American Pool NEEDS a Real Governing Body

[Smooth]

Most existing tournament promoters or prize fund managers have a hard enough time managing their own budget. I doubt anyone could nominate someone trustworthy and reliable enough to manage a fund used for discretionary purposes.

In the case of player groups, they do nominate someone to manage a fund for multiple purposes. Your suggestions sounds better geared towards creating a room owner fund that can be distributed to various tournaments. But sometimes people just do added money and that requires less micromanagement, it is easier.

Huh???? I'm talking about creating a base that is wide enough to support the whole system.... numbers for selling sponsors and for generating a flow of money and talent upwards through a nationally coordinated system. Did you do the math on how much money it would generate to have each of the leagues be members of a national system and hit their players for an additional $1 per week for bigger things... or even 50¢ per week?? It is a big number. The newsletter would tie it all together at every bar and every pool hall that does leagues.... weekly! That is also a big number. And it can be done without stepping on the various league owners toes, the regional tour's toes or the national event's toes. It has very little to do with room owners. I must not be doing a good job of communicating what I'm picturing.... or I'm just completely off my rocker.... or both....

 

[justnum]

Huh???? I'm talking about creating a base that is wide enough to support the whole system.... numbers for selling sponsors and for generating a flow of money and talent upwards through a nationally coordinated system. Did you do the math on how much money it would generate to have each of the leagues be members of a national system and hit their players for an additional $1 per week for bigger things... or even 50¢ per week?? It is a big number. The newsletter would tie it all together at every bar and every pool hall that does leagues weekly. That is also a big number. And it can be done without stepping on the various league owners toes, the regional tour's toes or the national event's toes. It has very little to do with room owners. I must not be doing a good job of communicating what I'm picturing.... or I'm just completely off my rocker.... or both....

It comes down to trust, who do you trust to manage that money?

 

[Smooth]

I would leave that up to people that are actually going to create the governing body we are discussing.... I was speaking strictly of the basic structure of that national sanctioning body. Any sound business plan starts with the basic structure. It is what will provide the fuel for the fire.... much moreso than who some individual administrator is, or who the big sponsor of the month is. Sponsors should come and go, much like NASCAR, with one big annual sponsor for the whole ball-of-wax for that year and if there are more big sponsors, they can pick one of the monthly national/international sanctioned events (Sprint Cup vs Coca-Cola 400); regionals would get some trickle down, as well as the local sponsorships they work so hard to get now. Looking for some home-run sponsor is not going to work, and if it does it's a one-time thing... and gives them way too much leverage. With an appropriate structure, dollars would be flowing in from both directions and would work down to the players, and promoters, and manufacturers, and pool rooms.... everyone could make a decent living as pool would then really begin to grow. It would provide motivation for talented pool players to pursue their pool dreams, some of whom may actually begin playing in some league with their dad.... I know, I know, the horror of it.... but the system would begin to feed itself. Reading a newsletter about someone you know coming up through the ranks, or keeping up with your favorite pro, or watching a stream and seeing your local league on the back of a t-shirt being worn by a local guy everyone used to hate for being in the league, and now they are rooting for him.... heck, he may even earn a spot on the pro tour eventually.... it changes a lot of the bad dynamics.... it's called ground-swell support... and the leagues are already in place to be taken advantage of. It is a permanent, large-scale solution to pool's problems..... at least in my goofy head anyway.

 

[geno]

I honestly believe there is not even 1 miniscule of a remote chance any of the current national leagues would even consider joining a system like this. It's just not going to happen. While it is a great idea we simply need to accept the fact that they are not one bit interested in something like this and move forward from there.

