sports illustrated.

I heard....

This months Sports Illustrated was supposed to feature an article about Danny Basavich, but I heard they held that story back to publish the Kobe Bryant record score.
Im beggining to think, pool is a religion not a sport.

Maybe the answer is Chess Pool. I think I could play Efren in that if he gave me the kings pawn and the breaks.

Terry

Some people don't get it.

SI and ESPN are both profit making organizations. They publish what the people want to read about; Football, baseball, basketball and Ice Hockey. Pool is nothing more than an alternative interest activity. I consider it a sport, but many consider pool to be simply a game.
I don't see anyone complaining that they don't cater the crowd who follows "womens volleyball".

Get Over it All Ready

I hate to say this because I love pool, but they dont put in SI very often and it never makes sportscenter because most people dont give a s***. Pool is way way way way down on the list as far as sports go in this country. No one wants to watch it and no body wants to read about it. We, as pool players, just have to accept it. Pool will never be as big as we want it to be. In fact, Im glad that pool isnt a big deal. I once heard someone say that Kevin Trudeau was gonna make pool as big as golf and they actually buy into that stuff. You must be out of your mind if you think pool is gonna be anywhere close to golf. Pool is no different than darts or crochet (sp)...yet, it is still my favorite game. Most people, however, could really care less.

There's an SI website link on the front page of the IPT website: http://www.internationalpooltour.com

There's a sentence mentioning POOL: "Pressure performance Generally regarded as the world's best player, Efren Reyes won the inaugural International Pool Tour event, the $1 million King of the Hill 8-Ball Shootout."

Albeit very short, but a mention!

JAM

Instead of SI, you should be picking up your copy of "Obscure Sports Quarterly". There's an ad in the latest issue for a $50k dodgeball tourney even, I hear...

There's lots of sports that aren't covered in SI. Usually the people involved in those sports are the ones who are the most vocal about their exclusion - I don't see anyone here on a pool forum bemoaning the lack of bowling coverage in SI Besides, SI tends to go for the more athletic-oriented sports, and even then, many are left out - cycling, for example. Sure, there's the bits about Lance Armstrong winning Tour de France over and over - but that's the exception. There is a strong pro cycling presence here in the US, and cycling is a very physical activity (I ride both road and mountain), but you don't see it in SI regularly.

Jaden said:

I was reading a sports illustrated the other day and I checked to see if there were anything in there at all about pool. Guess what... NADA!!!!!; however, there were plaenty of things about football baseball, basketball, Hockey, boxing, tennis, table tennis, Chess boxing? what the "F" is that?

I'll tell you what it is..... It's alternating rounds of boxing and chess. Boxers box each other for a round and then sit down in the middle of the ring and play chess for a round.......

If that's a sport worthy of inclusion in sports illustrated, why can't they include something about pool...? I guarantee there are more pool players and people out there interested in pool than people interested in chess boxing, table tennis, bad mitten or whatever other piece of crap sports that they do include.

I mean the more I see that pool isn't in the sports arena the more it seems like a friggin conspiracy against pool..... That was not intended as an euphamism about actual conspiracies people...... Just thought I'd be clear about that.

It just seems ridiculous that pool hasn;t gotten the respect that it deserves......It is an extremely difficult sport and the people at the top of it deserve a little recognition. How many other sports that can be are played at near perfect levels by those that are best at it?

Oh WELL..... enough of my banter.....

Click to expand...

Things have certainly declined in respect to Sports Illustrated. I cancelled my subscription about 10 years ago for this same reason! Funny thing is, a good buddy of mine stopped by the other day with a little gift for me. It's a 1963 Sports Illustrated with a great article about Johnson City. It even has characatures of a lot of the famous players, including my old friend and his wife, Joey & Marie Spaeth (mother and father of Gary Spaeth, my old road partner). It's great!


just more hot air!
Sherm

cuesmith said:

Things have certainly declined in respect to Sports Illustrated. I cancelled my subscription about 10 years ago for this same reason! Funny thing is, a good buddy of mine stopped by the other day with a little gift for me. It's a 1963 Sports Illustrated with a great article about Johnson City. It even has characatures of a lot of the famous players, including my old friend and his wife, Joey & Marie Spaeth (mother and father of Gary Spaeth, my old road partner). It's great!

Click to expand...

Wow, Sherm, that's a collector's item. Priceless! Do share some of the highlights of the article.

JAM

If you are wandering why the media does not take pool seriously read the thread about John Schmidt being banned over a matter of 400 dollars and a round of golf.

When I read the initial post on this thread I did not know whether to cry or laugh out loud. I am not going to play golf though I love pool too much.

Jaden said:

I was reading a sports illustrated the other day and I checked to see if there were anything in there at all about pool. Guess what... NADA!!!!!; however, there were plaenty of things about football baseball, basketball, Hockey, boxing, tennis, table tennis, Chess boxing? what the "F" is that?

