Just in case you missed it! :smile:
The modern era began in 1961 with the movie The Hustler. Pool had been in the doldrums all through the 50's (yes, worse than today), with many poolrooms closing and only a couple of Straight Pool tournaments every year. Then The Hustler came out. Pool was in again! A million "Fast Eddies" were born, with kids everywhere wanting to be just like Paul Newman, the lonely fast gun of the pool table.
What happened in the 60's was a resurgence in pool tournaments that weren't Straight Pool only affairs. Johnston City came first, followed by the Stardust a few years later. Television and Wide World of Sports came beckoning, plus Sports Illustrated thought it was cool to cover this game. New poolrooms opened everywhere!
In the 70's pro pool in the United States really came of age, with tournaments popping up all over. Every promoter wanted to get the players, so they started adding more and more money to attract them. And it worked! There were $5,000 added events being held in big poolrooms virtually every week. Even bars were adding $2,500 to $5,000 for their own events. A major tournament had at least $10,000 in added money. A good player could travel around the Eastern USA and play in one event after another, and actually make a decent living. Buddy Hall was on the road all year, going from tourney to tourney, and winning most of them. There was now a tour of sorts, with forty or fifty of the best players showing up week after week to do battle, either on the big tables or the bar boxes. Dayton was the biggest of them all, with an All Around format similar to Johnston City, plus 24 hour action.
In the 80's it was the advent of major casino tournaments, with Richie Florence leading the way. All of sudden players were shooting for big money with purses over $100,000 and the winners getting $25,000 or more! ESPN decided they wanted a piece of this and started covering the major events. Every year there were at least four or five tournaments with large purses; in Vegas, Tahoe, Atlantic City, Chicago, Norfolk and even upstate New York. Pro players were making real scores for the first time. The best players even had sponsors and endorsement deals. If you played with a certain cue and won on television you might get a $5,000 bonus!
In the 90's the Camel Pro Tour came along, the first time pool had a major sponsor from outside the pool world. The tour was a series of guaranteed money events that awarded $300,000 in bonuses at the conclusion to the top players. The best players once again made out pretty well. For the first time, big money events began to appear on International soil. For the players who were willing to travel, the purses were good. Pool became an international sport, with top players coming from all over the globe. The World Pool Championship went from a local affair (with only a smattering of foreign players) to a huge event with big money to the winners and a worldwide television audience. Pool had arrived, or so it seemed.
The 2000's brought fame and fortune in the way of the International Pool Tour. Million dollar purses and 100K a year guarantees. If it seemed to good to be true, it was, lasting only for three events, with the last one taking over two years to pay out the prize fund. There were still other noteworthy events for pro players, but the demise of the IPT brought a chill to pro pool, which it just now is beginning to recover from. Today, a top player can once again make a decent living, traveling the globe and doing well in tournaments, plus having endorsements, making videos and doing exhibitions.
Yes pro pool shoulders on, despite a poor economy worldwide. It's possible for a good player to make a living, but it remains a secondary sport and the players are paid relatively small sums compared to what the stars of other sports earn. To have the ambition to be a professional player today takes a lot of courage. Only a few will do well, and the rest will struggle. It takes a love for the game and a lot of desire and determination to succeed as a professional player. But it's always been that way.
The modern era began in 1961 with the movie The Hustler. Pool had been in the doldrums all through the 50's (yes, worse than today), with many poolrooms closing and only a couple of Straight Pool tournaments every year. Then The Hustler came out. Pool was in again! A million "Fast Eddies" were born, with kids everywhere wanting to be just like Paul Newman, the lonely fast gun of the pool table.
What happened in the 60's was a resurgence in pool tournaments that weren't Straight Pool only affairs. Johnston City came first, followed by the Stardust a few years later. Television and Wide World of Sports came beckoning, plus Sports Illustrated thought it was cool to cover this game. New poolrooms opened everywhere!
In the 70's pro pool in the United States really came of age, with tournaments popping up all over. Every promoter wanted to get the players, so they started adding more and more money to attract them. And it worked! There were $5,000 added events being held in big poolrooms virtually every week. Even bars were adding $2,500 to $5,000 for their own events. A major tournament had at least $10,000 in added money. A good player could travel around the Eastern USA and play in one event after another, and actually make a decent living. Buddy Hall was on the road all year, going from tourney to tourney, and winning most of them. There was now a tour of sorts, with forty or fifty of the best players showing up week after week to do battle, either on the big tables or the bar boxes. Dayton was the biggest of them all, with an All Around format similar to Johnston City, plus 24 hour action.
In the 80's it was the advent of major casino tournaments, with Richie Florence leading the way. All of sudden players were shooting for big money with purses over $100,000 and the winners getting $25,000 or more! ESPN decided they wanted a piece of this and started covering the major events. Every year there were at least four or five tournaments with large purses; in Vegas, Tahoe, Atlantic City, Chicago, Norfolk and even upstate New York. Pro players were making real scores for the first time. The best players even had sponsors and endorsement deals. If you played with a certain cue and won on television you might get a $5,000 bonus!
In the 90's the Camel Pro Tour came along, the first time pool had a major sponsor from outside the pool world. The tour was a series of guaranteed money events that awarded $300,000 in bonuses at the conclusion to the top players. The best players once again made out pretty well. For the first time, big money events began to appear on International soil. For the players who were willing to travel, the purses were good. Pool became an international sport, with top players coming from all over the globe. The World Pool Championship went from a local affair (with only a smattering of foreign players) to a huge event with big money to the winners and a worldwide television audience. Pool had arrived, or so it seemed.
The 2000's brought fame and fortune in the way of the International Pool Tour. Million dollar purses and 100K a year guarantees. If it seemed to good to be true, it was, lasting only for three events, with the last one taking over two years to pay out the prize fund. There were still other noteworthy events for pro players, but the demise of the IPT brought a chill to pro pool, which it just now is beginning to recover from. Today, a top player can once again make a decent living, traveling the globe and doing well in tournaments, plus having endorsements, making videos and doing exhibitions.
Yes pro pool shoulders on, despite a poor economy worldwide. It's possible for a good player to make a living, but it remains a secondary sport and the players are paid relatively small sums compared to what the stars of other sports earn. To have the ambition to be a professional player today takes a lot of courage. Only a few will do well, and the rest will struggle. It takes a love for the game and a lot of desire and determination to succeed as a professional player. But it's always been that way.
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