Total IPT qualifier income vs payouts

Do you want to include the bills for the venues or just the cash payouts? I don't think it would be fair to think that all of the money should be paid out since the venues aren't free along with all of the other things needed to host a tournament.

jimmyg said:

Good point! True, the IPT had expenses other than the prize money. I'd be curious about BOTH sets of numbers, if anyone really knows.

The qualifiers, fees, and number of entrants were listed on the IPT site, so the income from the qualifers and prize money paid can be factually calculated.

Another thread tried to estimate the other IPT production and venue costs
but without knowing what type of arrangements KT had with the hotels, vendors, and partners, it became almost pure speculation.

I think the theory that the qualifiers can fund the tour is closer to becoming reality than I, and many others, originally thought.

Jim

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Most of the numbers {since Deno knows nothing} would have to come from KT. You would be better off to make up your own.

Always Willing To Help (in my own special way)

ironman said:

Most of the numbers {since Deno knows nothing} would have to come from KT. You would be better off to make up your own.

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OK, here are some of my favorite numbers: 9, 12, 45, 116, 747, 1111.
Doug
( oh, and 3407 )

This was hashed over months ago. You might go poking about old threads.

Essentially, doing some simple math and making some estimates on qualifier attendance based on the ten tour-card-slot qualifiers held early in the year, it was figured that qualifier entry fees would *not* cover even the planned payouts - much less the other expenses (labor, venue costs, travel, etc).

And the estimates on qualifier attendance at that time were pretty high compared to the number of folks entering qualifiers as the year rolled on. Qualifier entry counts started off strong and steadily dropped off over time.

jimmyg said:

Are you accusing me of being a "dead thread ghoul"?

Hey, everything on this board has been hashed and re-hashed, that's what the board is for.

Well, if I recall correctly, I believe that someone recently calculated that just the recent qualifiers brought in over $500,000.00. So it's not beyond reason that the IPT has brought in a few million in total qualifier revenue.

Pretty close, maybe more, than what he has paid out.

Jim

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You are probably referring to my calculation which (in 'rounded up' terms) was that if all 100 qualifying events for the 200 places in The 2007 Tour Qualifying Event (originally planned for December 2006) were to take place there would be a total of 500 runners in those 100 events.Out of those 500 runners 250 would have paid entry fees and 250 would have played on free entries,meaning a fee revenue of $500,000/- from the 100 events or an average of $5,000/- per event.To date only 74 of those 100 originally planned events have taken place.

The above figures are essentially estimates but are based on very reliable and quantifiable information and I believe confidence can be placed in them.

Although I have done no calculations for the prevous qualifying events i.e. those held for the vacant tour cards and for The Na Open/World Open slots it is clear that the average fee revenue per event would have been very much higher than $5,000/- for those events.However,notwithstanding that, there is absolutely not a shadow of doubt that the total entry fee revenue from all qualifying competitions to date does not come even remotely close to matching up to prize money paid out so far......without taking any account whatsoever of the costs to stage events.

ScottW said:

This was hashed over months ago. You might go poking about old threads.

Essentially, doing some simple math and making some estimates on qualifier attendance based on the ten tour-card-slot qualifiers held early in the year, it was figured that qualifier entry fees would *not* cover even the planned payouts - much less the other expenses (labor, venue costs, travel, etc).

And the estimates on qualifier attendance at that time were pretty high compared to the number of folks entering qualifiers as the year rolled on. Qualifier entry counts started off strong and steadily dropped off over time.

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Scott is right, I took some time to go through all the revenue from ALL the qualifiers some time ago in this thread: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=43928

The results were very interesting, at the time it showed the IPT payouts where about 1.5m above what they'd brought in through qualifier revenue alone. This IMO is what caused the demise of the IPT. Of course he's taken in at least another half a million since then so he's probably talking about 1 million. Now you have to consider other costs and how much he's taken in through internet sales and sponsorship. We can only guess but what we do know is that there are rumors that referees, venues etc haven't been paid, Diamond covered the costs of all the tables AND added money! We don't know what deal he did with the venues but my guess is he got an excellent deal judging by his deal with Diamond and is obvious negotiating/BS skills.

My feeling is Natural Cures took the hit for the $1m or so deficit (how much TV / Internet advertising did he get again?) and he never used ANY of his OWN money. When he realized he had to find over $5m for Reno and London he $hit himself and the stalls started...

Of course that bottom line of a net loss of $1,423,000 is the best case scenario.

You also have to add in all the special prizes that were awarded during the qualifiers.

