All the non-american players that qualify can get work visas and live near by where they'll be playing on a regular basis.
What will it take to Jump start Pool in America
- Thread starter DrawtheRock
- Start date
Tell mark to call me or give me as number now call him
A dedicated youtube channel that covers pool all over USA would be a good start.
Include amateur and pro events.
Include amateur and pro events.
Free table time
Do away with free pool as a business model.
Maybe just at happy hour a couple of hours per day.
Most things of value have a price.
I’m okay with discounted pool rates for a particular demographic, but free pool when you eat or drink, no way. The food is only so-so anyway.
Do away with free pool as a business model.
Maybe just at happy hour a couple of hours per day.
Most things of value have a price.
I’m okay with discounted pool rates for a particular demographic, but free pool when you eat or drink, no way. The food is only so-so anyway.
The bigger $$ sports pushed out televised billiards. That hurt. For a while. Ironically, now streaming services are killing TV broadcasting, and the billiards industry is in a much better position to control its destiny.
Someone mentioned City Parks and Rec activity programs. This is actually brilliant. Pulling this off (in my city) would only take a coupe people who know billiards, and minimal organization (and maybe a table manufacturer to cut a good deal on a few tables). The city is thirsty for "new" ideas for community activities. And millennials are wired toward "communal" activities.
Someone mentioned City Parks and Rec activity programs. This is actually brilliant. Pulling this off (in my city) would only take a coupe people who know billiards, and minimal organization (and maybe a table manufacturer to cut a good deal on a few tables). The city is thirsty for "new" ideas for community activities. And millennials are wired toward "communal" activities.
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If Pros can't make a respectable living playing pool at the highest level, then what chance do the amateurs have at build this sport up from the bottom? A respectable living comes with a consistent pay check to more than a few players!!
Hehehe, I really did get a good chuckle at the response to my reply that said, really long posts in 10 year old threads probably won't do it. We are in agreement there. I suppose, by being a post in a 10-year old thread, that I wouldn't really have to worry so much about the niceties of writing with an economy of words or even with a reasonable amount of white-space with paragraphs. I will probably come back to this thread 10 years from now, to see if I can make a longer one that will also have no effect. Hell, I couldn't even figure out how to post it, and it posted twice, and then I couldn't delete one. There is a reason I should go back into lurking about.
I did very much like how the conversation got going about what Mark Wilson is doing, and in fact, am not all that far away from this area, where there is always a possibility in contributing to such a great set of ideas. Of course, a guy who posts long-winded messages on 10 year old posts, is unlikely to be able to do something like that, but weirder things have happened. In fact, now wouldn't be the worst time for me to talk to him, in that vein, because of some unique circumstances I find myself in. I live in Evansville, IN which is about midway between Mark's Lindenwood Program and The Derby City Classic going on now. Most of those colleges named above are a stone's throw from here, and the reason I posted to a 10-year old post was because my old partner in our pool projects commented on it, and the 10-year perspective on things was kind of interesting to me personally.
The unique problem that I have, is that we were doing a lot of projects together over the last 6 years that would benefit greatly from a youth education and/or pool in schools program as well as a pool program at one of Evansville's two universities. It is my contention that one need not be a world-beater or even particularly good at pool to contribute greatly to the community in meaningful ways, and well, I guess that I have ultimately been proven wrong, yet by sheer happenstance, I find myself, being asked to take control of 8 Diamond Red-Label Bar Boxes, with a specific goal of starting a youth development and education program, with a possible scholarship to be given out annually to the most improved player, or best player in the program, in honor of their father who passed away suddenly in November. These projects I spoke of, above, included starting a BCA League, A Livestreaming Service, Providing PBIA Certified Instruction Locally, Improving Local Tournaments with beefed-up marketing and excitement driven by taking the best practices of larger tournaments and applying the lessons locally, in addition to trying to open up a pool hall that would also house a pool program for education of both young and old.
