You-tube ripping us off must read

West Point 1987 said:
I take any proposal with a huge grain of salt whereby it's supposedly "for the players" yet the business plan is really an effort to monopolize some commodity (in this case, videos shot and paid for by others and posted/purloined onto YouTube) that benefits them as well (if not first). Let's say you could pull this off. All that will guarantee is those videos will be seen by practically no one, especially since they'll just end up in other online posts/services, like Ustream or Vimeo or whatever.

If players are to be paid more for their time/effort, they should unionize. That would take most if not all of the top players to agree, form a board and get on with it (wait, they tried that already). The other part (and to some extent why the previous attempt failed) is what constitutes a "pro"? Says who? What's to stop legions of AA and Shortstop/Open players from filling the field left open by unionized players who boycott events?

Pool isn't now nor never has been a "vocation"; it's an "avocation" whereby a handful of folks MIGHT earn some money here and there. There's no absolute governing body to regulate it, no guaranteed revenue stream, nothing for investors to grab their interest and money. If you want to scuffle around on the road gambling, that makes you a gambler; and by definition that's risky, no matter how good you play. If you forego education and job opportunities to chase a dream of being a pro in a profession that really doesn't exist, then complain about making minimum wage working the pool room's kitchen or bar, don't compare that with building a career in an actual, established profession. Doctors and Lawyers make great money...and they worked VERY hard for MANY years to get there. I've spent a few years playing pool 6 or more hours every day running around hitting every nickel and dime tournament or chasing action...and I spent 4 years in college and three years in graduate school getting various degrees (as well as 27 years in the Army). Give you one guess which was harder. Same answer for which put food on the table, bought the house that table sits in and new Diamond ProAm in the garage. (Hint: it wasn't pool.)
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The union is what ****ed men's pool out of the ESPN deal and let women's move forward. I agree though, the reality is that the players have to do for themselves. If you are a pro player you should give lessons or do a workshop during some events. Monetizing videos on the internet is a drop in the bucket. Pool players getting their shit together and being more presentable bring in sponsors.
 
alstl said:
There are a lot of sports where the players don't have any money. Even in the sports where some of the players make money like the NFL, NBA and MLB there are far more who never make any money. Other sports like freestyle and greco roman wrestling, distance running, swimming, track and field, etc the "players" are worse off than pool players. At least the pool players have local tournaments to make money in.
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Exactly correct, I'm always interested in how other sports, especially 'fringe' sports, operate and how payouts compare to pool. I was shocked to learn that minor league baseball players make something like $10,000 per season.

Ultimately, the purpose of professional sport is for entertainment of fans. The sport makes money from ticket sales, merchandising, sponsorship etc. Which means the sport and players make money from bums in seats. How much money is determined by how many fans the sport and players draw. Given that pool events draw very small crowds (Every pro event I've attended has had less than 100 people in attendance, 30-50 at best), I'd say that pro pool players actually make pretty good money from tournaments given that they are often playing to empty seats.

Until pro pool gets more eyeballs, the payouts will not change because pool players currently aren't providing the kind of value that warrants big money.

In our society we do not determine salaries based on how hard a job is. We pay based on supply and demand, the amount of revenue that is available to the organisation, and the value the worker provides that organisation. That is why although some people work really hard at low skilled jobs, they only get minimum wage. Conversely, you can be very good at a highly skilled trade (like pool) but make minimum wage because there is very low demand for that skill.

I do think pool has potential. It needs good marketing, structure and visibility (like being on youtube and network television) and that would be just a start.
 
Why aren't pool players paid more?

all you need to do is watch the first 2:30 of the attached video.

If she ain't rich coz of her talent, pro pool's got no chance at all.
 
The worst mistake professional pool could make right now would be to reduce it's exposure in any way.

Simple logic:

For the most part, pool is a participation sport. Meaning, the only people watching professional pool are pool players. And a surprisingly low percentage of regular pool players are watching at all. I can't tell you how many people I had to explain where ESPN3 was during Mosconi. I don't even want to think about explaining how to stream Turning Stone or some of the less accessible tournaments.

