I’ll spoon feed you. The top 1000 realtors in my city, would make more money than SVB. Realtors. So, why would anyone who has any sort of financial drive, choose POOL as a profession?
You've made a lot of good points in this thread, Shawn.
I have always agreed that the 1991 Challenge of Champions dump was a missed opportunity for pool. It placed the game and those who play it for a living in a very negative light at a time when pool had a chance to become one of the sports of interest to the betting public. The Mirage, a new hotel trying its darndest to compete with its next-door legend Caesar's Palace, was in the process of becoming a significant venue for sports of all kinds, which it believed would increase its betting handle. They were certainly committed to growing the C of C event, and the betting handle and prize fund would surely have increased over time. A possible result of this would have been other sportsbooks in Las Vegas showing some interest in making book on pool, and had it gone that way, I feel there would be more money in professional pool today.
Needless to say, once some players conspired to cheat the Mirage out of some money, even though very little money was involved, the alarm was sounded that maybe making book on pool wasn't the greatest idea. Of course, nobody can say for sure just how much damage was done, but when their first contract was up, the Mirage walked away from the Challenge of Champions, an event that remained a money maker for another twenty years. Thirty years later, there are still no Las Vegas sportsbooks of which I'm aware that take action on pool.
Still, I'll add that, in its own way, "The Color of Money", a movie that I loved, did similar damage. Yes, I don't need to be told that the film gave pool a significant temporary boost, but the fact is that it reinforced the public perception that, for elite players, pool is a dirty business in which stalling, trickery and dumping are commonplace. There was even dumping in serious tournament play, and Paul Newman was devastated to learn that Tom Cruise had dumped and scored big betting the other side.
I suspect that one day, the sportsbooks will make book on pool again, but opportunities have been lost because pool has mismanaged its image and has been perceived as a crooked sport for far too long.
In the meantime, I think we are starting to see pool projecting a slightly better image to its public and some top event producers are starting to modify how the game is being presented.
I'm looking forward to the "60 Minutes" piece on pool a few months down the road. I'm not terribly interested in whether it motivates another 1,000,000 people to try their hand at pool, but very interested in whether it begins to change the public perception of the game for the better. If it focuses on legitimate competition and is made to look like a career worthy of pursuit, that will be nice, but if it reinforces the game's gambling/hustling culture, it won't do anything important for pool.
PRAY