Hey Poolplaya, thanks for the reply.
I agree a lot of pool players live it up a little. They don't work, they are traveling around, eating out all the time, and doing whatever they want. The thing is that many of them don't have anything to their name. It's called living like a millionaire when you're flat broke.
Most of these full time players don't own their own home. They live with family or with a girlfriend, or rent someone's basement bedroom for $200 a month. (What do you call a pool player who breaks up with his girlfriend? Homeless.) Many don't have children to support. They aren't paying taxes or saving for retirement or investing. They have everything they own in a bankroll that fluctuates from a few thousand or even a few tens of thousands, all the way down to zero. Sometimes they run it up, sometimes they bust out and have to borrow, then they go negative for a bit, then they bink a tournament or a gambling score and pay it off. But at the end of the day they have not much to show for their efforts.
All that is fine if you want to avoid the responsibility of a job and just live a party on the road lifestyle, but they are sacrificing any type of ability to provide for themselves or anyone else beyond food and clothes.
Now, as for opening pool rooms or teaching. Look. I am a full time pool instructor. I also compete in pro events. Am I a pro pool player? No. I am a pro coach that competes in pro events. If someone has a big facebook following and they blog their tournament progress for thousands of views and get enough sponsor money to eat while busting out of pro tournament after pro tournament, are they a pro pool player? Or are they a professional blogger that plays in pro events? I think that if you have to use your pool reputation to attract attention to another business you have to run and operate then you didn't exactly make it as a pro tournament player.
As for the pool rooms, most of these players are being backed into a pool room by an investor who gives a slice to the pro player to use their reputation and enlist them as a house pro. Not many players use tournament winnings to invest in real estate. Archer may have, but he is a player of the decade. You don't see Jeremy Sossei winning 100K in a tournament to open a room.
Finally, I don't believe that semi-pro players can pick up thousands and thousands locally and regionally on a month to month basis. Sure, you might have a month where you win 3-4K, but that is a big score. Many months you are going to go dry on finding good tournaments or you'll bust out (expenses are a beast). So some months you might only win 1K, or heaven forbid make a bad game and go backwards. It's really easy to look at the 2-3 months a year a player scores 3-4K and think they are making 50K annually, but if you average it out it's probably 1-2K a month. Again, good enough to rent someone's basement and eat Taco Bell or live with a girlfriend and not pay child support.
In short- if you sacrifice raising children, buying a home, and preparing for the future, and just want to make enough to get to the next tournament, yes, you can 'make a living'. If you want to include people who teach, sell cues, and act as house pros at pool rooms, yes, I guess that's a living. But if you're talking about tournament players who earn enough in competition alone to provide a reasonable lifestyle you are down to like 7 people in the world. 820 Fargo Rate or need not apply.