I'll tell you what it is..... It's alternating rounds of boxing and chess. Boxers box each other for a round and then sit down in the middle of the ring and play chess for a round.......

If that's a sport worthy of inclusion in sports illustrated, why can't they include something about pool...? I guarantee there are more pool players and people out there interested in pool than people interested in chess boxing, table tennis, bad mitten or whatever other piece of crap sports that they do include.

I mean the more I see that pool isn't in the sports arena the more it seems like a friggin conspiracy against pool..... That was not intended as an euphamism about actual conspiracies people...... Just thought I'd be clear about that.

It just seems ridiculous that pool hasn;t gotten the respect that it deserves......It is an extremely difficult sport and the people at the top of it deserve a little recognition. How many other sports that can be are played at near perfect levels by those that are best at it?

Oh WELL..... enough of my banter.....

Click to expand...

One of the senior writers for SI (Jon Wertheim) was at Derby City. Look for his story in the issue after the Super Bowl issue (maybe in two weeks).

He didnt know who Tom Fox was!

jay helfert said:

One of the senior writers for SI (Jon Wertheim) was at Derby City. Look for his story in the issue after the Super Bowl issue (maybe in two weeks).

Click to expand...

I cut into Jon Wertheim at DCC when I heard he was from SI. I was amazed to discover that he didnt have a clue as to who Tom Fox was. (Tom Fox was the writer from Sports Illustrated that did the fabulous story in SI about Johnston City,1962, "A Hustlers Holiday In The Lions Den." He also co-authored Minnesota Fat's book, "The Bank Shot and Other Great Robbery's." For years he was the only mainstream writer to give a hoot about pool. Correct me, but hasn't Tom Fox been nominated for the BCA HOF? This will give you some idea of the pool knowledge and background Mr. Wertheim has about our game, and just how much he referenced it before he came to DCC. To not know that the most famous mainstream pool writer came from your own magazine is unforgiveable. Jay, with good intentions, you steered him into me for some comments and an interview. When I unknowingly brought up Tom Fox, he was so embarassed he quickly brushed me off and ducked me the rest of the tourney.

the Beard

Bank on, brother!

Jon Wertheim, Danny Basavich, and Lions Gate

The first time I ever met the SI writer, Jon Wertheim, was in November 2004 at the Glass City Open. He came to Toledo to work with Danny "Kid Delicious" Basavich on an article about him and Bristol Bob's road adventures, which eventually did publish on the SI website.

Later on, a movie production company caught wind and took an interest in Danny's story. Jon Wertheim is going to be working with Lions Gate as he is writing a book as well as a screen play.

About a month ago, I spoke to Jon on the phone, and he is still dilligently working on Danny's story. I told him that he would benefit from going to the DCC in Louisville because many of the players he was interested in talking to would be there. The movie production company, Lions Gate, suffered a financial blow last year due to one of the actors that had passed away during filming. They lost several millions of dollars is what I was told.

Jon Wertheim is still working on Danny's story and is continuing to gather data from anywhere and everywhere as it pertains to pool. I can't wait to see the end product when he's done, the book AND the movie. He sure is a fantastic writer, IMHO.

Here is a picture of Jon Wertheim that was taken in November 2004 at the Glass City Open by Diana Hoppe [Poolpics by Hoppe].
http://azbilliards.com/gallery/showpicture.cfm?eventnum=75&photographernum=1&picnum=4623

Here is a link to the Lions Gate website about the Kid Delicious movie:
http://movies.about.com/od/moviesinproduction/a/delicious051105.htm

JAM

Jaden said:

They do though. There are articles that have been on women's volleyball, and what about chess boxing? c'mon Gregg.... I'm saying that there are a lot of supposed sports that ARE covered in sports illustrated that people don't want to hear about as much as pool, but yet we still never see anything on pool?

Click to expand...

I'm sure chess-boxing was only in there because it was unusual and will not be covered on a regular basis.
Frankly, what it comes down to is pool, assuming it is a sport which some people wouldn't agree with, is not popular enough to warrant inclusion in SI. Yes, women's volleyball is more popular than pool. Pool will occassionally be mentioned in SI with about the same frequency as other backwater (in terms of fan interest) sports.
Sorry, but we represent the core of the fan base for pool. Maybe double or triple the member count of AZB and you're in the ballpark of the fan count for pool. I'd even say the majority of league members (any league) wouldn't sit down and watch a match.

catscradle said:

I'm sure chess-boxing was only in there because it was unusual and will not be covered on a regular basis.
Frankly, what it comes down to is pool, assuming it is a sport which some people wouldn't agree with, is not popular enough to warrant inclusion in SI. Yes, women's volleyball is more popular than pool. Pool will occassionally be mentioned in SI with about the same frequency as other backwater (in terms of fan interest) sports.
Sorry, but we represent the core of the fan base for pool. Maybe double or triple the member count of AZB and you're in the ballpark of the fan count for pool. I'd even say the majority of league members (any league) wouldn't sit down and watch a match.

