Nope, sorry I disagree completely (apart from mismanagement being a huge factor in pools journey towards demise). This slow player trend is not brand new, it's been going on for a few years now. Ruiz and Kaci, the glacial kid and all the rest are slowly but surely ruining the audience experience of every pool fan. It needs to end, right now. These players won't listen to anything but a shot clock. They think they have a huge advantage because they can play well, slowly, while others can't. So they get to ice their opponents arms even when they don't run many racks. They're not going to quit, unless forced. They either need to be uninvited or have a shot clock put on them.
You said yourself that you didn't watch the final, well there's the problem right there. Nobody could watch that whole thing, it was complete torture. The only sponsors that are willing to sponsor something like this, are those that have a sort of stake in the event occuring (pool equipment). If you want pool to grow, it needs to be attractive to other kinds of sponsors. In order for it to be attractive to other sponsors it needs to be watchable. I think it's unrealistic to market pool to the general public, in the West at least, but at least make it watchable for the niche crowds! You may get a few outside sponsors in the same general direction (other game equipment, gambling websites etc). The whole tragedy of the WPC happened because there was no one willing to pay what the WPA wanted, other than the Quatar people. If you want pool out of that shithole, someone will have to come up with a way to make it semi-profitable again. Spending 5 minutes on a simple shot is not the way to do that.
If we disregard the WPC for a moment, slow play is also extremely disruptive to tournaments, causing them to last longer, cost more and generally be more difficult to manage properly. This behavior needs to be eradicated.
