An open conversation on what pool in North America needs and can support.
- Thread starter azhousepro
- Start date
I seldom respond to other posters' perspective especially if I disagree with some of their post but I like some of your perspectives and contribution.
Hiring a film crew to set up streaming at every table costs more money but you're right as it would make the event more interesting when you have additional matches to view.
The banners idea is fine but there is very limited space around the streaming tables. Then there is the baggage of "work" as it relates to the logistics of banners. Who is going to carry all of these banners around with them? The players? I think not. The streamers? They have so much stuff to carry now, they can't keep up with it.
Your suggestion about banners stimulated some thought with me and a SMART live streamer might consider carrying a very large monitor to these events and utilize electronic banners (for a fee) . On the highways in our city, I see MANY advertisements selling a wide variety of products on digital signs. Why not do this at the events?
Pleasing the fans, REQUIRES WORK and a change in attitude by some of the pro players is necessary for broadening their fan base. It is up to the pro players to decide what is best for them and pool in general.
Commentators should be regularly fed information through their headset by the live streamer. The only one who has ever done that to any degree was Dustin McCollum when he was working with Inside Pool Magazine. When the live streamer production manager is reading the chat room, he could easily talk into the commentator's headset and provide answers to the fans questions. When a commentator has to read a chat room, he has to disconnect from the match taking place before his eyes. Besides the chat room, there are lots of volunteers who would love the chance to work with the live streamer pro bono, providing updates on other matches are other goings on that might be interesting to the spectator at home.
JoeyA
Hiring a film crew to set up streaming at every table costs more money but you're right as it would make the event more interesting when you have additional matches to view.
The banners idea is fine but there is very limited space around the streaming tables. Then there is the baggage of "work" as it relates to the logistics of banners. Who is going to carry all of these banners around with them? The players? I think not. The streamers? They have so much stuff to carry now, they can't keep up with it.
Your suggestion about banners stimulated some thought with me and a SMART live streamer might consider carrying a very large monitor to these events and utilize electronic banners (for a fee) . On the highways in our city, I see MANY advertisements selling a wide variety of products on digital signs. Why not do this at the events?
Pleasing the fans, REQUIRES WORK and a change in attitude by some of the pro players is necessary for broadening their fan base. It is up to the pro players to decide what is best for them and pool in general.
Commentators should be regularly fed information through their headset by the live streamer. The only one who has ever done that to any degree was Dustin McCollum when he was working with Inside Pool Magazine. When the live streamer production manager is reading the chat room, he could easily talk into the commentator's headset and provide answers to the fans questions. When a commentator has to read a chat room, he has to disconnect from the match taking place before his eyes. Besides the chat room, there are lots of volunteers who would love the chance to work with the live streamer pro bono, providing updates on other matches are other goings on that might be interesting to the spectator at home.
JoeyA
What does the younger audience want ? Unfortunately , drama. They absolutely eat up all the other reality TV stuff Full of drama and nonsense and outright BS - Look at the wide variety on air nowadays . They truly can not get enough - from the shows themselves to the up to the minute tweets. This kind of stuff may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the question was geared towards the youngins.
How to package and sell to the public ? First interest, then involvement ( at least on some level ). When we are fans of whatever / whomever we actually become emotionally invested, and that my friends is where the profit comes into play.
What pool needs is money.
Sustainably, money can only come through fans. Even sponsor money is predicated on fans.
Therefore what pool needs is FANS!!!! And especially non-playing fans. Most of the people who watch golf, snooker, tennis, etc. do NOT play that game.
Any "solution" to the pool problem that does not start with this premise is doomed to failure. Lack of fans, especially non-playing fans, is the iceberg that pool has almost always crashed on. We saw the bump from the Hustler and TCOM because it brought in, temporarily, non-players. But it could not keep them and the bump died away.
And yet all of the solutions are more on the order of arranging the deck chairs rather than steering in a different direction. You cannot build a model around the players and you cannot build a model around the promoters or sponsors. You have to build a model that surmounts pool's historical inability to attract non-players as fans.
You also cannot build grandiose pie in the sky dreams- certainly not on $500,000. Frankly the notion that 500,000 in seed money, even if matched for a $1,000,000 total could be anything more than a drop in the bucket shows exactly what a small time thing pool really is.
Snooker players make the money they do because they have set up their system in a way that attracts non-players. Watch some top snooker videos and look at the audience. Do the same even for 3C in a Korean venue - another piece of brilliant marketing BTW. It is obvious that they have broken out of the player-fan model and are attracting significant numbers of non-players to attend their big events.
I do not know how we could collect the data to verify this, but I would bet a significant amount that if we could we would find that the percentage of people attending a pool event that do not play the game is miniscule compared to the analogous percentage for snooker. Unless those older grey-haired women I see in snooker audiences wield a mean cue.
