How to save professional pool...no, really.
- Thread starter Boxcar
- Start date
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
You're taking a very narrow view of pro golf. On the US PGA tour, top 65 get paid each week, the rest get a bill for the hotel, caddie fee, coaches salary etc.
On the smaller tours it's worse. The Florida winter mini tours don't pay nearly that deep and most of the lot is dead money. I've worked with a golfer off and on for 20 years who is a solid scratch who spends his winters in Florida donating on the mini tours looking for a Champions Tour card. The non-US tours also pay less and less deep in the field. There's tons of dead money in pro golf. It's like looking at MR and thinking that's it for pro pool all over the world. It's not. The US PGA Tour is a tiny fraction of pro golf and even they don't guarantee a check. That the purses tend to be massive money added is a testament to marketing and fan development. Pool could do the same, but you need more fans more involved in the game.
Ever walk a Wednesday practice round before a PGA event? Loads of weekend warriors fantasizing about what it's like between the ropes. It's great! One of the best things about pro golf is being on the field with the players! In pool we can just do that. It's a huge missed opportunity, except at DCC, they almost have it right.
dendweller
Well-known member
I think there are a few types of maintenance, some guys what to say they are single digit and won't put in their high scores, some want advantages in club events so won't put in their low scores, and some guys follow the usga guide lines.
Ghost,
That's no the point. Pro golf in all of it's iterations, neither needs nor wants dead money.
The reason golf is what it is today is because of Rodman Wanamaker and The PGA of America and a group of men who were willing to look to the future. Not a couple of barkers with adding machines trying to figure if there's gonna be enough money to pay the winners, but real investors who recognized a viable investment. That was over 100 years ago.
To make professional pool what it can be, it must first be made exclusive. The best way to get a man to fight really hard for something is to tell him he can't have it. Maybe it won't take professional pool 100 years to swim in the mainstream, but the last 100 years have shown that the existing model didn't work. It's time for a change.
That's no the point. Pro golf in all of it's iterations, neither needs nor wants dead money.
The reason golf is what it is today is because of Rodman Wanamaker and The PGA of America and a group of men who were willing to look to the future. Not a couple of barkers with adding machines trying to figure if there's gonna be enough money to pay the winners, but real investors who recognized a viable investment. That was over 100 years ago.
To make professional pool what it can be, it must first be made exclusive. The best way to get a man to fight really hard for something is to tell him he can't have it. Maybe it won't take professional pool 100 years to swim in the mainstream, but the last 100 years have shown that the existing model didn't work. It's time for a change.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
Except you are exactly wrong. The "exclusive era" in golf nearly killed the sport in the late 80s and early 90s. Tiger and Nike ushered in the era of muni to pro golf. It is the era of 1st Tee, municipal golf, public schools having teams, and globalization that has saved golf.
Look at the most successful newer tournaments. The Waste Management Open is the hardest spectator ticket in golf next to the Masters. It is a whole week full of regular dudes who play and love golf, most of whom have never belonged to a country club.
I'd wager that fewer than ten, if any, current tour card holders have taken any PAT. The PAT is professional requirement that artificially restricts the supply of driving range pros (I say this as a driving range pro). It, along with requirements like knowing how to stock the pro shop and organizing a kids clinic, help the PGA tour keep salaries for teaching pros reasonable. What's funny is the best instructors don't even bother. Being able to break 75 on a 5500 yd course with all the pins in the middle isn't evidence of any kind of teaching or really playing competence.
What you call "dead money" I call aspiring professionals of varying degrees of seriousness. The 40 year old spending $500 month on coaching may or may not say it, but he thinks that if he could just catch that gear, maybe he could get on the Champions Tour in a few years...after he retires. Same with every local stick who shows up with a 1 HC that never leaves his local to play in a US Open qualifier. They are all "dead money" but they are great golf fans, they contribute huge amounts of money to the industry, and the closer we can keep them to the action and engaged, the better and more profitable fans they make. Want bigger purses, get more spectators, more players, more engagement.
