No pay-per-view streaming for the SBE professional tournaments seem to be a curious decision, based on nothing but speculation on my part. Look we all understand there are productions costs involved, but what is never revealed is the actual number of buys for a PPV event. Did 100, 1,000, or 5,000+ plunk down $24.95 for a specific event? If those numbers were ever released in an accurate fashion, maybe this whole PPV issue would become clearer. As someone who has no problem paying for a tournament stream with participants similar to what's playing this weekend, how many other people like me are out there willing to buy? If it is not enough for the PPV receipts to begin to cover the production costs, I sadly understand.
But we just don't know. Nothing makes sense. Take last year's WPS 4 event series. They offered a PPV for the first event or a discount price for all 4 events. Prior to the 2nd event, they then announce the remaining 3 events will be streamed free of charge by Unilad, one of the world leaders in internet streaming, alleged. We all know what a disaster that turned out to be for the end viewers, all the while WPS officials barking about over 1 million viewers were watching. Now with this year's 1st WPS event kicking off next week we have no Unilad; instead a $24.95 buy produced by Upstate Al. Really? Couldn't work out the Unilad problems? Instead you decide to turn your back on the alleged 1 million viewers to return to the PPV model you abandoned after one tournament last year? WTF. Does anyone see my point here?
If PPV is profitable, I don't see how it was not part of SPE. You cannot convince me having PPV would affect the gate of the event. So what else can it be? Well maybe what a good friend of mine who has been in the industry for 40+ years told me is so true - "Pool players are the cheapest SOB's walking the face of the earth".
Provide us with accurate PPV buy numbers starting next week and then maybe everything will make sense, especially my friend's statement.