I still think some kind of professional pool league would be worth trying. Not as a substitute for the events now going on but as an addition. Leagues bring rivalries and heighten interest. They would put some kind of steady, albeit modest at first, income in the pockets of the players. Having teams brings in the possibility of selling team branded stuff like shirts. It provides a focus for non-players who do not "know" who the players are and a venue for them to learn.
And it can be started pretty small - maybe 6 franchises. Double round robin with playoffs. Matches weekly with the whole season being about 3 months. Players get paid per match, plus bonuses for winning. Funding is from gate receipts, streaming, and, if successful, sponsors. Plus someday shirts, hats, jackets, heck, maybe even team-branded chalk, But to be successful you have to expand out beyond the pool world because THAT is where the money is. You cannot just rearrange the money that is already in pool and hope to make it grow.
Details on things like what games, what rules, what format for the matches can be figured out later - they will not make the difference in success or failure, so long as they are centered on what is best for the fans.
You cannot build around making players happy you have to build around attracting fans. If you do that then there will be money and the players will become much happier. Otherwise all that is happening is players and promoters haggling over a pie that just keeps shrinking. Pool needs a bigger pie, not a better way of cutting up the little pie it has.
Sustainably, money can only come through fans. Even sponsor money is predicated on fans.
Therefore what pool needs is FANS!!!! And especially non-playing fans. Most of the people who watch golf, snooker, tennis, etc. do NOT play that game.
Any "solution" to the pool problem that does not start with this premise is doomed to failure. Lack of fans, especially non-playing fans, is the iceberg that pool has almost always crashed on. We saw the bump from the Hustler and TCOM because it brought in, temporarily, non-players. But it could not keep them and the bump died away.
And yet all of the solutions are more on the order of arranging the deck chairs rather than steering in a different direction. You cannot build a model around the players and you cannot build a model around the promoters or sponsors. You have to build a model that surmounts pool's historical inability to attract non-players as fans.
You also cannot build grandiose pie in the sky dreams- certainly not on $500,000. Frankly the notion that 500,000 in seed money, even if matched for a $1,000,000 total could be anything more than a drop in the bucket shows exactly what a small time thing pool really is.
Snooker players make the money they do because they have set up their system in a way that attracts non-players. Watch some top snooker videos and look at the audience. Do the same even for 3C in a Korean venue - another piece of brilliant marketing BTW. It is obvious that they have broken out of the player-fan model and are attracting significant numbers of non-players to attend their big events.
I do not know how we could collect the data to verify this, but I would bet a significant amount that if we could we would find that the percentage of people attending a pool event that do not play the game is miniscule compared to the analogous percentage for snooker. Unless those older grey-haired women I see in snooker audiences wield a mean cue.
I still think some kind of professional pool league would be worth trying. Not as a substitute for the events now going on but as an addition. Leagues bring rivalries and heighten interest. They would put some kind of steady, albeit modest at first, income in the pockets of the players. Having teams brings in the possibility of selling team branded stuff like shirts. It provides a focus for non-players who do not "know" who the players are and a venue for them to learn.
And it can be started pretty small - maybe 6 franchises. Double round robin with playoffs. Matches weekly with the whole season being about 3 months. Players get paid per match, plus bonuses for winning. Funding is from gate receipts, streaming, and, if successful, sponsors. Plus someday shirts, hats, jackets, heck, maybe even team-branded chalk, But to be successful you have to expand out beyond the pool world because THAT is where the money is. You cannot just rearrange the money that is already in pool and hope to make it grow.
Details on things like what games, what rules, what format for the matches can be figured out later - they will not make the difference in success or failure, so long as they are centered on what is best for the fans.
You cannot build around making players happy you have to build around attracting fans. If you do that then there will be money and the players will become much happier. Otherwise all that is happening is players and promoters haggling over a pie that just keeps shrinking. Pool needs a bigger pie, not a better way of cutting up the little pie it has.
Joey A, specifically in regards to the banners; would it be easiest amped make the most sense to have the " banners " or advertising in general created digitally on screen? Tons of flexibility with little to no cost.
Initial cost for a very large monitor and transporting problems to be dealt with and then YES, lower overall cost, FAR MORE flexibility as in constant rotating of banners, adjusting time of viewing and ease of design and ease of implementation, etc.
JoeyA
Public Image
It's everything. You have to break the disconnect between the pros and fans to develop a fan base. Those are the people willing to pay to see events and fund efforts to see the sport into the future.
There is so much attention given to negativity that we need to get past. Everyone needs to get something that they're willing to pay something for. Without a public image you can have none of that.
It's everything. You have to break the disconnect between the pros and fans to develop a fan base. Those are the people willing to pay to see events and fund efforts to see the sport into the future.