Click to expand...

See I just don't get this, why do Americans (in general) think that people don't want to watch billiards/pool on TV? In the UK Snooker is watched more than golf (and many people think snooker is not as exciting as pool), the VAST majority of the audience are people that have never played the game! In 1985 over HALF the nation stayed up past midnight on a Sunday to watch the end of the World Final (over 15 million people!)

In Asia star sports shows pool (9 ball) daily, a huge number of hours are dedicated to pool. In europe pool and snooker are also showed a great deal. In China 100 million people watched young ding win his first snooker final last year.

Please explain to me why you and other people still believe that any billiard sport can not attract viewers on TV????

I just don't get it?

TheOne said:

Please explain to me why you and other people still believe that any billiard sport can not attract viewers on TV????

I just don't get it?

Click to expand...

I agree...I don't get it either.

If I had to guess, I would think that competition among the other sports here in America is just too great. It's the same reason why the most popular sport in the world, soccer (or football to you Europeans), is shown even less than billiards here in America. The mainstream is just dominated with the other "American" sports, such as baseball, American football, and basketball (and also car racing). Those sports, along with golf, are the only sports that get primetime coverage. Everything else (soccer, billiards, tennis, water polo) just can't compete.

jsp said:

I agree...I don't get it either.

If I had to guess, I would think that competition among the other sports here in America is just too great. It's the same reason why the most popular sport in the world, soccer (or football to you Europeans), is shown even less than billiards here in America. The mainstream is just dominated with the other "American" sports, such as baseball, American football, and basketball (and also car racing). Those sports, along with golf, are the only sports that get primetime coverage. Everything else (soccer, billiards, tennis, water polo) just can't compete.

Click to expand...

I agree, too.

Reason being, IMHO, is that billiards on TV here in the States hasn't been showcased or presented in a manner to attract mainstream Americans, the layperson if you will. Americans are known to have strong competitors in baseball, basketball, and football. Baseball is traditionally an American pastime, and young American children participate in softball games and sports activities in school at a young age, but not too many of them are familiar with pool.

In the "Filipinos Dominance in Pool" thread on this forum a while back, I was fascinated with some of the posters' contributions. In Philippines, pool is the Filipino pastime, with children learning the game/sport at a very young age, as it is in other overseas countries.

In England and Canada, snooker is quite popular, as is soccer or rugby. So there's hope in England and Canada for pool to gain momentum as a sport.

In the past, when pool has been broadcast on American TV like ESPN, I think it is difficult for the layperson to grasp onto the excitement that we in the pool culture enjoy. Players seem like robots and are sometimes emotionless. Pool doesn't have much of a personality on American TV.

If some entity, maybe the IPT, can create a platform for pool on TV which is exciting to the layperson, I believe it will be a hit. Who would have thought that poker would have taken off the way it has?! It's the personality of the pool that is so dull here in the States.

As an aside, I am impressed that the UPA Championship will include amateur competitive events at Binions in Las Vegas coming up in March. This is a new era, and I think it is a very good move for the UPA to branch out and bring in new players to the sport. I am anxious to see how this baby unfolds and applaud Dragon/UPA's efforts in this regard.

JMHO, FWIW!

JAM

TheOne said:

See I just don't get this, why do Americans (in general) think that people don't want to watch billiards/pool on TV? In the UK Snooker is watched more than golf (and many people think snooker is not as exciting as pool), the VAST majority of the audience are people that have never played the game! In 1985 over HALF the nation stayed up past midnight on a Sunday to watch the end of the World Final (over 15 million people!)

In Asia star sports shows pool (9 ball) daily, a huge number of hours are dedicated to pool. In europe pool and snooker are also showed a great deal. In China 100 million people watched young ding win his first snooker final last year.

Please explain to me why you and other people still believe that any billiard sport can not attract viewers on TV????

I just don't get it?

Click to expand...

I am one with The One on this. I'm also thinking that as we Baby Boomers age, active sports may be less interesting to us and the delicate nuances of fine pool could fill that gap in entertainment. Plus, we'll actually be able to go to a table and pretend that we can shoot just as good as a real pro.

Age is one reason I gave up golf---I knew I couldn't play at the level I was accustomed to for much longer. I know of people my age that gave up tennis years ago because of bad knees, etc. and that exodus hurt the viewership of that sport. Perhaps basketball and football etc. will seem less and less interesting to the largest market, BBs, and pool will flourish. The older I get, the more I see it this way, but that's me, not everyone....except The One.

Jeff Livingston