Pool is NOT Declining!

[Get_A_Grip]

I think that it depends on how you define "pool". If you're talking about pro pool in the USA, then I would say it's not "declining", because it's already near the bottom.

If you're talking about league pool, I think that it probably is not declining. There are many people who enjoy playing pool leagues in most cities.

I hope that Scott's new venture succeeds in AZ. If I lived near there, I would certainly hang out there.

 

[mchnhed]

I hope that Scott's new venture succeeds in AZ.

I searched and found nothing.
Scott, who?
and
Arizona, where?

 

[Get_A_Grip]

I searched and found nothing.
Scott, who?
and
Arizona, where?

Scott Frost = Freezer's Ice House

https://www.facebook.com/freezersicehouse/

 

[Type79]

This Is The Wrong Place To Ask This Question

The questions why the game we love is not better appreciated, why new players don't find a sustained interest, or why people don't frequent rooms on a more regular basis, can't be answered here. What we think is only speculation.

To find answers to these questions, we must ask outsiders, people who only occasionally come to a pool hall, or come a few times and never return.

The atmosphere might be intimidating, uncomfortable, unwelcoming,maybe they would find it encouraging if regulars introduced themselves, and/or offered friendly assistance or advice.But this is speculation on my part; I don't know.

But the question must be asked of people outside of our world.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Pool is WAY down in Philly from where it was 20 years ago. I'd say by a factor of 5 at least.

I do think in Philly it has picked up in the last 2 to 3 years. But still nowhere near the late 90's to early 2000's.

 

[philly]

Pool is WAY down in Philly from where it was 20 years ago. I'd say by a factor of 5 at least.

I do think in Philly it has picked up in the last 2 to 3 years. But still nowhere near the late 90's to early 2000's.

I agree. I think it has picked up a bit. It is actually flourishing in the bars, upscale and downscale in the Philly burbs. 7 foot tables and APA. Poolrooms are a little busier. I wasn't playing in the 90's, 2000's. Took a long time off so I will have to take your word for it. I do know that in the 60's and 70's in some rooms you had to wait for a table to open up.

 

[mchnhed]

To find answers to these questions, we must ask outsiders, people who only occasionally come to a pool hall, or come a few times and never return.

The atmosphere might be intimidating, uncomfortable, unwelcoming,maybe they would find it encouraging if regulars introduced themselves, and/or offered friendly assistance or advice.But this is speculation on my part; I don't know.

But the question must be asked of people outside of our world.

Exposure to John and Jane Q. Public
Dr. Billiards Traveling Trick Shot Show featuring "Venom" in a Shopping Mall near you.
Have sign ups for give away's like coupons for table time, starter cues.

Billiards Rooms that can tolerate noobies need to have.......
Free lessons for beginners.
Free lessons for youth.
Limited free table time for minors 15 & under. During limited hours.
When an Adult is accompanied by a Minor, Half-rate table time. Free for the Minor.
Cue leagues. You get a cue at the start of the league, finish the season and the cue is yours. Quit and you pay for the cue.

 

[BC21]

I'm in bars and clubs about every weekend playing music. Occasionally I'll see a few novices gathered around a pool table having a good time, but usually the tables are vacant. When I was 19 to 27 years old, back in in the mid 80's to early 90's, you'd have to wait an hour or more to play pool no matter where you went because a lot people were into it. Now, around my area anyway, it's a lonely existence for the typical barbox in most bars/pubs.

 

[justinb386]

Lenny,

I sure hope you are right. However, my impression of the way things are in the St. Louis area is that there is not a whole lot of "new blood" coming into the pool community. That is to say, it does not seem as though there are all that many newer players.

Lindenwood is great for pool here, but those players come and then they go, but I am happy there are here for the time that they are.

I am not much of a league player, so maybe the "new" players are there, but if they are, they don't seem to have made it into the community of pool that cares about professional pool.

