Are there too many tours?

storke

storke

One Pocket Player
Silver Member
I ask the question wondering why we can't have one major men's pro tour. There seems to be no problem getting sponsorship for all the other small tours around the country. Someone please tell me the hang up. At first it looked like the UPA had a good chance, but the the IPT drowned them out and they haven't really re-surfaced. So in your opinion what is the hang up? What do you all feel it would take to get one going? Thanks for your insight and i look forward to your replies.
 
I don't get out and around much anymore but I would guess that the problem is NOT too many tours, it's that the tours in the same area don't work with one another on the dates. Johnnyt
 
Johnnyt said:
I don't get out and around much anymore but I would guess that the problem is NOT too many tours, it's that the tours in the same area don't work with one another on the dates. Johnnyt
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Well, well, well...........Hmmmff.

Yes there are too many tours. No we do not work together on the dates. We are competitors. Heres the problem. Big tour A gets sponsorship for 100 events. Plans the events or plans on have X amount of events in a region. Then comes along New Tour or Tours B and C. These new tours think they can run events but they have no sponsorship so they charge more to the players to make their end. Tours A, B and C all have events on the same weekend. Tour A gets 50 players while tours B and C get 30 and 20 players. Some think this is good for pool but the reality is that it is very bad for pool and the players in the long run. This dividing up of the players hurts the room owners/sponsors who provide the bulk of the money to do events in the 1st place. The problem is that all the tours make XXX amount of money per event so all the tours want to do something every weekend they have a chance. This in-turn decreases the # of participants at each event and in the long term decrease the expected revenues to host location and then they become disenchanted with hosting events because they lose money over and over again. This leads to other problems because what will happen is tour A that has the bulk of the sponsorship will pick up many of the rooms from tours B and C but because they were forced to compete and lower the profits they are less interested in hosting events in that region that tours A,B and C operate in. What happens next is the players suffer because they will be forced to pay a little more to play in events to keep the tours profitable for the promoters which in turn disenchants the players and the # of them coming out on a weekly basis decreases. This leads to a decrease in sponsorship because players do not come out in the masses for events. To many tours in any 1 region is a huge problem that is bad for our sport.

Yeah, that's 1 sentence.

Now, I try to not schedule conflicting dates with other tours but because we have sooo many events on the Viking Tour it is inevitable. I may have even considered putting an event right on top of other events in an effort to crush my competitors. But hay, thats just business. Other times like this weekend one of my competitors, SD is having his championship event so I agreed to move my events to far away states so they do not interfere with his event. Now if you look at it from my point of view its a loss. This weekend I now have to travel several hundred miles away to go to work just to appease one of my competitors at a huge expense to me. I also do this for the sake of the players we share and room owners who post up their hard earned money. If I wanted to be a ***** I could easily have done an event right her in ATL and kept 20-30 players away from SD's event but I bowed down. Do not expect this to happen very often from the larger tours. In fact, its in the larger tours best interest along with the players and room oweners to squash the competition as soon as possible. That way we can continue to grow our events for the betterment of our sport. AND before anybody jumps on me please keep in mind that we doubled the money added in the Viking Tour events in 1 year and also added 50 more events in the process.

There I go ramblin again.

Mj
 
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storke said:
I ask the question wondering why we can't have one major men's pro tour. There seems to be no problem getting sponsorship for all the other small tours around the country.
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Sponsorship on a national level is much more expensive and involved than sponsorship on a local/regional level...

And starting a national tour requires a huge investment... which has so far been the problem.
 
thanks

I appreciate your response. I happen to agree with your post, and know we have a problem of too many tours. I equate it to business where you have a market that is saturated with a product. All sellers suffer as do the consumer. It seems to me that people run of to check out anything new. Rather than sticking it out and supporting what is already there.
 
Why is it more expensive? At first glance i thought so too. But when really looking at the nuts and bolts its not really. It would still be held at pool halls around the country. The only area i see where there could be the extra expense would be in marketing. Which there are in my opinion plenty of avenues that already exist to use. (az billiards for example) Let's face it the general public is not into pool that much to waste money trying to draw them in.
 
storke said:
Why is it more expensive? At first glance i thought so too. But when really looking at the nuts and bolts its not really. It would still be held at pool halls around the country. The only area i see where there could be the extra expense would be in marketing. Which there are in my opinion plenty of avenues that already exist to use. (az billiards for example) Let's face it the general public is not into pool that much to waste money trying to draw them in.
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It's more expensive because supporting a tour on a national level is just plain more expensive. Running a tour on a national level is more expensive. To be able to expect turnout from people who are used to traveling only a few hours or less to their respective tours, payouts need to be well worth it. Also, yes, the marketing is more expensive. A sponsor would be getting much more exposure out of a national tour (think how much more exposure the WPBA Tour gets in comparison to a local tour). National sponsorship deals are bigtime because sponsor dollars are what makes events happen. For the big million dollar payouts everyone wants out of a unified tour, you would need multi-million dollar partners. Not quite as simple as it sounds.
 
storke said:
Why is it more expensive? At first glance i thought so too. But when really looking at the nuts and bolts its not really. It would still be held at pool halls around the country. The only area i see where there could be the extra expense would be in marketing. Which there are in my opinion plenty of avenues that already exist to use. (az billiards for example) Let's face it the general public is not into pool that much to waste money trying to draw them in.
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Actually, the expenses are cheaper. The big problem is the UPFRONT monies needed secure the events and the decrease in revenues from only holding a few events (8-12) per year. It's a lot easier to secure smaller amounts of money and sponsorship for many smaller events than to get the big ones. That's the underlying problem. However, if something modest gets going with a several year guarantee I'd bet it would snowball and everything would be much better in the long run.