Is the guy who donates a few grand to play in the Pro-Am dead money? I think he's a guy spending some coin to live a dream. It's why we see every 15HC play from 7000 yards and why bigger cups for faster rounds failed. Everyone wants to play like the pros.
Same with everyone on here with tight Diamond tables in the game room. The odds any one of them ever consistently beats Shane or Joshua are pretty much nil, and most would have more fun on easier equipment, but the dream must be fed. Keeping that dream alive in as many people as possible is how you grow participation games like golf and pool.
The PGA Tour of America has been trying and succeeding at expanding access to competitive golf far and wide. They've been spending loads of money and succeeding at growing the game, getting more people playing, enjoying, and competing at golf and the purses have grown as a result. It would be even easier for pool to do the same. We should. It could even be fun.
Nope... player's union (err... association)... totally a better idea.
Tell em Boxcar...
So if you can’t afford $500 for entry you’re riffraff, and if you don’t shoot that well you’re a degenerate drunken hustler? Wow!They would not if there was an actual pro tour with a well-funded organization behind it. MasterCard or Verizon don't care if some players put in an extra $5,000 in entry fees to waste, but they do care that their product is represented by someone not seen as a degenerate drunk hustler LOL Although most reality shows are basically built on people like that, so maybe it's a bonus for pool
That's what I've been advocating for since I opened this thread.
When I talk about exclusivity, I'm talking about the 203 men who won money on the PGA Tour last year. The PGA Tour is so exclusive that just about every kid that got the bug was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make it inside the ropes. Many tried, many failed. Why? Because the guys holding the cards are the BEST in the world. There are over 2000 players on the 2022 professional pool money board. One of the guys won $250,000.00 (before expenses and taxes) while Rory won $1,890,000.00 in one event. Most of the guys won less than $10,000.00. There is no exclusivity in pool.
I love local pool because that is where its heart is. Beer, BS, babes. But this thread is about Professional Pool. If Professional Pool stands a chance of realizing its full potential, it must elevate itself. The best way to do that is through exclusivity. The best way to become exclusive is to form a club, entry into which requires the same kind of dedication and sacrifice required to get a card on Tour.
There is no dead money in Nascar. There is no dead money in the NFL. There is no dead money in the NBA or the NHL, etc., etc. Nothing but the best need apply. Rafael Nadal doesn't need dead money. Why? Because people are willing to fill up venues every weekend or more. Big, nationally known sponsors are there because they want all of those fans to buy their products. The only thing pool has been selling lately is black pool balls.
I'm 77 and I probably won't live long enough to see it. It won't be easy, but nothing worth anything is easy. When I come back in my next life, I'm gonna want to see Professional Pool Players driving around in Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and drinking champagne at Maxims, no more of this stealing catsup packs from MacDonald's just so they can make a catsup sandwich with their last loaf of stale bread.
Get big, or go home. It's that easy.
Boxcar
PGA Middle Atlantic Section
Country Club Assistant Professional and Teaching Professional
And I did it when I was 51 years old just to prove that I could.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
I'm glad we agree on the solution, but I don't understand how 200 on the US PGA tour, or the 100s on the Euro and Asian tours, or the Korn Ferry tour guys are more exclusive than pool. It seems the problem is that pool is already way more exclusive than pro golf. Like three guys make a living playing pool, thousands make a living playing golf; 3<1000s. The point is golf is less exclusive. Loads of people like us work in the industry. There are feeder tours that create jobs. There are club fitters, sales reps, hospitality providers, and on and on, because golfers are a huge market. The larger, less exclusive golf, the game, becomes the bigger the pie. The mega purses come from sponsors selling stuff to regular, dead-money golfers, be that equipment, consulting services, luxury cars.
Most golf fans, unlike NASCAR, NFL, NBA, EPL fans, are themselves golfers and golfers who aspire to test themselves against the standards of the pros. They spend thousands to go play courses that are played on tour. They buy new gear every year to hit that little bit closer to the standard of the pro tour. The rich ones pay huge sums to play inside the ropes in a pro-am or qualifier.