Then you also have no way of knowing how much money was actually received for the qualifiers. Many players only put up half the entry fee to win half.

Then there were the players who won an entry by finishing in the top 6 of a previous qualifier.

Then there is the expense of running all the qualifiers and the tournaments. That will add a bundle to the expense side of the sheet.

Income from membership club and sale of products is also an unknown.

However one calculates the numbers there is no way that the IPT is showing a profit. KT is probably a big loser since he put up the front money. I would suspect that Sigel and Deno are the big winners. Sigel for his prize winnings and free trips to California and Deno just for his salary.

Then of course maybe KT didn't put up the front money at all. Maybe he had a silent backer like Trump or Ho. He does toss their names around. Maybe this was nothing but tax write off for someone. Or some group. And KT was just the middle man.

This is worse than playing chess. I am developing an excedrin headache. Time to go push some balls around.

Jake

........Then you also have no way of knowing how much money was actually received for the qualifiers. Many players only put up half the entry fee to win half.......

Then there were the players who won an entry by finishing in the top 6 of a previous qualifier.....

Jake

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By consulting the money list we do in fact know that not a single player who won one of the 10 vacant tour slots via a qualifier nor a single player out of the 100 runners who won starting places via qualifiers for The NA Open or for The World Open (50 in each) entered the qualifiers at half the entry fee so it's a reasonable assumption that on the contrary probably very few players entered qualifiers at half rate and there are therefore unlikely to have been 'many' as you suggest.

As far as the players who won a free entry are concerned as explained my figures were calculated on the basis of the completed qualifiers within the current round of 100 qualifying events for the 2007 tour card event.I can confirm that all free entries are fully taken into account in the estimate of $500,000/- projected fee revenue in total for those 100 events.

I can't recall exactly but am pretty sure that some of the work done by TheOne earlier on estimated fee revenues for the earlier rounds of qualifiers also made reasonable estimates re free entries.

jjinfla said:

...Then there is the expense of running all the qualifiers and the tournaments. That will add a bundle to the expense side of the sheet....

Jake

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As far as qualifiers go, the expenses were paid by the rooms that hosted them. All the IPT did was collect the money and perform the draw.

Str8PoolMan said:

As far as qualifiers go, the expenses were paid by the rooms that hosted them. All the IPT did was collect the money and perform the draw.

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Time was spent in contacting the room and making arrangements.

Time is money.

Someone was working and updating their website with scores. That someone was paid for doing that.

Nothing is free.

Jake

memikey said:

By consulting the money list we do in fact know that not a single player who won one of the 10 vacant tour slots via a qualifier nor a single player out of the 100 runners who won starting places via qualifiers for The NA Open or for The World Open (50 in each) entered the qualifiers at half the entry fee so it's a reasonable assumption that on the contrary probably very few players entered qualifiers at half rate and there are therefore unlikely to have been 'many' as you suggest.

As far as the players who won a free entry are concerned as explained my figures were calculated on the basis of the completed qualifiers within the current round of 100 qualifying events for the 2007 tour card event.I can confirm that all free entries are fully taken into account in the estimate of $500,000/- projected fee revenue in total for those 100 events.

I can't recall exactly but am pretty sure that some of the work done by TheOne earlier on estimated fee revenues for the earlier rounds of qualifiers also made reasonable estimates re free entries.

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I know one person who tried twice at the reduced rate. He knew he didn't stand much of a chance but he thought he would try anyway. I would expect that others who really knew they didn't have a chance in hell to qualify also tried it at the reduced rate.

But I don't know what the figures really are. Even at the high rate it shows that the IPT was losing money.

I was told that the KOTH cost KT 4 Million dollars to produce. I have no idea what the real cost was but it must have been pretty high. Even if it was only 2 million that would eat up all the qualifier money.

Whatever it was, the cashflow was definately negative in a huge way.

Jake

jjinfla said:

....... I would expect that others who really knew they didn't have a chance in hell to qualify also tried it at the reduced rate....

No doubt there were some. All I was pointing out to you was that every single person who qualified in every single qualifier (nearly 100 players in total,some qualified twice) had entered at the full rate and that,even taking into account the sort of no-hoper' mentality of some entrants and taking into account that the 'better' players would have been the ones who qualified and paid full entry, these results 'suggest' that the percentage out of all entrants who paid only half entry fee was probably very small

But I don't know what the figures really are. Even at the high rate it shows that the IPT was losing money......

....Whatever it was, the cashflow was definately negative in a huge way....

