Stu, do you really think that $1,750 is a "good payday" for a player who has to travel halfway around the world at his own expense to play possibly one short match? I think that amount will barely cover their expenses, if that. I don't know how you travel, but for me to go from Los Angeles to London and spend four days and three nights there would cost me well over $2,000. Now if these select 32 players had been guaranteed $5,000 each that would have been a payday imo. Lets call a spade a spade here okay. They were compensated to cover most of their travel expenses. Perhaps for the Euro based players it was more than enough. But for those traveling from overseas I would doubt that.
I'll stand corrected, but ...
There are no entry fees, so $1,750 is good money for just showing up. No doubt, I should have called it a free roll rather than a handsome payday. Then again, the seeded players had to win just one match to be guaranteed $3,750, so it is very easy action compared to nearly all other events on pool's calendar.
All these players had to be in Europe anyway for the UK Open, one of the most prestigious pool events of 2022 and a Matchroom major, that begins in a few days, so nobody will have travelled to Europe just for the World Pool Masters. Getting $1,750 net of entry fee is probably as good as getting $2,500. To make $1,750 net of entry fee at the US Open 9-ball, you needed, more or less, to finish 17th, and the only players that showed a profit based on the $1,750 figure are the sixteen players out of 256 that reached the Stage 2 single elimination.
Yes, the free roll that is the World Pool Masters is a very big deal. The last American event I know of that took care of players lodging and entry fee expenses while ensuring participants decent prize decent money was the Make-It-Happen series, which is gone for about seven years, and today, I don't know of even one such event on our side of the pond.
In a sport in which even the elite routinely spend lots of money just to chase small prize funds, this is pretty good stuff. The four Matchroom Invitationals, in which you get paid just for showing up, are a big deal in pool. At the Premier League Pool, even if you come 16th out of 16 players, you get $2,500. At the World Cup of Pool, first round losing teams share $3,625 ($1,800 per player. At the Mosconi, members of the losing team get $15,000. Unlike American event producers, Matchroom does a lot to give the elite players additional earnings opportunities at little to no expense to those players, and they pay out about $700,000 in their invitationals alone.
In the net result, Jay, you are correct, but my inclination remains to be very thankful for the Matchroom invitationals, which are offering the top players earnings opportunities greater than they've had since the IPT. These four invitationals alone pay out more than the entire CSI/Predator event series, inclusive of the World 10-ball. Matchroom is making pool a good career for more players than ever, and the end of year money list for 2022 will look far more impressive than any in recent memory.
PS For what it's worth, I'm flying to London later this week, and my round-trip airfare is $574. European travel from America isn't very expensive right now.
Note: this post has been amended
