great ideaMr. J said:
BUT,some chip chompin fat cow will irrate EARL.He will pull a knife out of his case and start swinging around stabbing people.
where would we be then?
A New Idea that may help pool...
- Thread starter Mr. J
- Start date
BUT,some chip chompin fat cow will irrate EARL.He will pull a knife out of his case and start swinging around stabbing people.
where would we be then?
Mr. J said:
Mr.J, its seem European might a beat you to your idea! check the site below. But its not a bad idea. Anything to promote Carom or Pool.
http://www.atv.be/v3/newsdetail.aspx?mid=2&id=4401
John Barton said:
Actually, it sounds like a job for John Barton.
Get Concord Mills to host the event. Each store can sponsor 1 player in the tournament for $50. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a store employee, but that would be an idea. No Pro ringers!!! Sterling could sponsor the event. Steve and Shawn might be able to get Olhausen to provide tables. Yours truely will donate my time as tournament director. Assume you get 50 stores to participate, you have a $2500 prize fund. Winning store gets the trophy. It could move from store to store every year like the Stanley Cup.
You ARE the marketing director, aren't you?
Just an idea. If you wait for the BCA to do it, you would be waiting a LONG time!
Steve
Make walking into a pool hall less intimidating.
You figure that one out maybe I can apply it at my school.
How do you deal with the straphangers? That's been puzzling me for about half a decade.
The first time I walked into a pool hall and I was going to play I got siderailed by some table junkie asking me how to lose weight? Almost made my skin crawl, I felt dirty, violated and unwelcomed. But the staff were sociable guys and eased the transition into the green felt world.
Unfortunately I have not been back to the pool hall due to being overworked.
A few of the fellow patrons also helped being they had a good set on their shoulders. But nothing will make me forget how dirty a pool hall felt as that day.
If it wasn't for those guys showing some decency, I probably would have just quit the sport.
You figure that one out maybe I can apply it at my school.
How do you deal with the straphangers? That's been puzzling me for about half a decade.
The first time I walked into a pool hall and I was going to play I got siderailed by some table junkie asking me how to lose weight? Almost made my skin crawl, I felt dirty, violated and unwelcomed. But the staff were sociable guys and eased the transition into the green felt world.
Unfortunately I have not been back to the pool hall due to being overworked.
A few of the fellow patrons also helped being they had a good set on their shoulders. But nothing will make me forget how dirty a pool hall felt as that day.
If it wasn't for those guys showing some decency, I probably would have just quit the sport.
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If it hadn't been for the guys at Broadway Billiards than I probably would not have entered a tournament. Not visited a tournament. And not sign up for a league. And not a bunch of other things.
But because of those guys I did do all those things.
But because of those guys I did do all those things.
John Barton
New member
pooltchr said:
Marketing Director? I guess so. Maybe?
It's not that we couldn't do it on a one off basis Steve. We could. It's that the one time shot won't do anything. Throw a rock into a lake. How soon before the ripples vanish and the existence of the rock is gone forever?
Why does the NBA sponsor Street Hoops contests all over the country? Why are there tons of Baseball camps and Football camps aligned with the NFL and Pro Baseball? Because they are building their brand while building a fan base.
The game is the brand. The responsibility for building interest in the game lies with all the manufacturers and those who want to make a living out of it. That collection of folks is supposed to be what the BCA is for. So the BCA should be spending the member's money to drive grassroots interest in the game.
Every pool room in the whole country should be involved and committed to doing whatever they can within the BCA structure (if there was one) to bring more people to the game of pool. Ever Billiard Store should be donig what they can within the BCA structure to generate interest in the game.
When is the last time you saw an ad in Time magazine for POOL? That's right. Never. The Billiard Congress of America is doing next to nothing to turn people's interest away from the myriad of other activities available to them.
Instead they continue - I think - to woo the promoters and manufacturers from other activities to exhibit at the BCA Expo which has the effect of providing them a platform to "sell" the buyers in the billiard industry on the "merits" of offering those alternatives to playing pool.
So yes, we could do the one time tournament and probably impact our local market a little bit. But the thing that needs to be done is to have it impacting markets all across the USA and have people looking forward to the "pool show" and that is more than we can handle and more than we should be responsible for on our own.
Check out the Billiard Education Foundation-they give college scholarships and have a curriculum for teaching billiards in the high schools. Right now they are holding Junior National 9-ball Qualifiers to get kids interested in our sport. I think this is the direction our sport needs to be going. The tables in the mall idea costs too much money...
justnum, I'm sorry you met up with some of the bottom feeders in the poolroom--I actually met some at a fortune 500 company. LOL! But, I have met some really good people in the poolroom as well.
And by the way, how did you get a picture of my cat!
justnum, I'm sorry you met up with some of the bottom feeders in the poolroom--I actually met some at a fortune 500 company. LOL! But, I have met some really good people in the poolroom as well.
And by the way, how did you get a picture of my cat!
Mr. J said:
Hey Jeff, I'm in the arena that believes that this thing wouldn't fly without a much larger and more traditional base -- it might generate some passing interest one time but, by the time you might be getting this to work, you will have long since run out of money and sponsors. Sorry to be down on this -- it DOES sound like a great idea and I know it would attract some interest from up here.