I wonder if it helps pool in your community to have Scott Frost as such a steady presence--from the outside, it has looks as if Scott is in the local pool halls fairly regularly mixing it up with the locals. We are fortunate to have Justin Bergman here, but he travels a lot, and not surprisingly, he has a hard time finding opponents when he comes out to the local joints.

kollegedave

It is very sad to hear that the St. Louis pool scene is not that good these days (no up and coming strong players?). No players with gamble in them, to want to step up and play some with Bergman when he is in town, and looking for a game. Very sad. St. Louis had an awesome pool scene back in the 90's. Many very strong players were around in that area, and many very nice pool rooms. A lot has changed it seems.

 

[justinb386]

I would like to agree with the OP.........I'd like to think he's right................but he is wrong.

Say what you might about certain locales for pool or league participation, etc. If you truly
want to get a handle on the status of pool, then go to the most single most important data
set......anything else is misleading because it distorts the genuine marketplace,

What is the missing data that pretty much outlines the status of pool......let's start with the 60's,
then the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000....then 2010 amd right now.....2017. Track this by decade and
at the same time, overlay the nation's population growth.....y0u can do this with line graph
illustrations and the answer will stare you right in the face,

The number of pool hall closings has been on a straight line dowmward and the population rate
is just the opposite, There are locations where pool halls no longer exist, except perhaps as a
sports bar setup., Sure you can always find towns where it might be just the opposite and pool
still flourishes but the national profile, aside from say APA membership growth, has steadily been
bleak,especially over the past 10 years.

I know someone will post and write something like...."Not in my town. etc.". Well, this thread is not
really about your town or the region where you live. If it was, then I'd have composed a different reply.
Just look at the number of pool halls in operation and let's use last year as a base number....2016.
How many poll halls were in operation in 1966? Compare that with the number of pool halls in 1976?
Then 1986, 1996, 2006 and finally 2016. Don;t use social media tweets or APA recreational
league data or anything similar. Look at the brutal business facts....the undeniable truth.....the number of pool
halls still succesfully operating across the nation.......the trend line reveals the wicked, naked truth.

Just as my post started with..........I'd like to be wrong and the OP right..........but I'm not and he is....look
at the hard cold facts and it is not pretty. Pool will have ups & downs but the ups tend to be short lived.
!962 was a lift...so was 1986........but the lift did not last and returned to its former downward trend and
looking at cue prices or the # of cue-makers is irrelevant.....How many pool halls are still operating?

Great post. I think you are right. The state of pool seems to be very different (in a bad way) then it was 20 years ago, for example. If it were not for APA league night (using APA pool league as an example, not to mention other popular leagues), then the pool rooms would really be dead I think. And the real pool hall (that does not include a bar and restaurant) is almost extinct I think. If a pool hall does not have a full bar, with a decent restaurant attached to it, then it will probably not survive.

 

[Ekojasiloop]

Is is that leagues are the end of pool, or is it just that you think they are the end of the type of pool that you just happen to most prefer (but that some others least prefer)?


Ever stop and consider if this is exactly one of the [many] reasons people are being pushed away and that maybe leagues are the last sanctuary for those that love the game but hate the sleazy side of the pool scene and the people in it such as yourself? I would have to think that this mentality is a factor (the get all the money from all the suckers that you can) and the only real question is whether the impact of this mentality is significant or negligible. You have to admit though that being immersed in a culture with this type of mentality wouldn't exactly be appealing to many or maybe even most new players.



There are two separate issues here. One is how much pool as a whole and the amount of players in it is declining. The other is to what extent are the existing pool players just migrating from one "scene" to another, with some of the various scenes being the gambling, tournament, league, and casual playing scenes. You seem to be talking almost exclusively about the latter, while many others are talking about the former. Both are worthy of discussion though.

Well, that's what I was saying about baseball. If there were no more great baseball players in the USA, but a lot of people were off their asses and actually playing baseball, sure I do think that would be great and I can agree with you. But, you'd also have to agree that it just plain sucks there weren't actually any, um, good players anymore. I mean that would suck.

You're second point, I mean I came off crass, but the point is once these good young players got run over by me a few times, they'd up their game and start robbing me soon enough. I see your comments as very anti skill development. This is just the way people develop their skills. In leagues I feel I can say it's almost proven that players turning into monsters just rarely happens for whatever reason. It's tournaments and gambling... for whatever reason.

