I think it would be a big win to get billiards to show up in Apple News somehow. Seems like something Billiards Digest could tie into.
Mainstream Media and Matchroom's WNT WPC
- Thread starter JAM
- Start date
From the uk sun:
Full
From the Arab news:
Full article Link
as mainstream as my google-fu could find...
As far as ESPN, the last article on SNOOKER, was 3 years ago on the ESPN app...nothing on pool
Full
From the Arab news:
Full article Link
as mainstream as my google-fu could find...
As far as ESPN, the last article on SNOOKER, was 3 years ago on the ESPN app...nothing on pool
To your excellent comment I'd only add that if you want another pool player with an incredibly dramatic backstory, maybe even more so than Gorst's, try Mohammed Soufi. After his runnerup finish in the 2023 WPC, I tried to get a friend of mine who reviews books for the NY Times to pitch Soufi's story to a few Times editors. He thought the story was a natural, but all he got was crickets.
One possible outlet I haven't seen mentioned is The Athletic, which is what the NY Times uses for sports news since they folded their sports section. It might be worth a shot, as you can see they cover sports well beyond the Big Four.
You might get a better response with Fedor. The Ukraine war is still somewhat topical, it has a US connection and it has tidy ‘finish’ to the narrative with a World Championship win under the US banner.
Mainstream media has a plethora of communication platforms and information dissemination mechanisms, online and print. Most print newspapers today have a large online presence because print-only media can't pay the bills.
Social media has a variety of online platforms that enable users to interact and engage with each other. Social media platforms are, indeed, a great resource for fans seeking real-time updates, like we do here in AzBilliards and Facebook, and interactive content during sports events, such as chat boxes adjacent to pool podcasts and live streams.
Mainstream media could attract new interest in pool and elevate the popularity in the sports world. Social media is a great way to keep those of us that already are interested in pool connected and updated. But I'm not sure social media can attract new interest in the sport the same way mainstream media can because of the target audience. The target audience in social media in pool is us. The target audience in mainstream media is subscribers, many of whom may not be pool enthusiasts or people like us on AzBilliards. An article about Fedor Gorst and his journey in the pool world, as elegantly described by sjm, just might attract new interest in pool.
Just my opinion, of course.
Using AI?
Lou Figueroa
nonsensical
One of the WPC YouTube free live streams towards the end got 700k viewers. I'd like to see total viewers including matchroom.live, DAZN, and the multiple broadcast channels. I think Matchroom's dream final would have been China against the Philippines, as far as viewership goes.
Matchroom Pool on YouTube has had a total of about 200M views.
Interestingly, 423k YouTube subscribers for the WNT is more than the World Snooker Tour. On the other hand, I watch a channel about serious math stuff that has 6M subscribers, and a wise-ass 20-something cook who has 17M subscribers.
tend to agree but i doubt the last statement.
I agree, Fedor's story and what's transpired for him in the ensuing years is a great one, capped by his World Championship and the huge payday. I think the people at MR know exactly what they are doing, bringing big money tournaments to a worldwide audience. This last event alone will bring a lot of new young players onto the felt, after seeing how much money can be won playing pool. Thanks to MR our sport is growing by leaps and bounds, and I fully expect to see more poolrooms open up everywhere during the next few years. That's the reality I see and my forecast for the future.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Efren won 500K in the final IPT tourney. Truedough deducted 30% (150K) for U.S. Taxes but Efren did eventually get the other 350K, even though it took a couple of years. Unlike the IPT, MR is here to stay!
The claim has been that this $250k is the largest prize in 9-ball history. The IPT World Open event was 8-Ball.
Sorry Jay, but Fedor's payday was, as I suggested, the biggest in 9ball history. Efren's win at the IPT was in 8ball. I believe Efren won approximately $185,000 at the Japan Open 9-ball, but never as much as $250,000.
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Knowing Matchroom and their close affiliation with Sky Sports, I can tell you that they 100% did not drop the ball. The sad fact is that mainstream sports outlets do not currently care about pool, as the vast majority of the public don't know of or care about the players.
Matchroom's secret sauce has always been to make the public care who wins or loses and that is something that will take time (if at all possible), especially in the US.
It is the model that made snooker a mainstream sport in the UK and snooker players household names. My 78 year old mum, who has never played snooker, still watches all of the snooker tournaments and cheers on certain players and against others. She is not an outlier, a lot of the public are just emotionally invested in the players. This is why they do their little segments on players away from the sport, so that people can from an opinion on the players as people.
For pool to get to that point, I think they need a prime Earl or as they were elite players with charisma that everyone had an opinion about.
Emotional investment is key to viewership, not just in sport but across all media.
Matchroom's secret sauce has always been to make the public care who wins or loses and that is something that will take time (if at all possible), especially in the US.
It is the model that made snooker a mainstream sport in the UK and snooker players household names. My 78 year old mum, who has never played snooker, still watches all of the snooker tournaments and cheers on certain players and against others. She is not an outlier, a lot of the public are just emotionally invested in the players. This is why they do their little segments on players away from the sport, so that people can from an opinion on the players as people.
For pool to get to that point, I think they need a prime Earl or as they were elite players with charisma that everyone had an opinion about.