Most pool players don't even like paying for table time let alone online videos. For the same reason, you aren't going to sell much ad time either because the manufacturers currently don't see a lot of benefit in that.

If you want to make pool more profitable for the players then work to increase the audience. In my (not humble at all) opinion, that means making pool more accessible to a larger segment of the population. That will improve the demand for equipment and eventually trickle down to more money in sponsorship deals for professionals. Other participation sports have already figured this out but for some reason the pool industry is slow to learn.
 
I have a quick Question for someone that can give me an Answer. Does Accustats pay royalties to pool players?For Example if someone buys the One Pocket Match 1P15-01D Justin Hall vs. Alex Pagulayan (DVD) for 19.95$ do both players get a percentage of the sales? In my opinion they should as well as a percentage of what the live Stream generated. So the problem is not You Tube in my opinion. Any Comments? If Accustats does not pay royalties ( Which i hope they do) then Pat Fleming is just simply making money off the players performance. I hope i'm wrong because if he does not compensate the players , then the only people that can be blamed are the players. What are your thoughts?
 
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Tino Barbieri said:
I have a quick Question for someone that can give me an Answer. Does Accustats pay royalties to pool players?For Example if someone buys the One Pocket Match 1P15-01D Justin Hall vs. Alex Pagulayan (DVD) for 19.95$ do both players get a percentage of the sales? In my opinion they should as well as a percentage of what the live Stream generated. So the problem is not You Tube in my opinion. Any Comments? If Accustats does not pay royalties ( Which i hope they do) then Pat Fleming is just simply making money off the players performance. I hope i'm wrong because if he does not compensate the players , then the only people that can be blamed are the players. What are your thoughts?
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ACCU-STATs pays the players.
 
Tino Barbieri said:
I have a quick Question for someone that can give me an Answer. Does Accustats pay royalties to pool players?For Example if someone buys the One Pocket Match 1P15-01D Justin Hall vs. Alex Pagulayan (DVD) for 19.95$ do both players get a percentage of the sales? In my opinion they should as well as a percentage of what the live Stream generated. So the problem is not You Tube in my opinion. Any Comments? If Accustats does not pay royalties ( Which i hope they do) then Pat Fleming is just simply making money off the players performance. I hope i'm wrong because if he does not compensate the players , then the only people that can be blamed are the players. What are your thoughts?
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Accu-stats pays players royalties. Mike Sigel was joking around in an interview about the Sigel vs. Zuglan match in which he ran 150 and out from Zuglans break. This was one of Accu-stats most popular tapes of all time. Zuglan gets royalties, even though all he did was to lag and shoot the opening break.:grin:
 
Can I monetize the time out of my life that I'll never get back from reading this drivel?
 
You are reading a thread that was started by a small group of people who feel that they have found the so-called 'magic bullet', that's going to fix pool and get all the players the money they deserve for all of the hard work they do in front of the camera.

I have been bothered by 'Goldy' (as he likes to call himself now) about this shite for over 3 years and I will still NEVER drink the Kool Aid, no matter how many new flavors they come in.

In my opinion, the best pool players in the world SHOULD be getting paid more, but not from the media. They should be getting better sponsor contracts and higher tournament payouts! The industry should be giving back, but not this part of the industry who are basically still trying to find their own identities as broadcasters. When the industry as a whole starts to improve, then you can wonder about the guys like US, promoting and broadcasting pool. Pay Per View is a different subject entirely and not pertinent to this thread.

Something about me...
When I started out streaming pool, it was to promote pool; not solve the problem of how pool players can get raises or get paid more. Being paid more is something that I figured would be a natural progression if the mainstream media and sponsors would begin paying more attention to us. So, my mission is to figure out how to improve on YOUR experience as the viewer. It's a slow process, with my limited resources, but I'm a man of unlimited passion for this sport; so you see the trade off...