The effect of this would bring many new participants into our sport and would make promoting billiards more feasable to the general public.
 
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Tap Tap Tap

MikeJanis said:
Actually, the expenses are cheaper. The big problem is the UPFRONT monies needed secure the events and the decrease in revenues from only holding a few events (8-12) per year. It's a lot easier to secure smaller amounts of money and sponsorship for many smaller events than to get the big ones. That's the underlying problem. However, if something modest gets going with a several year guarantee I'd bet it would snowball and everything would be much better in the long run.

The effect of this would bring many new participants into our sport and would make promoting billiards more feasable to the general public.
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I think you are on the right track there. I could not agree with you more!
 
branpureza said:
hey mike, got any events coming to the raleigh, nc area this year?
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We were just ther 3 or 4 times. I'm sure we will be back.

I'm holding off on the schedule at the moment until I complete this years season. Should be done by April. Crossing Fingers...........
 
MikeJanis said:
We were just ther 3 or 4 times. I'm sure we will be back.

I'm holding off on the schedule at the moment until I complete this years season. Should be done by April. Crossing Fingers...........
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yeah i think i saw where you guys came to browns and babineaus this past year.... i just moved to the area about a month ago. hopefully you guys will make it back this way soon. i look forward to playing in one of your events...
 
umm........

lodini said:
It's more expensive because supporting a tour on a national level is just plain more expensive. Running a tour on a national level is more expensive. To be able to expect turnout from people who are used to traveling only a few hours or less to their respective tours, payouts need to be well worth it. Also, yes, the marketing is more expensive. A sponsor would be getting much more exposure out of a national tour (think how much more exposure the WPBA Tour gets in comparison to a local tour). National sponsorship deals are bigtime because sponsor dollars are what makes events happen. For the big million dollar payouts everyone wants out of a unified tour, you would need multi-million dollar partners. Not quite as simple as it sounds.
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I am not sure i agree. For one as it is now we have the players traveling all across the country chasing added money events. Let me add that most of these are not even tours but weekend tournaments. As far as the payouts there isn't much getting paid out now. As far as the WPBA tour the exposure they get to me is insignificant. Yes they are on espn sometimes. Mostly now on espn classic. If you think that their exposure is good. Then go up to your neighbor and ask, hey do you know what the WPBA stands for and see what you get in response. I'm telling you the general public could care less about the game we all love. Concerning multi- million dollar partners, hell if we could get half a million dollar sponsor ship we would be along way from where were at.
 
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storke said:
I'm telling you the general public could care less about the game we all love.
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WRONG answer. To prove it is wrong, just consider how each individual got here to our sport. Before they were here, they were the general public.

Yes, times have changed but they have always changed from generation to generation. Now, if you were John Q Public and you were talking to your neighbor Bob and you asked him what he did for a living because he was either home a lot or away alot and he told you he was a Professional or aspiring pro player what would you think. Would it peak your interest? Would you ask questions? Might this exchange of words lead you to being interested in pool. For some, yes it might lead them to us. And that's what we need to start getting to John Q.
 
storke said:
Concerning multi- million dollar partners, hell if we could get half a million dollar sponsor ship we would be along way from where were at.
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That's exactly my point... sponsor dollars need to increase exponentially for a national tour to work. It's going to take BIG money for something like that to get off the ground.

(And yes, being on ESPN or even ESPN Classic is much more exposure than any regional tour sponsors could ever hope for. Considering 95% of pool sponsors are pool products/companies, their target markets are the ones of us who do know what the WPBA stands for... not my next door neighbor)
 
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Here is an estimate for ya. I am not privy to the exact #'rs but I bet I'm pretty close.

For the WPBA to hold seven ESPN events the need to spend approximately $900,000 just on the events. This does not cover WPBA office salaries or expenses. To make a profit as an organization and to help secure their future they need to bring in about 1.3 million per year in revenues.

HUGE right?


KT spent more than that on just 1 of his events. If he had spread the same money out over time it might (MIGHT) have been successfull.
 
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MikeJanis said:
Here is an estimate for ya. I am not privy to the exact #'rs but I bet I'm pretty close.

For the WPBA to hold sevn ESPN events the need to spend approximately $900,000 just on the events. This does not cover WPBA office salaries or expenses. To make a profit as an organization and to help secure their future they need to bring in about 1.3 million per year in revenues.

HUGE right?

KT spent more than that on 1.5 of his events. If he had spread the same money out over time it might (MIGHT) have been successfull.
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Great info, Mike. I would agree you are very close here with your estimates. BIG $$$, for sure. Requiring either big pockets (like KT) or millions of dollars in sponsor dollars.

Out of curiosity... how much is an average sponsorship deal with the Viking Tour?
 
lodini said:
Great info, Mike. I would agree you are very close here with your estimates. BIG $$$, for sure. Requiring either big pockets (like KT) or millions of dollars in sponsor dollars.

Out of curiosity... how much is an average sponsorship deal with the Viking Tour?
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Sorry, but tha't proprietary information that I can not disclose.
 
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