Let's just say, there is a small group of people who have been busy little bees over the last 6 years, trying to do these kinds of things, and have even had some real bonafide successes such as getting the 8 Diamond Tables in a prime location(In my mind at least), and hosting several tournament series that included $500 and $1,000 added tournaments, with a number of professionals, such as Sky Woodward, Nick Varner, Ray Shultz and Fedor Gorst over the course of the last 4 months. Unfortunately, people just can't seem to get along, and while surely my long-windedness is a turn-off, it can't be that alone. You see, I was kind of lamenting the lack of people working together for great things, because this pool hall with its educational wing and pro-shop and repair shop that me and my business partner who passed away were working on, is unlikely to come to fruition. I split off from my old partners, (one of which is in this thread) in order to pursue this project when they didn't think it was possible, and didn't believe my blathering on about it was worth listening to. So, now, I am being pushed to come up with what to do with the tables that were bought to jumpstart this project by my late partner, now that his grown children have inherited them without knowing what to do.
It is my thought that since we can't get along well enough to do the whole project as a group, that working to donate some to a program for high schools, and a few from a college program might make some sense, as does selling some for the expressed purpose of starting a scholarship fund. This area is rich in pool history, and people like Mark Wilson, Durbin, and Diamond Billiards Products being relatively nearby make it a pretty good fit to actually talk to Mark about these ideas, not because we have the know-how of Mark Wilson, but for a bunch of nobodies we have made pretty strong relationships with Nick Varner and Sky Woodward as well as others, in addition to the ability to livestream quite effectively multiple tables between the two groups, as well as having a PBIA Certified Instructor in our small group of people that have worked together in the past, and we have until the end of February to get either get a deal done for the pool hall or move the 8 Diamond Pool Tables to who knows where.
Well, maybe Mark Wilson could do worse than calling up some crazy guy who is long-winded on decade old posts, and maybe his program could get another college on board. Of course, he knows more people that can move the needle than I ever will, but this unique situation is oddly enough a problem for me, when it really should be part of the answer for at least for making some small dent in the problem. I sent him a friend request a long time ago, and your comment SFC9Ball, makes it at least possible that something good could come about as a result of my strange posting behavior. By all means, if you do talk to him, let him know my strange delemma, that a few good words from the right people might actually convince some people to not just give up and sell some tables to the highest bidder, when the guy who bought them and died wanted something that addresses a lot of what we agree upon, even 3 years before we knew each other.
I did very much like how the conversation got going about what Mark Wilson is doing, and in fact, am not all that far away from this area, where there is always a possibility in contributing to such a great set of ideas. Of course, a guy who posts long-winded messages on 10 year old posts, is unlikely to be able to do something like that, but weirder things have happened. In fact, now wouldn't be the worst time for me to talk to him, in that vein, because of some unique circumstances I find myself in. I live in Evansville, IN which is about midway between Mark's Lindenwood Program and The Derby City Classic going on now. Most of those colleges named above are a stone's throw from here, and the reason I posted to a 10-year old post was because my old partner in our pool projects commented on it, and the 10-year perspective on things was kind of interesting to me personally.
The unique problem that I have, is that we were doing a lot of projects together over the last 6 years that would benefit greatly from a youth education and/or pool in schools program as well as a pool program at one of Evansville's two universities. It is my contention that one need not be a world-beater or even particularly good at pool to contribute greatly to the community in meaningful ways, and well, I guess that I have ultimately been proven wrong, yet by sheer happenstance, I find myself, being asked to take control of 8 Diamond Red-Label Bar Boxes, with a specific goal of starting a youth development and education program, with a possible scholarship to be given out annually to the most improved player, or best player in the program, in honor of their father who passed away suddenly in November. These projects I spoke of, above, included starting a BCA League, A Livestreaming Service, Providing PBIA Certified Instruction Locally, Improving Local Tournaments with beefed-up marketing and excitement driven by taking the best practices of larger tournaments and applying the lessons locally, in addition to trying to open up a pool hall that would also house a pool program for education of both young and old.