I am basically a video journalist of cue-sports and a once-in-awhile, video producer of content, who promotes the players, pool halls, various games and some industry news. That's pretty much it. I made almost 25K this year doing it, and it wasn't all from YouTube. I busted my ass for nights on end doing everything that the various promoters and room owners couldn't do for themselves. I work very hard to promote my sponsors and in return, they pay me a modest fee that is just about agreeable. To top it off, I probably put about 30% of this year's earnings back into POV POOL so that I could continue to bring the viewers as much live action as possible. I don't think I should even begin to bring into view the importance of exposing pool-players to the world and what is has done for the industry in the past 10 years. Simply put, live streaming has saved a lot about pool that was dying... and if you really, really, really, really must know my opinion; I personally feel that if if wasn't for live streaming in the past 10 years, the 9 foot table would be virtually missing from the pool halls and the pool halls themselves would be shrinking into oblivion.

Now, about this "NON-YouTube Business Model" (AKA 'THE SPINNING WHEEL OF DEATH")
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Let's speculate for a minute that every billiard/pool media provider in the country abandon's their YouTube model and joins the 'ONSITE POOL NETWORK', which is Zach Goldsmith's dream; his passion project that will turn him into the Ted Turner of pool media and create jobs and success for millions of amateur pool players who end up on the live stream table every month at Hard Times Billiards and at Skinny Bobs 9-Ball Tournament/s.

So, now everyone's media has stopped uploading to YouTube and all YOU (the viewer) has to do is pay $5.99 a month to watch THE ONSITE POOL NETWORK, where you can access, TAR, InsidePool, Kevin Kidd, TV Mike, POV Pool, Accu-Stats, CSI, Mezz Tour, Predator Tour, Tiger Tour, Romanian Pyramits Tour, Jason Hunt's Porno Pool, Crazy Erica's Spinning Wheels of Death and much, much, more...

In a perfect world, it's actually not a bad idea. Take pool back into our own hands and own the media for ourselves so that we can monetize it ourselves and reward ourselves for our hard work and yes, this includes the players as well...Furthermore, If someone where to show me a proposal that makes sense, is transparent and good for the industry, then I'm all ears.

(Costs to consider for just a brief moment - Bandwidth, Player Royalties, Network Agreements, Admin, Hosting, Legal, Promotions, Creative, Production, Post Production)

First off, if this were even remotely possible to accomplish, let's say that just 15 premium streamers were to jump onto Goldy's network - IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, but let's say it does...You've now just bottlenecked your audience by over 50% because there's no way to get a large number of the free audience to turn to a subscription model. So, now you've reduced your audience...OOPS there goes almost 70% of the sponsors that you used to have because nobody is even watching this crap anymore now that it's a mere $5.99 a month.

Damn - I just lost half my audience and sponsors! What does POV do now? Help me, Jason Hunt. Pick up the phone, CrazyErica!

- Okay so, 10,000 people aren't paying $5.99 a month, but let's say 4,500 are paying it... (Sound Crazy?)

Cool! Your company is now making $26,955 per month.Selling 15 channels of pool content from different providers, all with their own special brand of storytelling that makes this network so awesome!

I'm actually not even going to finish the scenario because it's just what I said earlier. Ridiculous! You're selling fear to people without providing a real solution. All you're gonna get is like 3 suckers to come hang with your network because they like the same beer you do and share the same pool nit stories that you have with the same pool players on different occasions. You will never get 15 premier streamers to drink your Kool Aid.

Your network business model would require so much organization, so much funding and so many top level resources that frankly this is the reason I will never listen to you, Goldy (or Erica or Jason Hunt or TV Mike). Ultimately, if its you guys pulling the strings on this project, I'm not ever going to listen.

4 years ago, when I didn't even know you Zach, I gave you a chance to pitch me properly... I asked for a proposal or something on paper and you balked... You never showed me anything. You probably don't want to go on paper because then you'd actually have to deliver something tangible. You'd rather have these sock-puppets come onto a forum and bark all kinds of fear and anger at people who work hard to produce good content because you can't make it yourself.

GO! Build your' friggin network! Just stop trying to scare people into joining it. It's just plain insulting to watch you try to do it!