There was another guy who posted something in another thread about the HIGH SCHOOL LEAGUE in ???, Texas! Linda Carter (rackmsuckr) exhibited some interest in this, going so far as to ask how one would set up such a league in, for example, the Seattle/Tacoma area. The guy never answered, as far as I know, but you and Linda might put your heads together on this one. If you guys EVER find the answer to THIS, I would ALSO be interested on behalf of the school-age kids in the Island/Skagit/Whatcom County areas, although this may not work up here due to the very small population base.
Another thing occurred to me -- the CHURCHES!!! This would only work in areas with several large churches with active fellowship halls. I was born and lived in South Pasadena, CA (pop. ca. 30,000, 8 miles ne of Los Angeles city center), until I was about 19 years old. I went to a large Presbyterian Church there, and there was a very fine old BBC 10' snooker table that we used A LOT in the church's fellowship hall. I know that the local Baptist, Episcopalian and Catholic churches ALSO had pool tables in their fellowship halls! How DUMB we were. We put together softball, basketball and bowling leagues, but never a thought about a pool league! BTW, this was all in the late-50's and early-60's.
Although I now live in Oak Harbor, I previously lived in Anacortes, WA, for about 20 years. I started in the Post Office in 1981 and there was a great old 8' table in the basement that we used when we had time. In 1983, management decided to clean out the basement because, due to population growth, we needed more room for mail service. There was some kind of secular youth league that had its meeting next door in the City community center -- that's where the pool table went. They had a small in-house league for a while. Additionally, there was also a city-wide non-denominational Christian Fellowship club in Anacortes that had a pool table in the Fellowship Hall that got a lot of use by the kids, but no league activity that I know of.
BUT -- where I got most of my play while I was growing up was in the large clubs such as the Boys' Clubs and the YMCA's clubs. Back in my day, most of these had nothing but the big ole 10' snooker tables -- yes, I mean SNOOKER tables, with the small round-cut pockets. However, this was So. Cal. -- NOBODY played snooker, so I never saw a single set of snooker balls anywhere as I grew up, just the normal 16 ball pool set, although they were all the snooker-sized, rather than pool-sized, balls. But, a LOT of kids played all of these tables at that time. Just, no one EVER thought of organizing any kind of pool league.
These are all resources that the Seattle/Tacoma/Lynwood/Everett area is large enough to abundantly support. So, you can see that my suggestion is to start with the kids where resources are ALREADY IN PLACE -- in this way, the costs are negligible or NOTHING! This is just another way of "taking pool to the people." Once you get activities going, you could occasionally bring in some "experts" for either a FREE, or at least a low-cost, exhibition/demonstration for the normal participants in the activities and either their invited guests, or maybe just throw it open to the public, sponsored by your active group to bring in more membership and participation.
OK -- is this far enough outside the box?
Mr. J said:
I adore your idea of on bringing some of our sport out of the pool-hall and directly into the public. For my lunch today I have drafted a simple and the least inexpensive plan to help this thread.
What's Needed
1 bar table
1 trick-shot artist
1 helper walks around passing flyers
1 Pick-Up Truck / Van
Some event ideas
The artist will do his selection of trick shots.
He can invite the audience to have an hands-on experience.
He can offer instruction on simpler shots to people.
He can set up quizzes of some real game situation for people to guess (like this one by Mr. Massey http://pl.cuetable.com/showthread.php?p=710#post710 )
...to be added
Mutual Benefits
For the mall owner, this performance can add to a carnival atmosphere to the business. Maybe some other forum members can help to come up with a better strategy.
For the audience who don't play pool much, this is fun and educational.
For the production team, they can sell some dvds or books to make some money and add this event on to their resume page.
Other Options
Work with high school physic teachers on their lesson plan, maybe provide a video to illustrate a point in the class.
Additional Note
Imo, a match play in the mall probably will not be as effective since most of people won't be able to appreciate the players' performance. Besides, the overall tone might be too dull since there will probably not be a big prize money for either side.
I believe this has already happened as with Mr. Massey and Mr. Rossman. I'd just like to see it more often.
This is just my lunch sandwich idea. Anyone please feel free to "chip" in..
I make cases, When I'm not tied down by school or pool. That will be changing here shortly. Currently working out some projects now.John Barton said:
-Vinnie
pool in malls
This was done a few years ago. George Middleditch went to malls and related places. Olhausen did a brief stint at Costco stores.
I presented a similar "plan" to the BCA a few years ago - it did not get accepted. However, if a few people got together, it could be done but it must be sponsor supported.
That might have been one of the BCA restrictions. The have to (and rightly so) put things out to bid.
If privately funded, it could happen. Need a table (Diamond of course!!) cloth (simonis) balls (aramith) and some clothing & cue sticks makers.
But then, you have to show that this exposure is going to sell more sets of balls, cloth and tables.
Comments are encouraged,
Mark Griffin
BCA Pool League
702-719-7665
This was done a few years ago. George Middleditch went to malls and related places. Olhausen did a brief stint at Costco stores.
I presented a similar "plan" to the BCA a few years ago - it did not get accepted. However, if a few people got together, it could be done but it must be sponsor supported.
That might have been one of the BCA restrictions. The have to (and rightly so) put things out to bid.
If privately funded, it could happen. Need a table (Diamond of course!!) cloth (simonis) balls (aramith) and some clothing & cue sticks makers.
But then, you have to show that this exposure is going to sell more sets of balls, cloth and tables.
Comments are encouraged,
Mark Griffin
BCA Pool League
702-719-7665