The OP was asking how to get more non-pool nuts to watch the game. The game needs to be: quick(NO 1p), easy to understand and have some excitement drama. Nine-ball with a shot clock is the obvious choice. Make it fast, easy to follow and exciting. Picture a tour where there was MosconiCup format pool every weekend for decent money.
While not discounting your thoughts, I disagree on 9 ball. No one plays that except people into pool. If you want a casual audience, 8 ball is the only answer. I think this is DUMB, but you gotta remember all the bar rules and complete BS that that entails. Hell, maybe just straight bar pool with no BIH is the answer, but you have to account for the "dirty pool" aspect. Maybe no BIH but BIH in the kitchen on a foul. Let the audience vote if the player played a "dirty pool" type shot and deduct a point... I don't know. I can't tell you the winning formula, but 9B, while a fine game, is boring to watch and doesn't interest the causal audience. It's too much, they can't appreciate good position play, so shooting the balls in order isn't entertaining or engaging to them.
I think there is some truth in that. As far as general play concerns... When I watch tv matches, I am thinking that the general public (where new pool fans could come from) does not understand how hard the game is. That the pros are not just shooting shots and making some tricky ones... that, more importantly, they are doing this while envisioning a strategy and then accomplishing that strategy by controlling the cue ball. Again, I will say, that NUMERO UNO might be that they MUST highlight onscreen the object ball and the NEXT object ball.
Definitely, with current technology, there should be things like the moving/superimposed 1st down line in football. That one invention revolutionized the sport for those not super into football, hockey does a similar thing with hard to see pucks at times. I sound like I'm on a soapbox, but 9B when played at high levels just looks stupidly easy. No one wants to see paint by numbers and that's what 9B is. I'd almost say that a more amateur event or something played by regular people would be more entertaining. Like maybe take a couple C players and let them have some world class players coach them. Then have the pro's play each other. Make it a best 2 out of 3 thing. The C players play, the Pros play, then Scotch Doubles for the tie breaker if there is one. Think about game shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, all the gimmicks, like the audience voting, calling a friend etc. You HAVE to make it more interactive and appealing to casuals. Nobody, except us pool nuts, likes seeing paint by numbers.
Popular pool events like the old Mosconi vs Fats matches back in the day... the big names missed way more shots than the pros now. You can't make the game look easy or casual fans discount it. That formula worked, you have a super serious Mosconi who wants pool to be a respectable past time, then you have Fats just talking mad shit. Mosconi was obviously a better player, but would any casual viewer enjoy the match as much without Fats? Pool has enough characters, you just got to give them the lime light.
That's what it will take to make the sport popular. That's what it took in golf - a whole generation willing to work for nothing but the sport itself. Think Bobby Jones and his generation made any money (other than gambling) at golf?
Still, would golf be watchable if every hole on every course was the same? Even now, golf courses change the holes with hole positions, tee positions, and course renovations to provide different challenges and keep things interesting. What if the tables weren't rectangular or flat (I'm talking intentionally warped), or the rails were different? There would be a lot more variety to the game, and different players might be favored in different events. Right now you could almost build a pool-playing robot that plays like a chess computer. That's not watchable.
I think there's some truth in this. In a nine ball match, if a top 25 in the world is perfect on the four ball, they'll run out 90% or the time, often making the next six shots both routine and boring to watch. I think for me, this explains why I've always believed the tactics, defense and kicking to be the most interesting part of the game, but one cannot expect the casual fan to embrace the finer points of the play (you know, the parts often omitted in the youtube videos of matches).
As we saw at this year's Mosconi, tougher equipment makes the runouts far more challenging and, at least for this fan, more interesting to watch. The equipment has to compensate for just how straight the top players of today really shoot. There are far more straight shooters today than fifteen years ago, but equipment is about the same, so the game does, as you suggest, look too easy.
By comparison, even though there are far more misses on a snooker table, viewers understand just how difficult the conditions are and appreciate that even the world's best miss quite a bit.
I agree, you just need some funky tables to make it interesting. Just go to some local bar or hole in the wall and play on whatever is there. Crappy cloth with June bugs on it in someone's garage with a dead rail, humidity a la Filipino tables, a mix of GC, Diamonds, home tables, tightened gambling pockets, snooker style curved pockets, etc. Talk it up, hell have two snooker style pockets on a table as an obstacle. I'm not meaning completely crap tables, but a variety could be interesting, especially if they made it a point to talk about. Causal audiences are looking for entertainment and unique, not robots.