You can insert almost anything in the following paragraph, but let's try art. Why not. If there were all the sudden a huge number of people creating art, I do think it would be great as I was saying about baseball. BUT, not when it comes at the cost of there not ever being any strong artists. That's a big but, and I believe that is what leagues do. Of course there are those that will disagree, but just looking at when leagues got popular and when players were gone is pretty good evidence in my book.

I'll note I could be way off with the league vs good players correlation. Maybe it's that there'd be no good players even if there were no leagues. I don't believe that because leagues tend to destroy local tournaments, which I feel are the grass roots life blood of good players. I honestly would have a hard time thinking of ANY good player that didn't practice the hell out of it waiting to play a few weekly tournaments at that early stage in his pool life. LOCAL TOURNAMENTS MAKE/CREATE GOOD PLAYERS. That's just so important it's hard to overemphasize.

In any event, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

To the one fellow, I guess it depends on where you live as to how much it costs to play a league. I'm sure if you live in the middle of Kentucky the prices of everything from a beer to an hour of pool are so different from New York. But I know the folks playing league pay a lot out here. They pay like 10 dollars per week but there's also a sign up fees and other stuff.

 

[justinb386]

Where do you live?
Bowling leagues are almost non-existant all over.
Open play "Cosmic Bowling" is the only thing keeping Bowling Houses open.
The same is happening to pool. Ball Bangers fill the till.

Brunswick Bowling was sold to QubicaAMF an Italian company.
AMF Bowling is owned by the same Italian company.

Bowling in Asia is very popular.
Bowling in India is big with families on the weekend.
Bowling in China is big.

Enough talk about bowling.
Let's play pool!

I am just being honest about my experience with seeing the popularity of Bowling, when ever I have walked into a bowling alley in the past. I grew up in a small city in Southern Illinois (population of around 27,000, plus around 50,000 college students, except for Summer time), and the only really decent pool hall was at the SIU (university), which was also a nice big bowling alley on one side of it (around 12 or 14 Brunswick Gold Grown tables on one side, and around 20 bowling lanes on the other side, I am guessing). Anyways, back in the 90's, the pool side was always packed full of players (always had to get on a waiting list for a table). Well, over the years, it really declined on the pool side. The last year I lived in my home town (of Carbondale), the pool scene was completely dead (never, or very rarely any players on the pool side of that bowling and billiards center). I never seen a decline on the bowling side though (always cram packed full of people who loved to bowl). I have personally never seen a decline in Bowling, but to be honest, I really know nothing about the bowling scene (only my experience of it, from where I grew up playing pool). Bowling seemed very much alive (unlike pool, which was the very opposite) in the last 3 years that I lived in Louisville KY (2014 to 2017). Everytime I went into a bowling alley, it was packed full of bowlers.

 

[justinb386]

Is is that leagues are the end of pool, or is it just that you think they are the end of the type of pool that you just happen to most prefer (but that some others least prefer)?


Ever stop and consider if this is exactly one of the [many] reasons people are being pushed away and that maybe leagues are the last sanctuary for those that love the game but hate the sleazy side of the pool scene and the people in it such as yourself? I would have to think that this mentality is a factor (the get all the money from all the suckers that you can) and the only real question is whether the impact of this mentality is significant or negligible. You have to admit though that being immersed in a culture with this type of mentality wouldn't exactly be appealing to many or maybe even most new players.



There are two separate issues here. One is how much pool as a whole and the amount of players in it is declining. The other is to what extent are the existing pool players just migrating from one "scene" to another, with some of the various scenes being the gambling, tournament, league, and casual playing scenes. You seem to be talking almost exclusively about the latter, while many others are talking about the former. Both are worthy of discussion though.

I think that the leagues, and the players who join the leagues (and spend money while at the pool rooms, on beer and food) are (at least for the most part) what is keeping these pool rooms / sports bars alive, and open. I am just sad that most of these league players have no interest in playing in regular pool (cash) tournaments. I think that most of these players just join the league as a type of social gathering, and not because they wish to become all that serious about the sport of pool. How many 2's and 3's do you see becoming 7's over the coarse of time? I bet "not many" is the answer. Most of these guys do not care about ever getting any better, or competing against stronger players (in a tournament for example). It is just something to do once or twice a week as a social gathering.

