ATTENTION- ABP News : ABP Guidelines & Format for Sanctioned Events
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JCIN...One thing we already know...Greg is already forming another DCC-type event, tentatively scheduled for next summer, at a casino in Tunica, MS. My source told me Greg wanted to have a monthly event in different areas of the country. Who knows...? One thing for sure, he does know how to draw the fans!
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Bill...Of the defunct organizations you mentioned, the PCA was at least "by the players, for the players". It might have succeeded, where others have failed...if only Earl hadn't killed the golden goose (J/K 
), on the first day of the first event! No disrespect to Earl...he played amazingly well, and actually got a damn good payday eventually!
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
), on the first day of the first event! No disrespect to Earl...he played amazingly well, and actually got a damn good payday eventually! Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Joel...This may be just one reason why the Seminole Tribe is backing away from pro pool.
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
I don't post that often. My post was well written? English is not even my native language ^^.Cheers.
Evgeny is a lost talent!
>link<
We call him "The Russian," and he's a good friend. I miss seeing him. Here's a shot of him at the U.S. Open showing off his cue. He said this cue weighed 25 ounces. I'm not sure if there was a language gap, but that's one heavy cue. :grin:
Like my other half, I hear Evgeny has given up on pool and has been playing online poker.
The ABP is doomed before it begins. I've seen MANY, MANY, MANY so-called "pro players" give their time to charity events, Beat the Pro, et cetera, but nobody notices them as much as the ones who are no-shows.
I am saddened to read some of the posts on this thread, but I totally understand how some opinions have been formed. To think I almost gave up my day job in pursuit of a pool journey with my partner. It was fun while it lasted, but that's the only thing I can say about pool today. It's fun, but it's most definitely a rich man's high if you want to compete in professional pool on a full-time basis.
As long as the ABP continues to behave exactly the way the UPA did at its inception, then it will end up the same way: a dead fish in the water.
Hope Evgeny is doing well!
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![Russian%20and%20his%20cue[1].JPG](/data/attachments/148/148142-e482ce8a983886cad16554e1968a478c.jpg?hash=5ILOipg4hs)
I am hoping that if you keep posting up reports from your "sources" they will stop sharing things with you. We all have sources Scott. Do you think talking about events that havent happened or been announced yet makes it easier or harder for the people trying to do them?
I can honestly say that the best way to promote the sport, is by creating a serious Pro tour which in the long run, can provide big payouts. Consider this scenario: You are watching a pool game final on the TV with your wife for example, who doesn't know anything about the game. Your wife asks: "How much money does the winner get?" I am sure that if you have said 100.000$, she would sit and watch it just out of curiosity and/or interest. People want to feel the thrill of the player and relate to them. They can't relate to someone who bangs balls for a couple of thousand bucks. No wonder why pool is only being watched by pool players.When Stephen Hendry was winning world championships back to back, he was one of the best paid players of any sport in the world. Golf is being watched (golf? come on! pool is much more beautiful, fast and thrilling than that!) because there is money, and where there is money there is TV coverage. I know Tiger Woods and I have never held a golf club in my life. (well, maybe I know him more because he couldn't keep his snake in his pants) Every day you turn on the TV and you watch shows where a random guy just answers questions and he may win 500 grand. Hell, you may even watch someone guess numbers or boxes or stuff like that and win these amounts.
In mass entertainment, the everyday person "sees" so much money being won and lost in an instant, that the current pool payouts will seem like the money a 10 year old keeps inside his piggy bank.
I don't post that often. My post was well written? English is not even my native language ^^.Cheers.
Evgeny is a lost talent!
>link<
Yeah....and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass. All that sounds great. I'll tell you what, you go find me $10,000,000 I'll give you an international pro tour, a reality tv show pilot to go with it and a functioning players union.
How on earth are you supposed to come up with that kind of money ?
I guess the same way you expect someone else to do it.
#118 Yesterday, 07:59 PM
sjm
The Youngest Old Schooler Join Date: May 2003
Location: New York, NY
vCash: 525
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Posts: 8,297
Quote:
Originally Posted by stumpie71
Exactly what is the benefit? What are the promoters gaining? What are the top rated players bringing to the table?
At the heart of this question lies the crux of the entire matter.
The ABP pros believe that assurance of their presence alone is enough of an inducement for promoters to add a minimum of $25,000. It's an opinion to which they are entitled.
