Yes, I know of one place that has less than 10 tables serves no liquor but always have money games going on like 1 pocket at 40 bucks a rack.
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Insanity. How does a payer like this not have a sponsor?
- Thread starter aaron.conway
- Start date
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This is true
This is the solid truth. When Top Names have no sponsor, who is this kid?
He's just another guy that loves pool and better get his head together, theres no living in pool. Bits and pieces yes but no future for anyone.
This is the solid truth. When Top Names have no sponsor, who is this kid?
He's just another guy that loves pool and better get his head together, theres no living in pool. Bits and pieces yes but no future for anyone.
Chris's in Chicago. But that's probably the exception that proves the rule.
aaron.conway
Registered
Yes I am. There are people who make a living playing pool. He plays the same speed so why not?
I'm pretty sure Chris's in Chicago now has a BYO policy for liquor or beer.
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
Outside of a few of the streamed regional tournaments, I don't see or hear much of Vilmos Foldes. Even though he is clearly an elite player, I think he would need to demonstrate value to a potential sponsor through increasing his visability. Until the Mezz tour started uploading videos to YouTube I thought he had fallen off the map.
Some ideas would be to start a blog, do some exhibitions and do everything he can to get to as many high profile events as possible. Anything that would result in increasing his own visibility, which would, in turn, provide potential value to a sponsor.
He's an excellent player and seems like he would be a good ambassador for any brand or company.
Some ideas would be to start a blog, do some exhibitions and do everything he can to get to as many high profile events as possible. Anything that would result in increasing his own visibility, which would, in turn, provide potential value to a sponsor.
He's an excellent player and seems like he would be a good ambassador for any brand or company.
aaron.conway
Registered
I totally agree.
justinb386
Banned
How are they surviving then, with the current cost of living? If they mostly use backers, then the backers are probably taking at least 50% of their winnings (but I do not know). How could what ever is left over after all expenses be enough to pay the rent?
Unless your sponsored by cuetec or the government in the country you come from, burger king is probably looking for applicants.
That BYO policy may just be one of the reasons Chris's does as well as they do. On weekend nights they are packed with local kids from Chicago. Where else can they go and bring their own beer hang out and play some pool. Hell the pool is secondary to hanging out and drinking beer for most of them. Just go to a bar in Chicago, one beer can run between 5 and 10 bucks, the kids at Chris's are buying 12 packs for the price of two beers.
Vilmos has been very successful on Oscar's Mezz Tour out here, winning several times and placing high most others. They typically pay $1,500-1,800 for first place for a weekend tourney. Not a bad paycheck for two days work, where you can drive to the event and spend only one night in a motel. Low entry fee also.
The problem is there isn't much else out this way. It seems most of the good regional events are all held East of the Mississippi. You got Chinook Winds in Oregon and the CSI events in Vegas, plus one good event per year at the Rum Runner. Pretty spare pickings for someone who wants to make a living playing Pool. Vilmos has played in many major tournaments with mixed success. He's like a lot of good players in the U.S. Good enough to win on the regional level and not quite good enough to cut it in the big ones. There must be twenty or thirty players just like him.
Look how good John Schmidt (California boy) plays and he can't make a living at Pool. Even John Morra, a world class player is giving up the game. Pretty slim pickings unless your name is Shane VB or Dennis O. Good just isn't good enough. Great is what it takes to make it in this game, until Prince Charming comes along with a bag full of money. Trudough couldn't cut it. He ran out of gas after only two tournaments. Took him three years to pay off the third one.
The problem is there isn't much else out this way. It seems most of the good regional events are all held East of the Mississippi. You got Chinook Winds in Oregon and the CSI events in Vegas, plus one good event per year at the Rum Runner. Pretty spare pickings for someone who wants to make a living playing Pool. Vilmos has played in many major tournaments with mixed success. He's like a lot of good players in the U.S. Good enough to win on the regional level and not quite good enough to cut it in the big ones. There must be twenty or thirty players just like him.
Look how good John Schmidt (California boy) plays and he can't make a living at Pool. Even John Morra, a world class player is giving up the game. Pretty slim pickings unless your name is Shane VB or Dennis O. Good just isn't good enough. Great is what it takes to make it in this game, until Prince Charming comes along with a bag full of money. Trudough couldn't cut it. He ran out of gas after only two tournaments. Took him three years to pay off the third one.