You go to a pro-hockey game, they don't sell helmets and hockey sticks in the concession. At the US Open they'll sell you golf balls, ball markers, divot tools, golf towels and umbrellas.
If the DCC could understand that about 10 percent of the field are there for work and the other ninety percent are customers, they'd really have something. Make the experience fun. Make the food options abundant and good. Host mini-tournaments, skills challenges, and other engagements for the fans (dead-money). Open the game up. That golfers contribute their dead money through hospitality passes, pro-ams, lessons, Monday-morning qualifiers, Rolex watches, $600 Ping drivers, and consulting contracts, doesn't really change the calculous of how to grow a game/industry.
dendweller
Well-known member
Do you think better organization will cause the people to turn off that Pebble Beach tournament to watch a race to 11 in some hotel?
Pools not doing to bad at this point, 10 players making 6 figures plus endorsements. That may be up some next year given the increase in tournaments. Hopefully they have those 30 events the year after.
We disagree. I'm talking about scale. There are 203 money winning PGA Touring Professionals in the entire world and we measure the population in billions now. How many millions world wide want to "Beat the pros."? like Tiger said. Let me suggest that there are high multiples of kids who want to walk in the sunshine on clean green grass than those who want to smell tobacco smoke in a moldy basement. It is the exclusivity of Professional Golf that makes it possible to pay Rory a million nine for 4 days work. So, tell me, which do you prefer, a smoky, moldy basement making chicken feed, or a bright and sunny golf course making large? They are going for the brass in golf. They're going for the cigar band in pool.
Everybody gets to choose. But if you ask Shane if he wants to make $250,000.00 over a years work living in his car or 10 million flying in his private jet, which one do you think he'll pick?
No, but there are vast numbers of people out there who just love to be entertained....and they have money. If you build it, they will come.
If, on the other hand, you accept the status quo, then they probably won't.
Consider this: How hard would it be to capture the imaginations of about a billion more girls. Back in the day, Babe Zaharias and Micky Wright were homely lesbians. Today, Page Spiranic is the face of Women's Golf. Think about it.
nothing can save pool, so much luck involved and non-pool players will get bored watching it.....very very simple!
bring anyone who doesn't play pool and ask them to watch it, I dare you if they continue watching for 50min match!!! I DOUBLE DARE YOU.
My wife leaves me when I watch pool, my father sleeps when I put pool on while he's next to me......Even my wife said I don't like this and sometimes if I put on snooker she watches and enjoys it, go figure!
bring anyone who doesn't play pool and ask them to watch it, I dare you if they continue watching for 50min match!!! I DOUBLE DARE YOU.
My wife leaves me when I watch pool, my father sleeps when I put pool on while he's next to me......Even my wife said I don't like this and sometimes if I put on snooker she watches and enjoys it, go figure!
dendweller
Well-known member
But Boxcar does get 2 points for the picture of Page.
C'mon Man! She's a lead pipe 10 pointer on a rainy day, and you know it!
dendweller
Well-known member
I saw it as a 2 point conversion from a poorly thought out argument, no reflection on page
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
Where on god's earth do you think the 10 million comes from? If we gave every pro pool player of sufficient speed magic decoder rings it wouldn't make the purses any larger. This isn't even a theoretical discussion. In Asia there is bigger money in pool because loads of people play and aspire to be great. They belong to clubs, buy equipment, pay for instruction. The CBSA pays out six figures for a weekend's work. Pool doesn't need to be played in dank basements. Pool fans don't have to be treated like garbage. Other indoor sports manage to have pleasant hospitality experiences.
It is the opposite of exclusivity that makes Rory rich. It's the millions watching on TV, the thousands watching in person, and the sponsors who really want to market to his fans. "The brass" is just a downstream effect of the fans.
Would you suggest that the numerous professional football (soccer) leagues are hurting the earning potential of pro footballers? Le Liga, EPL, Bundas League, MLS, all make more fans and seem not to hurt the earnings potential of pro footballers. Maybe they should get a union and limit global pro footballer cards to 200?
I wasn't arguing, I was preaching!
dendweller
Well-known member
ok, poorly thought out sermon
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing. Remember, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.