 

[Poolplaya9]

Well, that's what I was saying about baseball. If there were no more great baseball players in the USA, but a lot of people were off their asses and actually playing baseball, sure I do think that would be great and I can agree with you. But, you'd also have to agree that it just plain sucks there weren't actually any, um, good players anymore. I mean that would suck.

You're second point, I mean I came off crass, but the point is once these good young players got run over by me a few times, they'd up their game and start robbing me soon enough. I see your comments as very anti skill development. This is just the way people develop their skills. In leagues I feel I can say it's almost proven that players turning into monsters just rarely happens for whatever reason. It's tournaments and gambling... for whatever reason.

You can insert almost anything in the following paragraph, but let's try art. Why not. If there were all the sudden a huge number of people creating art, I do think it would be great as I was saying about baseball. BUT, not when it comes at the cost of there not ever being any strong artists. That's a big but, and I believe that is what leagues do. Of course there are those that will disagree, but just looking at when leagues got popular and when players were gone is pretty good evidence in my book.

I'll note I could be way off with the league vs good players correlation. Maybe it's that there'd be no good players even if there were no leagues. I don't believe that because leagues tend to destroy local tournaments, which I feel are the grass roots life blood of good players. I honestly would have a hard time thinking of ANY good player that didn't practice the hell out of it waiting to play a few weekly tournaments at that early stage in his pool life. LOCAL TOURNAMENTS MAKE/CREATE GOOD PLAYERS. That's just so important it's hard to overemphasize.

In any event, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

To the one fellow, I guess it depends on where you live as to how much it costs to play a league. I'm sure if you live in the middle of Kentucky the prices of everything from a beer to an hour of pool are so different from New York. But I know the folks playing league pay a lot out here. They pay like 10 dollars per week but there's also a sign up fees and other stuff.

Basically you are just saying you don't really care how many pool players there are, you just care about how many good pool players there are, and how many tournaments and gamblers there are because the tournaments and gambling is the only way you enjoy pool. Fair enough, you are certainly entitled to your own preferences (and many will have the same preferences and many won't), but it is a slightly different discussion than what the thread was originally about but still worthy of discussion none the less.

To your point about how it would suck to have lots of artists but no truly great ones, well I guess that depends on personal preferences too. If you don't care much about art, or don't think million dollar paintings are any better than thousand dollar ones, or just don't value "great" art very much, then not having "great" artists just isn't going to bother you much if at all. If you do place a lot of value on great art then obviously it would suck big time. I could personally care less about art or great art so I could literally care less if nobody ever painted another "great" painting again. Art is next to worthless in my book. Same goes for baseball. Most boring game ever according to my tastes and I could care less if all great baseball players disappeared never to play again. Obviously others feel differently, but it is always based on what you personally value and everybody is different. Some care about great level pool, and some don't because their enjoyment comes from other aspects of pool. I personally like all the aspects or "scenes" of pool but the next guy will value things differently and have different preferences than I do and he isn't wrong for that.

For the record though I don't think leagues are killing off tournaments or gambling at all. I think what you are seeing is that league numbers are staying pretty decent, but tournament players and gamblers are leaving pool in droves but I think there is almost no cause and effect there. The tournament and gambling scene in pool is dying for other reasons entirely unrelated to leagues. One of the main things that makes me think this is that I don't see the gamblers and tournament players migrating over and joining leagues. They are just leaving pool entirely. If they were migrating to leagues then I could see leagues having some "blame". But that isn't what I'm seeing, at least personally. They are just leaving and it seems totally unrelated to leagues from where I sit. I think there are a number of reasons for it but leagues aren't one of them. In fact leagues are about the only thing that attracts new players to the game these days and I don't think they are even attracting very many new players for that matter if any on net after accounting for the ones they lose.

 

[Ekojasiloop]

Basically you are just saying you don't really care how many pool players there are, you just care about how many good pool players there are, and how many tournaments and gamblers there are because the tournaments and gambling is the only way you enjoy pool. Fair enough, you are certainly entitled to your own preferences (and many will have the same preferences and many won't), but it is a slightly different discussion than what the thread was originally about but still worthy of discussion none the less.