If whoever this player is able to live off of his pool winnings, just get a part time job and request weekends off for major tournaments. Problem solved.
I think it is possible in the earlier stages of entering the gameHe keeps getting better, so he continues to have an advantage when he plays with others. when he settles into full speed, he will find it much tougher, unled he can compete with the real big boys.
It is a tough way to make a tough living.
Maybe an easy way to make a tough living...but either way, one part is consistent.
It is a tough way to make a tough living.
Maybe an easy way to make a tough living...but either way, one part is consistent.
only thing I think you are not accurate on is the # of players that are regional monsters. I would guess there are a thousand bowmans and zvis and kangs and bartrams out there.
Hard. Real hard.
Hard. Real hard.
Vilmos has been very successful on Oscar's Mezz Tour out here, winning several times and placing high most others. They typically pay $1,500-1,800 for first place for a weekend tourney. Not a bad paycheck for two days work, where you can drive to the event and spend only one night in a motel. Low entry fee also.
The problem is there isn't much else out this way. It seems most of the good regional events are all held East of the Mississippi. You got Chinook Winds in Oregon and the CSI events in Vegas, plus one good event per year at the Rum Runner. Pretty spare pickings for someone who wants to make a living playing Pool. Vilmos has played in many major tournaments with mixed success. He's like a lot of good players in the U.S. Good enough to win on the regional level and not quite good enough to cut it in the big ones. There must be twenty or thirty players just like him.
Look how good John Schmidt (California boy) plays and he can't make a living at Pool. Even John Morra, a world class player is giving up the game. Pretty slim pickings unless your name is Shane VB or Dennis O. Good just isn't good enough. Great is what it takes to make it in this game, until Prince Charming comes along with a bag full of money. Trudough couldn't cut it. He ran out of gas after only two tournaments. Took him three years to pay off the third one.
Car washes my friend, or something very similar :thumbup:
Vilmos has been very successful on Oscar's Mezz Tour out here, winning several times and placing high most others. They typically pay $1,500-1,800 for first place for a weekend tourney. Not a bad paycheck for two days work, where you can drive to the event and spend only one night in a motel. Low entry fee also.
The problem is there isn't much else out this way. It seems most of the good regional events are all held East of the Mississippi. You got Chinook Winds in Oregon and the CSI events in Vegas, plus one good event per year at the Rum Runner. Pretty spare pickings for someone who wants to make a living playing Pool. Vilmos has played in many major tournaments with mixed success. He's like a lot of good players in the U.S. Good enough to win on the regional level and not quite good enough to cut it in the big ones. There must be twenty or thirty players just like him.
Look how good John Schmidt (California boy) plays and he can't make a living at Pool. Even John Morra, a world class player is giving up the game. Pretty slim pickings unless your name is Shane VB or Dennis O. Good just isn't good enough. Great is what it takes to make it in this game, until Prince Charming comes along with a bag full of money. Trudough couldn't cut it. He ran out of gas after only two tournaments. Took him three years to pay off the third one.
Experience and wisdom speaks.
Do you want to hear why from the perspective of someone in the business who gets asked to sponsor players every couple days?
Well even if you don't I will tell you
Return on Investment.
When I think of sponsorship I think of a person wanting and needing MONEY. Giving someone a pool cue or a case isn't sponsorship, it's a gift with the faint hope that the use of such will lead to a few sales or a little extra recognition.
But when it comes to actually spending money on a regular basis there has to be some reasonable expectation of exposure and bump in sales to be able to afford that expense. The old saying is I know half of my advertising budget is wasted but I don't know which half.
Most billiard businesses that make products are mom and pop operations and not really turning a lot of profit. Only a handful are companies with millions of dollars in revenue. Of those most are already sponsoring players who participate in lots of tournaments and get a lot of exposure and who have a large fan base.
So that leaves the lesser known pros for the companies that aren't that big. As you can surely tell this is a vicious cycle where lower tier pros don't have the funds to go to lots of events and smaller businesses don't have the funds to send them to lots of events so no exposure means no additional revenue to cover the expense. No tournament participation means that you don't have enough exposure to get decent monetary sponsorship.
