Do you think they were tougher because of shot making or because of strategy?
One of the interesting things about pool is that there can be multiple ways to get to the same result. What I mean by that is two guys might both be rated 450, one because he is a lousy shot maker but plays pretty...
I watched the windows open show and Mike P was saying ESPN (actually ESPN+) is just picking up the MR stream and broadcasting it. So most likely it'll be the usual cast of characters and same production.
Pool is not poor because people won't pay to watch it. Pool is poor because it's only interesting to people who play the game. (Actually, that's not even true. It's really only interesting to a small percentage of people who play the game. Most players don't watch it either.)