Let's just say, there is a small group of people who have been busy little bees over the last 6 years, trying to do these kinds of things, and have even had some real bonafide successes such as getting the 8 Diamond Tables in a prime location(In my mind at least), and hosting several tournament series that included $500 and $1,000 added tournaments, with a number of professionals, such as Sky Woodward, Nick Varner, Ray Shultz and Fedor Gorst over the course of the last 4 months. Unfortunately, people just can't seem to get along, and while surely my long-windedness is a turn-off, it can't be that alone. You see, I was kind of lamenting the lack of people working together for great things, because this pool hall with its educational wing and pro-shop and repair shop that me and my business partner who passed away were working on, is unlikely to come to fruition. I split off from my old partners, (one of which is in this thread) in order to pursue this project when they didn't think it was possible, and didn't believe my blathering on about it was worth listening to. So, now, I am being pushed to come up with what to do with the tables that were bought to jumpstart this project by my late partner, now that his grown children have inherited them without knowing what to do.
It is my thought that since we can't get along well enough to do the whole project as a group, that working to donate some to a program for high schools, and a few from a college program might make some sense, as does selling some for the expressed purpose of starting a scholarship fund. This area is rich in pool history, and people like Mark Wilson, Durbin, and Diamond Billiards Products being relatively nearby make it a pretty good fit to actually talk to Mark about these ideas, not because we have the know-how of Mark Wilson, but for a bunch of nobodies we have made pretty strong relationships with Nick Varner and Sky Woodward as well as others, in addition to the ability to livestream quite effectively multiple tables between the two groups, as well as having a PBIA Certified Instructor in our small group of people that have worked together in the past, and we have until the end of February to get either get a deal done for the pool hall or move the 8 Diamond Pool Tables to who knows where.
Well, maybe Mark Wilson could do worse than calling up some crazy guy who is long-winded on decade old posts, and maybe his program could get another college on board. Of course, he knows more people that can move the needle than I ever will, but this unique situation is oddly enough a problem for me, when it really should be part of the answer for at least for making some small dent in the problem. I sent him a friend request a long time ago, and your comment SFC9Ball, makes it at least possible that something good could come about as a result of my strange posting behavior. By all means, if you do talk to him, let him know my strange delemma, that a few good words from the right people might actually convince some people to not just give up and sell some tables to the highest bidder, when the guy who bought them and died wanted something that addresses a lot of what we agree upon, even 3 years before we knew each other.
Oh, and SFC9ball, I know what you mean by semi-pro tour and have talked with Rackem Joe about bringing his Hoosier 9-Ball Tour down this way, and not only was he trying to figure out how to do it, he has tour stops at several of the locations where those universities are mentioned. I know that you might be thinking that what is needed are actually 9ft tables, in so much as that is what Juniors Nationals tend to play on, and well, the same family doesn't know what to do with a 9ft Gold Crown with Simonis, and the local bowling alley has 4 9-footers that basically collect dust and house the paperwork for bowling tournaments, in addition to two local bars wanting to sell two 9-ft Diamond Tables or trade them in for some bar boxes. For what I lack in ability to make a ball, because of my late start in pool, I can make up for in long-winded rants and having my ear on the ground in a pool hotspot that would likely welcome a Collegiate Billiard Conference, a large regional tournament and a BEF Juniors program. Austin Summers even made a nice run out in Russia and New Orleans this year in Junior Worlds and Nationals, and he had to travel to be a part of the closest BEF program. Hopefully, Mark can do quite a bit with his efforts, and I greatly respect his contributions to the pool world, and do think some things are on the right track. They have been in Evansville, over the last 6 years, but it seems like they are starting to wane, which is sad.
What this thread says being 10 years old now, taking a look back at all the things discussed, the bottom line was then, and still is now.....don't give up your day job to become a Professional pool player, as there is no future in it.
What's the difference between a 10 year Pro Player and a 20 week long McDonald's employee?
