACK to the FUTURE ??? :eek:
Click to expand...
 
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