Indeed, this is the principle upon which most pool tours are born. Having a list of members that are committed to participation in all events that are sanctioned, at least in theory, ensures that the professional pool product dlievered will be of high quality, which should make the pursuit of sponsorship money and the sale of event tickets easy for the promoters. As we've seen, however, in recent years, the presence of an elite field hardly guarantees that sponsorship money and ticket sales will allow the promoters to turn a profit in their events.
In pool, it's the dilemma of our times. Do you pay the players more to make sure they stay the competitive course in bad times or do you pay them less to make sure that pool's business model does not collapse? Whatever the answer, there is something fundamentally unacceptable in having the players unilaterally setting the wage scale.
Stumpie and Sjm, your combined statements summarize, condense and simplify all that's been said within this particular thread.
The ABP needs to divide the USA up into four areas NW/SW/NE/SE and start from scratch, create feeder systems, and end of yr events and utilize ''in place'' pre existing events.
Next, develop a point structure/system to give all players goals to achieve. Keeps down on traveling costs and entry fees.
Next, have minimal dollar numbers to give Many different locations in each quadrant a chance to compete to show their interest, along with the players showing their interests by ''showing up''.
Have tele meetings with involved room business members, and charge them an annual room membership fee, like the BCA likes to do, to evolve tour.
In time this will all work itself out NATURALLY, like water seeking its own level. Only then will matters evolve Slowly.
Soooooooooo many compaines/businesses started small, Microsoft comes to mind but that takes LOTS of hard work.
What might work best, have many top players put down their cues and put as much hard work into creating a tour as they did getting great, then it might work.
I don't know if looking for that Gift Horse is the way to go, it hasn't shown up, cept Maybe back in Mosconi days.
Players, it may be time to put your passion into developing the sport instead of playing it and saying your not getting paid enough. Your not getting any younger.
This idea about starting small and working big, was a simple proposal introduced to the BCA exective director on how to save the BCA over 20K a yr by getting room members involved in the All American Tour and giving them something tangible for their membership dollars and support.
Director said, they were not willing to support their room members in this manner and save money at the same time, in essence, DuCoff knew this would take allot of work, and he was their just to finish his tenure and retire and fly his plane and dabble in business.
sjm
The Youngest Old Schooler Join Date: May 2003
Location: New York, NY
vCash: 525
iTrader: (0)
Posts: 8,297
Quote:
Originally Posted by stumpie71
Exactly what is the benefit? What are the promoters gaining? What are the top rated players bringing to the table?
At the heart of this question lies the crux of the entire matter.
The ABP pros believe that assurance of their presence alone is enough of an inducement for promoters to add a minimum of $25,000. It's an opinion to which they are entitled.
Indeed, this is the principle upon which most pool tours are born. Having a list of members that are committed to participation in all events that are sanctioned, at least in theory, ensures that the professional pool product dlievered will be of high quality, which should make the pursuit of sponsorship money and the sale of event tickets easy for the promoters. As we've seen, however, in recent years, the presence of an elite field hardly guarantees that sponsorship money and ticket sales will allow the promoters to turn a profit in their events.
In pool, it's the dilemma of our times. Do you pay the players more to make sure they stay the competitive course in bad times or do you pay them less to make sure that pool's business model does not collapse? Whatever the answer, there is something fundamentally unacceptable in having the players unilaterally setting the wage scale.
Stumpie and Sjm, your combined statements summarize, condense and simplify all that's been said within this particular thread.
The ABP needs to divide the USA up into four areas NW/SW/NE/SE and start from scratch, create feeder systems, and end of yr events and utilize ''in place'' pre existing events.
Next, develop a point structure/system to give all players goals to achieve. Keeps down on traveling costs and entry fees.
Next, have minimal dollar numbers to give Many different locations in each quadrant a chance to compete to show their interest, along with the players showing their interests by ''showing up''.
Have tele meetings with involved room business members, and charge them an annual room membership fee, like the BCA likes to do, to evolve tour.
In time this will all work itself out NATURALLY, like water seeking its own level. Only then will matters evolve Slowly.
Soooooooooo many compaines/businesses started small, Microsoft comes to mind but that takes LOTS of hard work.
What might work best, have many top players put down their cues and put as much hard work into creating a tour as they did getting great, then it might work.
I don't know if looking for that Gift Horse is the way to go, it hasn't shown up, cept Maybe back in Mosconi days.