There is so much attention given to negativity that we need to get past. Everyone needs to get something that they're willing to pay something for. Without a public image you can have none of that.
And there is the million dollar question,,"willing to pay"!
I don't mean this in a negative way but facts are facts. The majority of pool players are CHEAP!! They don't spend money!
The main point in making an investment is to get some type of return. If the majority of your clientele are CHEAPSKATES, why would the investor want to invest?
I will say this, someone mentioned putting cameras at all tables! I haven't bought many streams, but I can definitely see myself buying many "table matches"! I want to watch certain players play. Main reason why I don't by many streams is because there usually stuck with 1 table!
If you could have your choice which match you want to watch, that makes more enticing for everyone I think!
They could make a "superdeal" watch all matches for a pre determined amount or watch individual matches for a certain amount! Just throwing a # here,,,, $69.95 gets you complete access to all matches throughout the tourney or $4.99 for each individual!
I'm game on that! I would gladly spend 20-30 bucks to watch the matches I want to watch as opposed to being stuck with 1 table!
Especially the local pro's, think about it. You'll get the "local" crowd watching there guy play when he is on! I'm from RI, I'm not a fan of MD, so if he is on I'm not watching him! But if Joe Dupuis or Shorty is playing, you bet I'll throw 5 bucks to watch that particular match!
Just my .02
Eli
Still not what I meant Joey A. I'm talking about on screen , as in the TV or computer each end user has. Like how they can flash a news ticker, baseball scores, anything really. They can be preprogrammed so no messing with anything on site, whoever is running the show onsite just clicks on the appropriate icon on his computer and BAM!!! It goes out to all watching the stream.
Willing to Pay!
Eli,
You're exactly right about the cheapskate part. Pool has a demographic problem because a great deal of Pool Leaguers in my area anyway are very low wage earners. They're forced into the cheapskate routine because of societal position.Its just a sad fact. The good news is that Pool is cheap enough to play. You can get a decent cue for $100 a case for less than $50 and you're in business. What I can't understand is that we can't seem to attract a better demographic. That is the room owners job but they really won't do it. They get caught up in the bar business and that's easier it seems to manage and they forget about Pool. Its just the nature of chasing profits.
As far as the streaming I have to wonder how many people there are that would appreciate being able to buy affordable streaming on multiple tables and as you suggest how much they would be willing to pay. Not to say that that your idea of pricing isn't doable, but lets say it were more affordable say. I actually wonder if the price matters. I think there are guys like yourself that would gladly buy a $69 package and you can view everyone if you like as you want, guys like that love the game but it makes me wonder if it were say $20, $10 or $5 how many more people do you think you would get? Because with a lot of people there isn't a price they would be willing to pay because of the cheapskate effect because that's the demographic that we seem to be serving. So I wonder about that. I may know something about that in the future. I'm selling an Aiming Technique ebook for $3.99 because I put it on Amazon it has a world marketplace I want to see just how many buy it. I know the material is good. I don't know how many people are ebook savvy that love pool. I've seen some people pay $50 for an aiming dvd and have no complaints because they come from a better demographic. I think as time changes and we move into more progressive ways of doing digital things lots of things are going to change. I've lived to see the world go from notebook and paper to I pad.That's pretty huge changes. I hope I live to see Pool taking off again. Thanks for the post.
Eli,
You're exactly right about the cheapskate part. Pool has a demographic problem because a great deal of Pool Leaguers in my area anyway are very low wage earners. They're forced into the cheapskate routine because of societal position.Its just a sad fact. The good news is that Pool is cheap enough to play. You can get a decent cue for $100 a case for less than $50 and you're in business. What I can't understand is that we can't seem to attract a better demographic. That is the room owners job but they really won't do it. They get caught up in the bar business and that's easier it seems to manage and they forget about Pool. Its just the nature of chasing profits.
As far as the streaming I have to wonder how many people there are that would appreciate being able to buy affordable streaming on multiple tables and as you suggest how much they would be willing to pay. Not to say that that your idea of pricing isn't doable, but lets say it were more affordable say. I actually wonder if the price matters. I think there are guys like yourself that would gladly buy a $69 package and you can view everyone if you like as you want, guys like that love the game but it makes me wonder if it were say $20, $10 or $5 how many more people do you think you would get? Because with a lot of people there isn't a price they would be willing to pay because of the cheapskate effect because that's the demographic that we seem to be serving. So I wonder about that. I may know something about that in the future. I'm selling an Aiming Technique ebook for $3.99 because I put it on Amazon it has a world marketplace I want to see just how many buy it. I know the material is good. I don't know how many people are ebook savvy that love pool. I've seen some people pay $50 for an aiming dvd and have no complaints because they come from a better demographic. I think as time changes and we move into more progressive ways of doing digital things lots of things are going to change. I've lived to see the world go from notebook and paper to I pad.That's pretty huge changes. I hope I live to see Pool taking off again. Thanks for the post.