Answer, the McDonald's employee is now eligible for unemployment if ever needed, while the Pro Pool player will never be eligible!!!
What's the difference between a 10 year Pro Player and a 20 week long McDonald's employee?
Answer, the McDonald's employee is now eligible for unemployment if ever needed, while the Pro Pool player will never be eligible!!!
Mark has your message. I am sure he will be contacting you, I know he is at the Derby doing commentary so it might be a day or 2 before he gets in contact with you.
His Number is 618 5402182
Robert, We have teams spread across Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri. If you are interested in starting a collegiate team for next school year you better start now. If you are interested call me as I will share my experience with you on the difficulties I ran into and how to deal with them.
Mr SuperFoo... you are CORRECTO MUNDO. It takes a lot of Money. Money always get's people's attention. Then, when the public sees how easy it is, to make money, they are gonna wanna play too.
But, we are a long way from making a lot of money.And the money we make will be to promote "The Game", not the Professionals, until it's time to promote them. After the Tournaments have started & turnouts are good, more players will want to play & that will bring more of everything.
What will it take to jump start pool in America?
Getting billiards in high school, start forming clubs/leagues, paying the latter like joining a gym, recognizing this "game" as a sport (if they have curling, why can't they have billiards?), GETTING RID OF COIN-OP BAR TABLES and just eliminating the stigma as a smoked-filled, hustle induced bar game.
There... that's your start...
Getting billiards in high school, start forming clubs/leagues, paying the latter like joining a gym, recognizing this "game" as a sport (if they have curling, why can't they have billiards?), GETTING RID OF COIN-OP BAR TABLES and just eliminating the stigma as a smoked-filled, hustle induced bar game.
There... that's your start...
Getting rid of bar tables?? Last time I checked, the APA had over 275,000 members, and that's just ONE league system.
You want to blame everyone for how bad pool is, and expect high school kids coming up to bail it out, well got some news for you! Blame the promoters, blame the table, ball, cloth, cue stick, chalk, spots, magic racks, tournament directors, and while you're at it.....blame every player that ever wanted to play against the pros in tournaments so much so that they forced the rules to be changed, races to be shortened....EVERYONE has taken and taken from this industry. Not once has anybody stepped forward and screamed loud enough to be heard, without a Pros ONLY division, we will NEVER be recognized as a true sport....and got everyone together to solve the problem!!
IF I still had high school aged kids today, you can BET your last dollar they wouldn't be enrolled in ANY school program to learn how to play pool, as there is NO FUTURE in it, so why would I support them wasting their time learning to play pool? I'd rather support them getting a part time job working at McDonald's instead, at least then they could work on saving up money to buy a car, pay for insurance, and have some money saved up so that when they graduate they have better outlook on life.....INSTEAD of wondering who they're going to beat out of money in their next game on a pool table....and ask me for GAS MONEY so they can drive to the pool hall.....never going to happen!!!
Yes. I'll give you one form of billiards:
14.1 Continuous
You don't play that game on a bar table. Common sense....
Blame everyone? How about Strickland's conduct on a pool table when he's beat? Let's endorse more of that, shall we? Please...
They are already making a proposal for billiards to be in the 2024 Olympics. If it does even happen, I will be accepting your apologies.
As far as your 2nd paragraph, well... I can't argue there! Yea, the monetary aspect of it has not gone out of the 1960s. Still, it's a good life to live, if one devotes themselves to it. Hell, even poker was once a crapshoot of a game back 25-40 years ago. With so much promoting, that even became such a hot bed for new people to get involved in. Really, even though he was a major scum of the universe, Kevin Trudeau had something going! Nevertheless, nobody wouldn't even pick up the slack on his idea and optically capitalize it for the better. Oh well, to another 3 decades until someone actually picks up that idea...
I "just hit the damn ball." and they go in all the time now.
I'll chime in with my 2 cents from my community newbie perspective.
I've been eating and sleeping pool for the last year and in that time I've been looking for all the information I could find to help me with my game of pool.
