I am a big fan of Darren's, but the problem is that in my view the vast majority of league players neither know nor care about pros or pro events. The last two years I went to the Canadian Championships to watch the pros play. The room is full of not only league players, but the elite core of league players who are serious enough about the game to want to play in the Canadian amateur event. How many of those players bothered to watch the pros playing (FOR FREE) right there in the same room? Very, very few.
The same thing happens in the U.S. - the Super Billiards Expo has many hundreds of TAP players, and free admission to the pro event to watch some of the best in the world, and the stands are half empty most of the time.
As a further example, one of the local pool rooms just had Florian Kohler there to do a FREE trick shot exhibition, sponsored by the APA/CPA. Yes, there were pool geeks there, but there was also a league playing 8 ball and I don't think one player came over to watch.
The sad reality, and one that is hard for the die-hard fans like many of us to grasp, is that for many people (even very accomplished league players), they don't care about the pro scene, and only care about playing themselves or watching their friends play.
Gideon