To your point about how it would suck to have lots of artists but no truly great ones, well I guess that depends on personal preferences too. If you don't care much about art, or don't think million dollar paintings are any better than thousand dollar ones, or just don't value "great" art very much, then not having "great" artists just isn't going to bother you much if at all. If you do place a lot of value on great art then obviously it would suck big time. I could personally care less about art or great art so I could literally care less if nobody ever painted another "great" painting again. Art is next to worthless in my book. Same goes for baseball. Most boring game ever according to my tastes and I could care less if all great baseball players disappeared never to play again. Obviously others feel differently, but it is always based on what you personally value and everybody is different. Some care about great level pool, and some don't because their enjoyment comes from other aspects of pool. I personally like all the aspects or "scenes" of pool but the next guy will value things differently and have different preferences than I do and he isn't wrong for that.

For the record though I don't think leagues are killing off tournaments or gambling at all. I think what you are seeing is that league numbers are staying pretty decent, but tournament players and gamblers are leaving pool in droves but I think there is almost no cause and effect there. The tournament and gambling scene in pool is dying for other reasons entirely unrelated to leagues. One of the main things that makes me think this is that I don't see the gamblers and tournament players migrating over and joining leagues. They are just leaving pool entirely. If they were migrating to leagues then I could see leagues having some "blame". But that isn't what I'm seeing, at least personally. They are just leaving and it seems totally unrelated to leagues from where I sit. I think there are a number of reasons for it but leagues aren't one of them. In fact leagues are about the only thing that attracts new players to the game these days and I don't think they are even attracting very many new players for that matter if any on net after accounting for the ones they lose.

First of all, you kinda grossly misstated what I said in my opinion. But whatever, I'm over it.

Let's look at this from other perspectives. What if we had a lot of people trying to solve engineering problems, but we didn't have any good engineers? What if we had a bunch of people who sorta liked to make movies, but no good filmmakers? You can act all you want like things would just be kosher, but in both cases the entire industries would essentially be nothing without the talent. Just as in baseball, if there was no MLB, there'd be no sponsors, no money, no nothing... just a bunch of drunk dudes siting around playing baseball (which I actually think it's great if tons of people were playing baseball btw). So no, it doesn't matter what it is you actually care about, if there's no top talent, there's a complete lack of any ability to build anything meaningful, and in some cases, as with something like engineering, our infascrtuture would crumble. You need to have people that are good at things to have any chance in any industry.

There is never going to be a strong pool scene without good players. If we had 50 more svb's all the sudden, I think pool would be revived quite significantly, because so much is based off of people saying "I want to be like that" to themselves. Without talent, you'll never have anything, but it could very well be that leagues had no hand in creating the low number of players in the USA Today, I just find the timing very suspect is all.

 

[justinb386]

I think that it depends on how you define "pool". If you're talking about pro pool in the USA, then I would say it's not "declining", because it's already near the bottom.

If you're talking about league pool, I think that it probably is not declining. There are many people who enjoy playing pool leagues in most cities.

I hope that Scott's new venture succeeds in AZ. If I lived near there, I would certainly hang out there.

Oh, wow, I just seen the video Scott did (showing off his new pool hall, https://www.facebook.com/freezersicehouse/), and it looks amazing. I hope that it will be a great success. I can't imagine it not being a great success.

 

[justinb386]

The questions why the game we love is not better appreciated, why new players don't find a sustained interest, or why people don't frequent rooms on a more regular basis, can't be answered here. What we think is only speculation.

To find answers to these questions, we must ask outsiders, people who only occasionally come to a pool hall, or come a few times and never return.

The atmosphere might be intimidating, uncomfortable, unwelcoming,maybe they would find it encouraging if regulars introduced themselves, and/or offered friendly assistance or advice.But this is speculation on my part; I don't know.

But the question must be asked of people outside of our world.

Yeah, you make a great point. I am too shy to walk up to strangers and start asking them questions though. I know that people will be rude with you (if they do not know you). In my experience, you need to be a part of their tight nit group in order to make conversation with them. Easier to ask questions on a forum.

 

[justinb386]

I agree. I think it has picked up a bit. It is actually flourishing in the bars, upscale and downscale in the Philly burbs. 7 foot tables and APA. Poolrooms are a little busier. I wasn't playing in the 90's, 2000's. Took a long time off so I will have to take your word for it. I do know that in the 60's and 70's in some rooms you had to wait for a table to open up.