This thread is one recurring theme. More tournaments. Because the money might, MIGHT, attract the younger generation to participate. I like the college idea except for the fact that the the local large college here just closed the pool room. But I don't see how throwing money at the existing community who likely will not be bringing in competition for themselves will do any good.
I've been a web developer and hosting company for over 20 years and I can't begin to tell you how bad this industry looks online. I think I've seen less then 10 modern websites and just so many antique ones it's not funny. Why is this important? The generation you want to think they can make money in pool is looking for modern websites with instant information and not a wild goose chase. They want answers and they want them now and on mobile devices not a jumbo wide screen monitor or VGA monitor. These websites don't index well at all for a variety of reasons so trying to find things can be extremely difficult. In fact it there have been a few times I have only found answers for searches I had been working on for months here on AZ. I call that word of mouth.
I figured this would be a good area to do some web development and I started making websites. It seemed to me that just like many of you are saying, that it's the young generation that the industry needs. So I started making a few more websites targeted at the industry. I created BilliardsMap.com but needed support to pay for a reliable database to power it and pay the google map fees, and potentially to create a fund to advertise on Facebook.
I wrote up a 4 page project outline (pdf) and tried contacting every big pool related company but none of them could sponsor the site and it's ability to promote billiards for as little as $500 to cover the data and map fees for startup. I contacted the APA and they told me if they had the database they wouldn't give it to me. The BCA response was offensive. I did get a fast invite to come to china for a convention from a famous tip manufacturer. I think they meant well. but the rest of the industry. Nada, Nobody home. I just pulled the code this week so I don't have to update it anymore. It was a nice mapping system.
In my opinion the industry does need to work at bringing the younger generation to the pool table with more then a, if you get really lucky or good you can win money pitch. I still suggest the industry find some way to work together to create a fund to advertise on Facebook using Facebook's wonderful targeting tools to simply encourage the younger generation to just go out and play pool and show them the way there. After all most of the time they are scrolling through Facebook and wondering what to do and the pool hall reputation only helps to make it a cool thing to do now from what I've seen. But that's when the industry needs to help them consider playing in tournaments and leagues by themselves or in groups.
This is where the industry needs to plant the seeds that will create an army of players that buy cues, lessons, table time, tables, food, drinks, bags, DVD's, books, chalk, training gizmos, chalk holders with a hole so you can drill a hole in $20 blocks of chalk faster, all sorts of things that a percentage of the people that start playing will buy as they frequent our local pool halls long term. The halls will then have the audience to entertain the idea of things like break speed contests, tours, large tournaments, big leagues, bigger halls, new lights (grumble), new felt, 10 foot tables, and so on...
I also think the industry needs to work more to bring people to the pool hall for fun, a night out, dating, team building events, office parties, whatever, they will come, and they will have money for products and services. This again will result in a percentage that will play the game for the rest of their lives and increase the player base. Many of which might just choose to play in tournaments and leagues.
Oh and remember that other game, Snooker? In my area there are a lot of people that will only play snooker that were not born here and here they are in my area with a single table at a few pool halls that are really beat up. I don't know but it seems like a large group of people living here on work visa's making lot's of USD might just be interested in snooker leagues and tournaments. Just saying...
There are of course many other web improvements that need to be done to attract the masses into the industries tables and stores.
Just my perspective.
I'll chime in with my 2 cents from my community newbie perspective.
I've been eating and sleeping pool for the last year and in that time I've been looking for all the information I could find to help me with my game of pool.
This thread is one recurring theme. More tournaments. Because the money might, MIGHT, attract the younger generation to participate. I like the college idea except for the fact that the the local large college here just closed the pool room. But I don't see how throwing money at the existing community who likely will not be bringing in competition for themselves will do any good.