I will say one redeeming thing about you, Zach!
Good job on the Space City Open and a nice new look for your website. Your streaming looks very clean and my hat is off to you. I am always thoroughly impressed and proud of people who make vast improvements to their show because after all, that's what we should be doing.

Improving the quality of our broadcasts should be the real focal point here... not aggregating or networking them onto one monopoly.

If I sound like I am rambling and a little scattered... It's because I am. I've had a long month.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!
 
Black-Balled said:
Reminds me more than a little, about the advice (don Mackey?) gave the pro players, when they were asked to sign tv contracts. He told them not to sign, they followed his advice, buddy hall missed a straight in combo and men's pool pays the same in 2016 as it did in 1976.
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At least it still pays ,,


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jimM said:
Erica is absolutely right. There isn't any other sport where players are broke and everyone else makes money. This has been my complaint for a long time. The problem isn't with you tube, the problem is that in a lot of tournament contracts, if you sign them, you sign away your rights and if you don't sign them, you can't play. So the players don't really have a choice.

Everyone who is looking down their nose at this post really just wants to have everything free. I don't think it is promoting pool, considering pool is on a slow slide downward even though technology and video availability are better than ever. So, you have to assume that the people who watch all these videos are already in pool and just want to learn or watch for free.

Let's get real. Only 5 to 10 American pool players have made over $50,000 in tournaments this year. If that were you, you wouldn't be so happy about everyone ripping you off for your talent. I've always realized that it takes much more time to become a professional pool player than almost any regular profession. How many doctors or lawyers are there after 8 years. How many professional pool players got there in 8 years.

Thanks,
Jim
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Can't compare pool to a real job , if you want to compare it to a real sport than its about the same time except rarely if ever does a real sport player get thier on their own accord it takes several yrs of coaching practice and play to reach the pro's against millions trying to do the same , not hundreds or thousands
That's why they make the big cheese

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Im in agreement with most people replying to this "save the whales" mentality here. $500K to YouTube is like buying gum at the last minute in check-out.

ANYTHING that raises awareness of Cue Sports, in my opinion, is precisely what we need. I make my little videos of local players grinding out 1 pocket matches at my home hall and try to get people into the sport at ever turn. I recommend everyone here do the same so that we might have fresh faces in the box.

Regards
 
As a viewer, I simply turn on my smart tv, pull up youtube, and look at my subscriptions for new content ready to watch. I get recommendations, new videos, and easily add subscriptions.

Currently I have 1 pool related subscription (CSI) out of 25 subscribed channels (mostly fishing related bassmaster, flw, etc). I would subscribe to other pool channels but I dont look for them.

Until your product has an app that is available directly on smart tv's and the devices that are common in my house hold I would not see it nor would I go out of my way to find it. I am not going to purchase yet another separate device that can load that content either.

In my opinion working with YouTube would get a larger audience assuming content was engaging and viewers felt it was worth "subscribing".

~Perk
 
I think the OP might be more useful than most think, this thread has made it to 20 pages with the Donald Trump approach.

(can't believe this thing is still going)
 
I've been in the digital advertising industry my whole adult life and can say, Erika's numbers aren't ridiculous. $500,000 is probably a fair estimate. That said, I'm just curious but, how do you expect to generate ad sales once you've moved all of these videos off Youtube? I mean, when Apple wants to run an ad campaign, they're paying Youtube's price because it's Youtube. Do you really think they're going to pay that much when the video is hosted by TAR? Does TAR have the resources to go after those advertising dollars? Has TAR ever hosted an ad campaign for a Fortune 500 company?

Because Youtube is owned by Google and Google owns the ad server, the ad exchange and the agency ad server, hosting billiards content (or any content, for that matter) can be profitable, no matter how big or small. Can the same be said when the operation is moved entirely over to a non-Google entity? Will TAR be able to make the same partnerships, offer the same targeting capabilities, manage campaigns with the same level of detail or will something get lost in the shuffle? I bet they'll just rely on subscription fees because that's simpler.

The fact is, advertising revenue exists because Google made it exist. If you move the content, the advertising dollars will flow elsewhere.
 
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