fifty years ago
15bux/hr??? That would end pool for me. Tough to practice at that price. I guess its a tourist spot where the suckers don't really care.
Funny thing, I remember rooms trying to get that price fifty years ago. Greenway wanted fourteen an hour to practice alone forty years ago. While I am as bad as anyone about coming in and playing on the daytime special, all of the costs of doing business have soared. Floor space, employees, insurance, licenses, pick an expense, any expense, and it is likely to be three to ten times higher than it was forty to fifty years ago. However, pool table time is as cheap, often cheaper, than it was fifty years ago.
The real issue for pool halls is that few can operate on a business model where they make money from pool. From a realistic standpoint, if the money has to be in food and drink why not make more room for customers who eat and drink? Can those pool tables compete with a band and a dance floor that can fit five to ten times as many people in the same space?
Long retired, I can't pay fifteen or twenty an hour table rates either. However, in keeping inline with other prices pool rates should be at least fifteen an hour, maybe twice that.
The real reason pool halls struggle is that pool players are unwilling to keep up with the times. That includes me but it doesn't change the situation from a business standpoint. A person has to love pool enough to subsidize their pool tables taking a loss. In terms of floor space, seven footers eat a lot, nine footers are a cancer.
Not an answer I like but pool's worst enemies are the players including me.
Hu