I've been a web developer and hosting company for over 20 years and I can't begin to tell you how bad this industry looks online. I think I've seen less then 10 modern websites and just so many antique ones it's not funny. Why is this important? The generation you want to think they can make money in pool is looking for modern websites with instant information and not a wild goose chase. They want answers and they want them now and on mobile devices not a jumbo wide screen monitor or VGA monitor. These websites don't index well at all for a variety of reasons so trying to find things can be extremely difficult. In fact it there have been a few times I have only found answers for searches I had been working on for months here on AZ. I call that word of mouth.
I figured this would be a good area to do some web development and I started making websites. It seemed to me that just like many of you are saying, that it's the young generation that the industry needs. So I started making a few more websites targeted at the industry. I created BilliardsMap.com but needed support to pay for a reliable database to power it and pay the google map fees, and potentially to create a fund to advertise on Facebook.
I wrote up a 4 page project outline (pdf) and tried contacting every big pool related company but none of them could sponsor the site and it's ability to promote billiards for as little as $500 to cover the data and map fees for startup. I contacted the APA and they told me if they had the database they wouldn't give it to me. The BCA response was offensive. I did get a fast invite to come to china for a convention from a famous tip manufacturer. I think they meant well. but the rest of the industry. Nada, Nobody home. I just pulled the code this week so I don't have to update it anymore. It was a nice mapping system.
In my opinion the industry does need to work at bringing the younger generation to the pool table with more then a, if you get really lucky or good you can win money pitch. I still suggest the industry find some way to work together to create a fund to advertise on Facebook using Facebook's wonderful targeting tools to simply encourage the younger generation to just go out and play pool and show them the way there. After all most of the time they are scrolling through Facebook and wondering what to do and the pool hall reputation only helps to make it a cool thing to do now from what I've seen. But that's when the industry needs to help them consider playing in tournaments and leagues by themselves or in groups.
This is where the industry needs to plant the seeds that will create an army of players that buy cues, lessons, table time, tables, food, drinks, bags, DVD's, books, chalk, training gizmos, chalk holders with a hole so you can drill a hole in $20 blocks of chalk faster, all sorts of things that a percentage of the people that start playing will buy as they frequent our local pool halls long term. The halls will then have the audience to entertain the idea of things like break speed contests, tours, large tournaments, big leagues, bigger halls, new lights (grumble), new felt, 10 foot tables, and so on...
I also think the industry needs to work more to bring people to the pool hall for fun, a night out, dating, team building events, office parties, whatever, they will come, and they will have money for products and services. This again will result in a percentage that will play the game for the rest of their lives and increase the player base. Many of which might just choose to play in tournaments and leagues.
Oh and remember that other game, Snooker? In my area there are a lot of people that will only play snooker that were not born here and here they are in my area with a single table at a few pool halls that are really beat up. I don't know but it seems like a large group of people living here on work visa's making lot's of USD might just be interested in snooker leagues and tournaments. Just saying...
There are of course many other web improvements that need to be done to attract the masses into the industries tables and stores.
Just my perspective.
CaptainBly
Registered
First post here after lurking for a while.
One thing I don't see happening at any of the local halls anymore is youth leagues. I worked at a hall for 3 years from 1990 to 1993. We had youth leagues on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They started at 9 and usually ran until 1 or 2 depending on the number of kids and divisions. Another thing we did was monthly youth tournaments and we always had a youth division at all our bigger tournaments. These were highly attended and by the time I moved on the youth numbers were larger than adult players in many of the tournaments.
Open the hall and get the kids in there and out before the drinkers show up and the parents will feel better about them being in there.
One thing I don't see happening at any of the local halls anymore is youth leagues. I worked at a hall for 3 years from 1990 to 1993. We had youth leagues on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They started at 9 and usually ran until 1 or 2 depending on the number of kids and divisions. Another thing we did was monthly youth tournaments and we always had a youth division at all our bigger tournaments. These were highly attended and by the time I moved on the youth numbers were larger than adult players in many of the tournaments.
Open the hall and get the kids in there and out before the drinkers show up and the parents will feel better about them being in there.