Now it's Allison Fisher instead of Jeanette Lee "who had to withdraw".
Pool returns to ESPN….
- Thread starter kling&allen
- Start date
Now it's Allison Fisher instead of Jeanette Lee "who had to withdraw".
Perhaps the pro stein holders had too much pride to allow their sport to be featured as part of this lineup.
I still see them on there.
Yes, I see it now. So much for my conspiracy theory. Great relief.
For the sake of the steins and all those meant to receive them, that relief is shared.
Maybe I've got this wrong.
I'm starting to understand the ESPN Ocho idea. Take a series of competitions that are so "off-the wall" that viewers will be hard pressed to believe that such competitions even exist. This is bringing back memories of 1979, when ESPN was new and had a lot of super-obscure competitions such as target diving, hydrofoil racing, arm wrestling and even jump rope events. Just for kicks, I occasionally watched some of that stuff and it was, at times, interesting. If "off-the-wall" obscurity is the most important of the selection criteria for inclusion in the ESPN Ocho lineup, maybe bonus ball is a reasonable choice.
I'm starting to understand the ESPN Ocho idea. Take a series of competitions that are so "off-the wall" that viewers will be hard pressed to believe that such competitions even exist. This is bringing back memories of 1979, when ESPN was new and had a lot of super-obscure competitions such as target diving, hydrofoil racing, arm wrestling and even jump rope events. Just for kicks, I occasionally watched some of that stuff and it was, at times, interesting. If "off-the-wall" obscurity is the most important of the selection criteria for inclusion in the ESPN Ocho lineup, maybe bonus ball is a reasonable choice.
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Ya Mike Molina calls it like he sees it.
One of the better pool podcasters and interviewers aroundLog into Facebook
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Ya Mike Molina calls it like he sees it.
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He's taking it too far imo. He's more concerned with it than Oscar is. It makes him look obsessed.Ya Mike Molina calls it like he sees it.
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Could've been worse. It could've been bumped for a Tonya Harding - Paula Jones rematch.
Did Molina Mike ever make good on the gambling debts he himself skipped out on?Ya Mike Molina calls it like he sees it.
Which ones?
MrEleganza
Member
My thoughts:
1) It's kind of a bummer that ANY form of pool is considered "Ocho" material.
2) It's kind of cool that ANY form of pool is back on ESPN. ESPN may indeed be losing relevance and on its way out, but maybe not....it's still a Disney property that has a big piece of every major pro and college sport. I also think that as of now, ESPN still have many more viewers watching whatever they have on at 3AM than, say, what Matchroom's Youtube channel gets for big events live.
3) I do think/hope that besides its novelty value, the suits do look at which of these programs put up good enough numbers and buzz to warrant a try on non-Ocho programming. Cornhole, believe it or not, gets a lot of play on the ESPN family of network these days.
3a) I'd put the odds that this event starts a small renaissance in pool as a spectator sport and/or pool back on cable TV at less than 10%. But that's still not nothin'.
1) It's kind of a bummer that ANY form of pool is considered "Ocho" material.
2) It's kind of cool that ANY form of pool is back on ESPN. ESPN may indeed be losing relevance and on its way out, but maybe not....it's still a Disney property that has a big piece of every major pro and college sport. I also think that as of now, ESPN still have many more viewers watching whatever they have on at 3AM than, say, what Matchroom's Youtube channel gets for big events live.
3) I do think/hope that besides its novelty value, the suits do look at which of these programs put up good enough numbers and buzz to warrant a try on non-Ocho programming. Cornhole, believe it or not, gets a lot of play on the ESPN family of network these days.
3a) I'd put the odds that this event starts a small renaissance in pool as a spectator sport and/or pool back on cable TV at less than 10%. But that's still not nothin'.
When I was a kid we had like 30 channels to watch on TV. Pool being on ESPN was a big deal because it had a guaranteed captive audience. Even if it competed with popular content, it still had spillover audiences to people that didn’t find that popular content to be their cup of tea. It was a means to discover new audiences.
30 years later with subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu, Peacock, and YouTube I just don’t attribute any significance of any form of pool being on broadcast TV. It’s been over a decade since I even watched broadcast cable TV. Audiences are no longer captive. The spillover crowd will likely be very minimal.
30 years later with subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu, Peacock, and YouTube I just don’t attribute any significance of any form of pool being on broadcast TV. It’s been over a decade since I even watched broadcast cable TV. Audiences are no longer captive. The spillover crowd will likely be very minimal.
Here is the ratings data for espn2, looks like day audience (pool didn’t get the Primetime slot) is less than 100k viewers. Of course that doesn’t count reruns or if this content is streamed on ESPN plus.
I think that’s in the same range as Matchroom’s YouTube streams.
Here is the ratings data for espn2, looks like day audience (pool didn’t get the Primetime slot) is less than 100k viewers. Of course that doesn’t count reruns or if this content is streamed on ESPN plus.
I think that’s in the same range as Matchroom’s YouTube streams.
It’s averaging like 85k which is 72% of what it was this time last year (118k). Hit shows are around 5-6 million viewers. Sports Center is like 900k viewers. The overall trend of ESPN downsizing is a straight reaction to viewership shifting to streaming services. Pair that with ESPN streaming offerings losing subscribers in big swaths. It does kind of lend to my analogy of trying to get on the Titanic as it sinks. People really overestimate the significance of ESPN to pool.
Today noon central time.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
It's happening. They are playing all six pockets, "in the interest of time."
I have never seen this game before. Does anyone know if it has an official name or is this something ESPN made up for the show?
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
It seems to be called "pro cue sports" which really rolls off the tongue. Looking forward to playing some amateur pro cue sports pool ball game when sets go on sale.