The only person I trust playing pool is me.
I may not win, but at least I'll know the loser didn't throw the game.
just went through the US open draw and what i saw made me wondering big time! there were 24 matches between US players and non US players yesterday, score was 20 - 4 and 245 - 126 racks for the non US players!
that should ring every alarmbell you guys can find, that clearly shows how poor US pool has become when you take SVB away! to me it looks like its the missing strukturs over there, while everyone else in the world already travels with a coach,you guys are still dreaming of the lone wolf hustler nostalgia! as someone who enjoys great battles like the mosconi, i really hope you guys find the way back to worldclass pool soon....... or the mosconi is in europe forever (beside the occassional fluke)!
that should ring every alarmbell you guys can find, that clearly shows how poor US pool has become when you take SVB away! to me it looks like its the missing strukturs over there, while everyone else in the world already travels with a coach,you guys are still dreaming of the lone wolf hustler nostalgia! as someone who enjoys great battles like the mosconi, i really hope you guys find the way back to worldclass pool soon....... or the mosconi is in europe forever (beside the occassional fluke)!
I firmly believe it's not marketed correctly. Golf, darts, tennis, baseball, soccer, snooker, and many others can be perceived to be boring to watch. How about fishing tournaments? It's in the presentation and creating a fan base for the players. Right now there isn't money to do this marketing but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Getting the youth involved is huge and pool has a great competitive advantage over some of these other sports. It's easy to learn but hard to master but anyone no matter gender, age, or physical ability can compete at a fairly high level.
I posted this elsewhere-
But I think it belongs here as well...
Discussing winner breaks and what makes pool interesting to spectate-
"Wouldn't it be interesting to model something along the lines of
The Grand Prize Game on Bozo's Circus?
The one with the series of buckets, and for every ball made, a gift would be won.
For each rack strung together, a monetary bonus would be earned, the more racks you string together, the more money you can earn and that makes it exciting for the audience to watch :thumbup:
I'm big kid."
But I think it belongs here as well...
Discussing winner breaks and what makes pool interesting to spectate-
"Wouldn't it be interesting to model something along the lines of
The Grand Prize Game on Bozo's Circus?
The one with the series of buckets, and for every ball made, a gift would be won.
For each rack strung together, a monetary bonus would be earned, the more racks you string together, the more money you can earn and that makes it exciting for the audience to watch :thumbup:
I'm big kid."
Only the best players from other countries travel to play in the US Open, while many local Americans will play even if they don't have much of a chance.
If you have a tournament in China and only the top couple of US players go, they're going to beat most of the Chinese players who happen to live in the same town as the tournament. When the World 9-ball is held in Qatar, there are dozens of locals that play and get beaten quickly and easily by the foreigners.
We all know the state of American pool, but the fact that Americans get beat at the US Open by people from other countries is not the proof.
I get a laugh out of it every time someone mentions, the "Future of pool rest on being able to get the youth involved"! I wonder how many parents out there are really telling their kids....."son/daughter.....you just have to learn how to play pool....the future of this game we love so much....rests upon YOUR sholders!!!! Or, if they're more like I was with my kids...."if you kids think you're going to play pool for a living when you grow up, you have no idea what in the hell you're in for. Let me tell you something, all of you kids....you'll make more money and a better living if you just apply for a job working at McDonalds than you will trying to be a pool player....so if any of you want to play pool for a living.....you can get the hell out of my house tomorrow and take your chances trying to supports yourselves doing anything you can.....because that's how much of a chance you'll have trying to make it through life as a pool player!!! Now if they came at me with dreams of playing golf, tennis, football, basketball....hell, even boxing....I might be open to their idea.....at least enough to listen. So, to even have a cold chance in hell of attracting the youth of the future to keep this sport going....then SOMEONE needs to figure out HOW to pay the Professional pool players TODAY.....not TOMORROW....because there won't be a tomorrow if Pros can't make a living playing this game today....or tomorrow!
Maybe the most important thing. Get pool into the schools!!
Start off small with high schools, and eventually graduateto colleges and then universities.
The sooner we get the youth involved the better.
There have been successful attempts at getting Pool into Schools. i.e BEGNF
Mark Wilson has a university Pool program.
The gentleman that had a column in Professor Pool had some attempts at Pool in schools.
Great idea, plus it gets Mom & Dad into the equation, I saw great High School tournament at The Billiard Den in Dallas...
The message being sent is a simple one....play pool, but stay in school, get an education, when you graduate....get a real job....that pays for your cost of living....and THAT'S why Landon shuffett didn't choose pool for his career, he wants to be a teacher instead when he graduates.
Very good advice.
Even if you play well, have your self a great job, If you want a future...