I would leave that up to people that are actually going to create the governing body we are discussing.... I was speaking strictly of the basic structure of that national sanctioning body. Any sound business plan starts with the basic structure. It is what will provide the fuel for the fire.... much moreso than who some individual administrator is, or who the big sponsor of the month is. Sponsors should come and go, much like NASCAR, with one big annual sponsor for the whole ball-of-wax for that year and if there are more big sponsors, they can pick one of the monthly national/international sanctioned events (Sprint Cup vs Coca-Cola 400); regionals would get some trickle down, as well as the local sponsorships they work so hard to get now. Looking for some home-run sponsor is not going to work, and if it does it's a one-time thing... and gives them way too much leverage. With an appropriate structure, dollars would be flowing in from both directions and would work down to the players, and promoters, and manufacturers, and pool rooms.... everyone could make a decent living as pool would then really begin to grow. It would provide motivation for talented pool players to pursue their pool dreams, some of whom may actually begin playing in some league with their dad.... I know, I know, the horror of it.... but the system would begin to feed itself. Reading a newsletter about someone you know coming up through the ranks, or keeping up with your favorite pro, or watching a stream and seeing your local league on the back of a t-shirt being worn by a local guy everyone used to hate for being in the league, and now they are rooting for him.... heck, he may even earn a spot on the pro tour eventually.... it changes a lot of the bad dynamics.... it's called ground-swell support... and the leagues are already in place to be taken advantage of. It is a permanent, large-scale solution to pool's problems..... at least in my goofy head anyway.

 

[K.Mcphee]

This may not come across right but I will try anyway.

The current model of regional tours and national events is slowly deteriorating. the biggest problem is that there are too many of them vying for the same sponsors which in itself is a deteriorating group.
If you have 1 organization that can distribute and control sponsorships to the lower groups and sell the sponsorship to the sponsor/advertiser as a complete package the model becomes more efficient for all. This is not to say that individual entities will not be able to still get there own sponsorships from whomever they want but it applies to the larger sponsors within and outside of the industry.

As an example: Joe's tour has 32 events annually and wants Budweiser to sponsor it at a cost of say $3,200. In the current economic structure of Budweiser they will not even consider this as it would be a waste of there time. BUT if the GB of pool approached Budweiser and said, we have 1100 regional events across the us, 12 national events with 4 televised events all getting 10 hours each (40 hours total) on ESPN annually and we have over 100,000 members and 20,000 hours of live streaming for the events on the internet annually then we might be able to ask for $2,000,000 in sponsorship/advertising revenue and actually have a chance at getting it. Then that $2,000,000 in revenue could be split up and given to the different entities in the form of sponsorships for there events and all they would need to do is ad Budweiser as a sponsor for there event.

That's is why and how a complete system can work.

For the players, the important factors in the organization would be to have a cohesive rules structure so you can go from one event to another playing the same rules and that there is a points and/or advancement structure for the players so they can earn there way into the next levels of events.

For the promoters, the important factors will be not to dip into anyone's pocket or create unneeded large amounts of work for them along with helping them to promote there events and sponsors in a professional manner.

A test program was run on this a few years back and it worked fairly well except for the lack of cooperation. But those involved, Mike Janis (Viking Tour), Mike Zuglan (Joss Tour), Nick (Planet Pool Tour) and Greg Sullivan (Derby City Classic) all did exactly what they said they would do and it did not interfere with what they currently did in any way. The problems we had with the test program were easily resolved and there were some lessons learned and all in-all it went as planned but on a much smaller scale that what was originally hoped for.

You have a very good point. You don't see Basketball having a Spalding tour, or golf having a titliest tour. Each sport has a professional tour with major brands that sell the sports product sponsering that sport's professional tour.

I think we should have a thread about Pro pool tour on top of the main forum.

 

[Smooth]

I honestly believe there is not even 1 miniscule of a remote chance any of the current national leagues would even consider joining a system like this. It's just not going to happen. While it is a great idea we simply need to accept the fact that they are not one bit interested in something like this and move forward from there.

Agreed... and sad because those orgs would be a primary beneficiary of a nationally coordinated system.

 

[geno]

So to start off the outside industry corporate sponsorship of the new organization Coleman has jumped in as a sponsor. Coleman will be donating 500 RoadTrip® Grill LX, each with a value of $219.99. The grills will be distributed to the member tours and events that are part of the organization to be given away as gifts/prizes at there events in exchange for adding Coleman as a sponsor of the events and providing signage for Coleman at the events and displaying the Coleman grill at said events.

The 1st regional tours to agree to becoming part of this organization are the MaximBilliards.com Tour, The Olhausen Billiards Classic Tour and the SE Tour. Other tours are encouraged to become members of the new organization. If you are a tour owner or event promoter please post your interest in joining this new organization which is for the betterment of our sport here in this thread.

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NO, this is not for real. Not yet anyway but is this something that would help get the ball rolling?