That is the way it was in the 90's (even in my small home town of only 30,000 people, in a pool hall with 12 hourly rate tables). Usually had to get on a waiting list in the evenings.

 

[justinb386]

I'm in bars and clubs about every weekend playing music. Occasionally I'll see a few novices gathered around a pool table having a good time, but usually the tables are vacant. When I was 19 to 27 years old, back in in the mid 80's to early 90's, you'd have to wait an hour or more to play pool no matter where you went because a lot people were into it. Now, around my area anyway, it's a lonely existence for the typical barbox in most bars/pubs.

Yeah, I miss the 90's so much. Pool was so much alive and kicking back then.

 

[Poolplaya9]

First of all, you kinda grossly misstated what I said in my opinion. But whatever, I'm over it.

Let's look at this from other perspectives. What if we had a lot of people trying to solve engineering problems, but we didn't have any good engineers? What if we had a bunch of people who sorta liked to make movies, but no good filmmakers? You can act all you want like things would just be kosher, but in both cases the entire industries would essentially be nothing without the talent. Just as in baseball, if there was no MLB, there'd be no sponsors, no money, no nothing... just a bunch of drunk dudes siting around playing baseball (which I actually think it's great if tons of people were playing baseball btw). So no, it doesn't matter what it is you actually care about, if there's no top talent, there's a complete lack of any ability to build anything meaningful, and in some cases, as with something like engineering, our infascrtuture would crumble. You need to have people that are good at things to have any chance in any industry.

There is never going to be a strong pool scene without good players. If we had 50 more svb's all the sudden, I think pool would be revived quite significantly, because so much is based off of people saying "I want to be like that" to themselves. Without talent, you'll never have anything, but it could very well be that leagues had no hand in creating the low number of players in the USA Today, I just find the timing very suspect is all.

I paraphrased what you wrote according to what it seemed like you were really trying to say. If I got it wrong I apologize as I certainly don't want to put words into your mouth. After reading this post it still sounds like you are more or less saying the same thing though.

To answer some of your points I would like to start off by pointing out that engineering is not a good example IMO. We need good engineering. As you said things would fall apart without that. We don't however need movies or pool or baseball. They could disappear entirely tomorrow and life wouldn't really change in any meaningful way. So yes, the importance of movies, or pool, or art, or baseball is entirely a preference thing.

I also kind of think you have the horse and the cart backwards for what most typically happens, but maybe I'm wrong. They didn't just make up the game of game of baseball one day, and then immediately start a professional baseball league that same day, and then because people saw those great baseball players that is why they started to play the game. No, what happened is people started playing baseball, and more importantly some people started having an interest in watching baseball, and things progressed organically from there to where we are now. The game started with a few neighbors playing in a vacant field, to neighboring streets forming teams to play each other (with perhaps a few friends and family coming to watch), to towns forming teams to play other nearby towns with even more people interested in watching, and so on until you ultimately had the professional league that traveled all over to play with lots of spectators.

Nobody wants to watch pool though. Nobody looks up to great pool players. Great pool players don't attract new players like you think. Heck, even pool players don't want to watch pool. To attract players in the way you are referring to you have to somehow change pool into a game that looks appealing and exciting so that people want to watch and you gain lots of fans, which will then make people look up to the great players and want to be like them and play the same game that they do. I'm not sure what pool would have to change to get there, but I am sure it would have to be drastic changes, and a lot of them, and it probably wouldn't even remotely resemble what we know as pool today.

Yes it's a bit of a catch 22 but for the most part I don't think good players create a strong pool scene as you said. I think a strong pool scene is what attracts and creates good players, and ultimately if the pool scene becomes big enough and strong enough it can create a decent fan base who want to be spectators, and if the fan base continues to get big enough the strong players will finally be somewhat of a draw that might help attract new players and they will finally be part of what solidifies that already strong pool scene. So no, until you are significantly larger and more successful than pool is, I don't think the strong players matter very much at all except to those that were already involved in pool and were already big pool fans. Hope that all made sense, and all IMO of course.