Unreservedly agree, and always have done, that the total gross entry fee revenue doesn't remotely approach equalling even just the total of prize money paid out,without considering operating costs

Jake

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No real disagreement here Jake,just a slightly different opinion of the proportion of entrants who paid entries at the 50% rate.

I don't think the total Qualifier entries will even pay the payouts for the first event.

Think Craig (TheOne) has got some figures re the old qualifiers JimmyG.

However in the meantime .......unless my Alzheimers is catching up with me the only qualifying events to take place have been:-

1. The 5 qualifying events for the 10 vacant tour cards.There were about 290 runners @ $2,000/- but around 40 free entries were handed out and used during the course of those so the total fee revenue income can be estimated at $2,000 x 250 = $500,000/-.

2. 25 qualifying events for 50 slots in The NA Open and 25 qualifying events for 50 slots The World Open.I think the first 25 involved $1,000/- entry fees and the next 25 entry fees of $1,500/-.The actual records of the fields for these 50 qualifying events have been removed from the IPT site.Although it is a little high an average estimate in my opinion let's run with an average of 20 per event which you/Timb mentioned and let's assume 4 free entries handed out per event and subsequently used,that means fee revenue of (16 x $1,000 x 25) + (16 x $1,500 x 25) = $1 Million.

3. The current round of 100 qualifying events of which only 74 have so far taken place.The total fee income from those 100 events after 100 events are completed will be approx $500,000/- ( not $ 600,000/- taken in so far as you mention because that ignores free entries).This is the only figure I am very confident about.

The ball park estimated total fee revenue income from all IPT qualifying events up to and including the current uncompleted round of 100 events will therefore be a maximum of 0.5 Million + 1 Million + 0.5 million = 2 Million

Way less than the prize money paid out,without taking any account of operating expenses

Even if the IPT had planned on funding itself through qualifiers alone it would have taken years to get to the point where there was enough participation in them to do so.

It would have taken at least two years in my estimation of holding tournaments with guaranteed payouts to get the full fields in the qualifiers. Forget about whether individual pool players would have been vying for the IPT, it would have been consortiums of backers trying to get their players on to get a slice of the pie. There would have been players coming out of the woodwork and training regimens would have shot up. China would start a national Pool School and hire CueTech to run it

Seriously, can anyone not agree that had Reno been paid out and Chicago Paid out that the qualifier fields would be much larger than they have been?

This is the most poorly ran pyramid scheme I have ever seen. Because IF Trudeau had actually done this according to his statements then people like myself might have either tried to qualify for a shot at next year's tour or might have found a player to stake in the attempt.

Personally, I think the qualifiers were the revenue stream that was least counted on in this adventure. I truly believe that Trudeau is looking to much bigger things than the delicate balance of trying to fund a tour out the pockets of it's participants. He'd have to be. Getting a network to purchase the broadcasting rights, licensing, selling advertising, ticket sales, online subscriptions, these all have to be worth more to the profit outlook than whatever is left over from qualifier income.

No one questions how much Barry Hearn makes through the broadcast of the World Pool Championships. He puts on the event, he pays out, and everyone goes home happy, except for the losers in the round robin of course.....but no one questions whether he is making money or losing it or how he is paying for the promotion. The players do not get any more money for the rebroadcasts. An actor gets royalites every time their shows are shown on television. A singer gets royalties every time their songs are played on the radio. A pool player gets a couple thousand and gets to watch other people make so much more off of his performance for years to come. Does anyone think that Barry Hearn is doing this to lose money? To break even? Is Barry a pool fan that like to dump money into the game for his own gratification? Not from the accounts I read. Barry Hearn is a shrewd businessman who promotes events for a profit.

The IPT has made a grand splash coupled with a grand crash in 2006. Perhaps if Trudeau had partnered with Barry Hearn, we'd be watching the IPT right now with fat and happy players in abundance. Then the players might not care how much money Trudeau and Hearn were making off of them, there would be a slew of guaranteed money tournaments and a long line of players trying to get in them.

When you look at the key decisions throughout the year IMO you'd have to be blind to not realize that they *intended* to fund this tour via qualifiers.

Add to that the very first line of the promo video they produced (stand aside poker there's a new king in town) and deno's bold predictions that he WOULD GET 64 players at each qualifier and its case closed.

If you're still unsure work out how much revenue the IPT would have brought in had they achieved their projected numbers and got 64 players in every qualifier to date. I'd bet if they had got 32 players in every qualifier to date they'd probably have broke even.