Emotional investment is key to viewership, not just in sport but across all media.
Sky Sports in the UK is their ESPN and they did mention the World Pool Championships, although it falls under Snooker in their site taxonomy. They are of course broadcasting in the UK on their smaller channels (Sky Sports Arena), but this is as mainstream as pool will currently get. https://www.skysports.com/more-spor...ez-ruiz-will-defend-his-title-in-saudi-arabia
In addition, I also saw that the US version of The Sun (a major UK newspaper) also published an article on the World Pool Championships. Those press releases will have gone out to every major news/sports outlet, but persuading them to invest time and real estate publishing a story that has a very niche audience is a tough sell. https://www.the-sun.com/sport/11487281/world-pool-championship-2024-schedule-results/
In addition, I also saw that the US version of The Sun (a major UK newspaper) also published an article on the World Pool Championships. Those press releases will have gone out to every major news/sports outlet, but persuading them to invest time and real estate publishing a story that has a very niche audience is a tough sell. https://www.the-sun.com/sport/11487281/world-pool-championship-2024-schedule-results/
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I am in the news business. There is no chance of a story like this making news in the U.S.
Almost all newspapers have thin staffing and reporters cover only the big stuff. There is of course no beat for pool and many games like it. Sports writers have zero clue about the game and the big figures in it.
Heck, before I got back into pool 2 1/2 years ago after a 30-year absence, I had no idea who Efren Reyes was, never mind Earl Strickland or SVB. I was only familiar with Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi from distance childhood memories.
Not surprisingly, few journalists play pool. I live in DC and I am around many, many journalists. I don't know any that play, and if it comes up that I play, other journalists give me a quizzical look.
The only way something like the WPC would get written up is if AP or Reuters wrote about. That is, a major newswire service.
Even if an editor with surprising knowledge of pool wanted a story, no one is going to send a reporter to Saudi Arabia or any international destination. Newspapers can't even afford to send reporters to many locales in the U.S. because of cost. They would need to get a story from a wire.
In any case, AP has a diminished presence overseas and the agency hasn't written about pool in decades.
A quick search turned up just two AP articles on pool. including one in Zimbabwe, in the last 10 years. Both were feature-ry kind of stories by feature writers. AP has written a few articles on snooker in the UK.
Reuters has only covered Snooker, and barely. Couldn't find a single article on pool in the last 10 years.
There is basically zero appetite for billiard news among U.S. reporters and editors. The only reason 60 Minutes did an article on SVB a few years ago is because one of the show's journalists was into pool. I am still shocked they did a TV hit on the industry.
Nothing MR can do about the state of affairs, sadly.
Almost all newspapers have thin staffing and reporters cover only the big stuff. There is of course no beat for pool and many games like it. Sports writers have zero clue about the game and the big figures in it.
Heck, before I got back into pool 2 1/2 years ago after a 30-year absence, I had no idea who Efren Reyes was, never mind Earl Strickland or SVB. I was only familiar with Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi from distance childhood memories.
Not surprisingly, few journalists play pool. I live in DC and I am around many, many journalists. I don't know any that play, and if it comes up that I play, other journalists give me a quizzical look.
The only way something like the WPC would get written up is if AP or Reuters wrote about. That is, a major newswire service.
Even if an editor with surprising knowledge of pool wanted a story, no one is going to send a reporter to Saudi Arabia or any international destination. Newspapers can't even afford to send reporters to many locales in the U.S. because of cost. They would need to get a story from a wire.
In any case, AP has a diminished presence overseas and the agency hasn't written about pool in decades.
A quick search turned up just two AP articles on pool. including one in Zimbabwe, in the last 10 years. Both were feature-ry kind of stories by feature writers. AP has written a few articles on snooker in the UK.
Reuters has only covered Snooker, and barely. Couldn't find a single article on pool in the last 10 years.
There is basically zero appetite for billiard news among U.S. reporters and editors. The only reason 60 Minutes did an article on SVB a few years ago is because one of the show's journalists was into pool. I am still shocked they did a TV hit on the industry.
Nothing MR can do about the state of affairs, sadly.
I also have a news background (Sky Sports, CNN, NYDailyNews, etc) and this is spot on! The only way that this will change is if people care about who wins or loses and there is an appetite for the public to consume news about the sport.
Just look at what Matchroom has done with darts. They have sold the personalities to the public, so people care who wins and who loses. The recent world final had 4.8 million viewers and they recently had a big event at Madison Square Garden.
Matchroom know what they are doing, but they need personalities to work with and except a handful of extroverts there are very few.
Perhaps so, but the sport needs characters, and I am not sure many will develop if most top stars come from Europe and Asia. The players are just so polite and professional.
It's no surprise the biggest characters in pool have largely come from three countries, US, Britain and Philippines. But the U.S. isn't producing any more characters. Britain still does, as Jason Shaw has shown. But the isles don't produce too many pool greats. And the filipinos have even gotten more polite.
Pool could use some of those backroom characters without all the smoke, whiskey and gambling.
Agreed. Who should be training today's young players on dramatic presentation? Oi, Shaw, Thorpe....? That could be quite a clinic!