TX Hold'm.... Bob Turner Bicycle Club.
It's the only game, that non pro poker players will play with the pros.
It's the only game, that non pro poker players will play with the pros.
A quick fix for pool
- Thread starter Bob Jewett
- Start date
Its possible but I have often heard its auto racing. When you take into consideration the amount of facilities and also the different forms of motorsport its pretty easy to accept.
RidgeRaider
Well-known member
I wasn't trying to compare pool to snooker in that aspect. More so the standardized rules snooker has and everyone knows.
I live in Wisconsin, where pool is right up there next to Opening weekend gun deer / Ice fishing / The Packers being a religion as much of a culture here. It's harder to find someone who doesn't shoot pool here. Yet, it's still just a bar room game that people play when they're drinking. At one point, it was going the right direction in Wisconsin with massive tourneys held all over, some of the better shooters to ever play came out of Wisconsin in the 70s and 80s.
I thought those Wisconsin greats would give some time back to the sport and do clinics, start coaching the younger generations, but I honestly don't know where most of those guys are now, beyond the ones that passed away. I don't know of anyone near me who coaches or does clinics. If I am lucky, if I hit Shepherds and Kevin Stanelle is feeling frisky, he might smoke my butt for a game or two, but it's far from lessons. I have to imagine a lack of coaching offered to the younger generation keeps pool lower on the totem pole of important things when your options to get good at it are fumble your way through it alone and spend days on the table, or watch youtube videos and be your own coach. Growing up, every kid on a sport team had a knowledgeable coach who taught us the basics before we could even really understand the game. I knew how to swing a baseball bat with correct mechanics before I was 10. I still am not sure if my stroke mechanics are good, because I've never had a pool coach see me shoot and offer advice. If I had someone who knew what they were doing teaching me when I was a kid, I'd probably be a better pool player than I ever was baseball or football player, and I had offers from some D1 schools.
What comes first though, the chicken or the egg? Do we need more ambition from kids before the coaches come out of the woodwork? Or more coaches for the kids to grow ambitions?
for any viewer sport to grow or get anyplace big it needs two main things
first has to be exciting and pool isnt, and its commentators are not.
and it has to have advertisers which pool does not except for ones related to it directly.
that is the simple part of the bottom line on it.
first has to be exciting and pool isnt, and its commentators are not.
and it has to have advertisers which pool does not except for ones related to it directly.
that is the simple part of the bottom line on it.
Pool needs something to inject intrest in game.
Corporate bean counters do not see much return or potential return on money invested in Pool.
Pool players don@t not have same average credit scores as say NASCAR, PHA, or other major sports fans.
Corporate bean counters do not see much return or potential return on money invested in Pool.
Pool players don@t not have same average credit scores as say NASCAR, PHA, or other major sports fans.
Mad Apple in Appleton does a lot for school kids including instruction and pool time, all free I think.
Also one of the pool halls where I play league has started free youth pool shooting and instruction on Sunday afternoons. Normally they are closed but open the hall on Sundays only for the kids entered. They have about 6-8 volunteers helping out, all good players with fargos up to the high 600's and two of them are certified instructors. I think ea group goes for about 6 weeks and it is as popular with girls as it is with boys.
There are places that care and are trying, but pro players, not so much, they seem to only care about themselves.
i think the pool version of poker’s hole card camera is the shot clock/ game clock that ultimate pool uses
they need to rework it somewhat but the way the audience is given a view of the player’s game time decisions mimicks how the audience knows what the next poker cards are
DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
I don't think so. If you want to take in all auto racing venues, then you have to take in all soccer venues. Then you have to consider the total number of events. F1 has, what, 20 events per year? The premier league alone has 380 events per season.
Doesn't really matter in this context, both are extremely popular and both are a lot less accessible to the general population, in terms of competing. Car racing is expensive, soccer takes a ton of physical ability.
Which brings me to why I believe that cue sports will never regain huge popularity--it's relatively easy for a normal schlub to compete against the highest level of players (in some disciplines). Nobody is going to get on the field with Messi, or on the track with Daniel Ricardo (yeah, I know there are better examples, but DR kinda cracks me up) without either money or serious skill. I could find a way to play any of the top american pros for a few hundred bucks. Hell, I played Raphael Martinez in ten dollar tourneys.
Why?
Why?
I think the pool version of that is a pool hall having multiple cameras at different angles and an overhead view on their main table(s). Then, having a telestrator or the like so that a knowledgeable commentator can explain what might/has happened. They also need to make sure the headlining players are on a stream table every time they play. I also agree with markjames that tournaments should have a shot clock or some other method to keep the action moving.
It's my personal preference, but for most streams I'd like the commentator(s) to focus more on the match than the chat or almost disregard chat altogether. It seems to me that some commentators go down some weird rabbit holes with chat and it detracts from the stream overall. Perhaps a happy medium would be to have a second or third person to handle chat and bring up any pertinent information to the commentators instead of them directly responding to every inane thing that the chat brings up.
I fondly remember watching pool on ESPN in the late 90's/early 2000s. With streaming, I find it unlikely that a mainstream TV channel will cover pool again, but who knows? Matchroom and the like could offer up older tournaments as filler inexpensively to say ESPN for their streaming platforms, I suppose. They 100% should put the prior year's tournaments on YouTube for maximum exposure.
dendweller
Well-known member
If there are places to play that I enjoy, and people compete with, I'm not sure it being on TV and having advertisers means much to me. But that's just me.