Pool is unfortunately a very poor sport. the industry is totally dependent on revenue from players to generate the money they use for advertising. Lots of people are playing but the amount of diehards who spend a lot on equipment is relatively small and the money they spend is divided amongst a lot of competitors.
Lots of people are playing in leagues and tournaments but with no outside money coming in from national brands like Coke, Dell etc... and no national exposure on television - which is still the best medium to reach the most people at one time - which is what would attract national brands - pool's profile remains subdued against the other sports, reality shows, and invented sports like American Ninja Warrior.
Which means in essence that the only way for a player to get Shane Van Boening level sponsorship is to do it the way Shane did it. On his own until such time as he had acquired enough fame to attract steady backers and a major sponsorship.
But I can tell you that Shane's deal is not usual either. Most big companies don't really pay that much because even for them the amount of exposure is greatly diminished by the fact that pool is not consistently on television and so their return on investment is not really sufficient to justify a large budget on player sponsorships. For them tournament sponsorships make more sense because they know that whatever viewership the tournament gets will see their logos and they don't need to take the risk that their sponsored player might not even make it to the streamed tables.
So in conclusion yes it's a shame that a highly skilled player doesn't have a steady endorsement deal that pays him enough to travel to a lot of events. But that's the reality of this sport.
My advice is that any player who has the skills should take their marketing into their own hands. They should first of all make sure they have a website that is polished and professional and highlights the products that they do endorse, even if they don't get paid to endorse them. For example, does he play with a cue he bought? Does he really like it? Then write up a little review of WHY he bought it and why he likes it. Same thing for the tips he likes, the case he uses and so on.....because this SHOWS those of us in the industry that this player is proactive about doing what they can to promote brands they like and use their reputation as a player to help the brands they like. It makes brands which are NOT listed think hard about trying to do what they can afford so as to be associated with such a player.
Secondly I would advise him to engage with others about how to play, tell stories about how he got into pool, how he aims (had to slip that in), what competition at his level feels like etc... in other words create content that is compelling and builds a fan base.
Build a following on FB, Instagram, google+, reddit, twitter, youtube etc.. this helps to not only attract sponsors but also to monetize that following by being able to sell products to your fan base, clothing, lessons, exhibitions....and to get invites to events.
Also make sure you always play nice with promoters and organizers and sport organizations. Volunteer time to do stuff for youth organizations for free to increase exposure and network.
Does all this sound like a lot of work over and above the main job of playing pool for money? It is.
What pro pool players fail to understand, most of them, is that THEY are the product. In order to get people to BUY that product the player has to show buyers the value they are getting for the money. And when the value is high then it becomes a situation where many brands desire to be associated with that player. Just being a good player isn't enough because there is no medium where just playing good gives enough exposure as to be the only reason to justify the expense. So players today need to be more proactive in how they engage so that they can show sponsors that they actually do have a decent amount of eyeballs on them on a consistent basis.
When I owned Instroke we started talking to Ralf Souquet about a possible sponsorship. Ralf faxed us a letter with his request and it was on a professional piece of letterhead with the companies who sponsored him neatly down one side. I took that fax off the machine and the first thing I thought was I want my logo on this letterhead. And we did end up sponsoring Ralf for a five figure amount yearly. But what I told my partners at the time is that if we did it then we would need to spend as much or more advertising the relationship, which we did. At that time we had just shy of $500,000 revenue yearly and what we were spending on Ralf and associated advertising was a healthy amount in comparison. I don't know if we got a really good return on investment even then BUT Ralf Souquet was SO PROFESSIONAL that it felt like we would be seen as a high quality serious company just by association.
And that is really the whole point. If someone makes themselves really attractive by their professional actions then it can hardly fail to pay off provided they have the skill to actually do consistently well in events. Hell I have seen really weak "pros" get sponsorships just because they were good at marketing themselves.
And there you go from one maker's perspective.
Great post. As you say, sponsorship is a partnership and not a charity. If all players marketed themselves in the way you describe, I think it would also do a lot for the professional game.
JB Cases, that sir was a great post.