Players, it may be time to put your passion into developing the sport instead of playing it and saying your not getting paid enough. Your not getting any younger.
This idea about starting small and working big, was a simple proposal introduced to the BCA exective director on how to save the BCA over 20K a yr by getting room members involved in the All American Tour and giving them something tangible for their membership dollars and support.
Director said, they were not willing to support their room members in this manner and save money at the same time, in essence, DuCoff knew this would take allot of work, and he was their just to finish his tenure and retire and fly his plane and dabble in business.
Some good ideas here. Personally I just don't see anyone having the resources, skills and ability to make it all happen as things sit now. Anyone with all of those attributes is making serious money in some other line of business. The absolute hardest part would be getting enough people to pull in the same direction long enough to build momentum....the impossible part would be keeping a few of those people from screwing it up once there was actually light at the end of the tunnel.
Sad as it is to say the only way I see pro pool in this country making a giant change is for one of two things to happen:
1. A small group of the most marketable pro's create, fund and run their own tour starting at a grass roots level with the understanding that the whole is more important than the individual. This would require an as yet unseen level of cooperation, trust, luck and savvy to pull off.
2. Someone comes in with enough money to just make every one fall in line. You pull the way you're told or you go back to playing $1000 added regionals. AKA the way every other professional sports league does business. EDIT TO ADD: The IPT proved that while this will get everyone on the same page it can also throw things into complete turmoil if implemented poorly. Plus there is the fact that no amount of money can make a dumb idea into a long term success.
There is an outside shot for something like Mark Griffins USAPL to do something if enough people got behind it. It is an amateur league that has a built in feature to fund pro events. Grow the league and you grow the pot for the pro events. It's in it's infancy now but it does have a lot of things at it's base that make sense for creating something sustainable.
As good as it sounds I just do not see getting all of the rooms, regional events and professional promoters and players to pull in the same direction without a major and tangible incentive to all involved. "For the good of the game" just won't get it.
So its either going to take a metric sh!t ton of money or one hell of a leader to change things in any serious fashion in the near term.
<-----thinks it would be easy if we made $1 for every time we all posted about how to fix pool.
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Some may believe that money is the answer, but it ain't.
The IPT poured MILLIONS of dollars into pool. They had their enemies in the pool world, each with their own vendetta, but from where I stand, I saw a man try to elevate pool to the next level.
He created a tour on an international scale and poured several million dollars into it to effect a change for the better.
He gifted every single BCA Hall of Famer with $30,000 each just for showing up in Orlando in December of 2005, which was the launch of the IPT tour.
What I learned from the IPT is that it doesn't matter how much money is thrown at pool. You can't put whipped cream on a hot dog if nobody is interested in eating hot dogs. Here in America, pool sucks as far as mainstream interest, and it doesn't matter how pretty you dress it up or how much money is thrown at it.
That said, for the pool enthusiasts and fans, the show will go on as long as there's a Greg Sullivan, Mike Zuglan, Barry Behrman, Mark Griffin, and Allen Hopkins.
The IPT poured MILLIONS of dollars into pool. They had their enemies in the pool world, each with their own vendetta, but from where I stand, I saw a man try to elevate pool to the next level.
He created a tour on an international scale and poured several million dollars into it to effect a change for the better.
He gifted every single BCA Hall of Famer with $30,000 each just for showing up in Orlando in December of 2005, which was the launch of the IPT tour.
What I learned from the IPT is that it doesn't matter how much money is thrown at pool. You can't put whipped cream on a hot dog if nobody is interested in eating hot dogs. Here in America, pool sucks as far as mainstream interest, and it doesn't matter how pretty you dress it up or how much money is thrown at it.
That said, for the pool enthusiasts and fans, the show will go on as long as there's a Greg Sullivan, Mike Zuglan, Barry Behrman, Mark Griffin, and Allen Hopkins.
Sad to say it is all about MONEY, and the lack of it in professional pool. If there was a $500,000 tournament most every week (with the winner getting 100G's) all the players would be happy campers! They wouldn't complain about the conditions, the format or the rules. Oh they might, but not too loudly, lest they lose their opportunity for enrichment. As the IPT showed, they will show up, shut up and just play their best pool when serious dough is on the line. And look good doing it!
If you clean up the environment (bigger, more prominent and more lucrative events), people tend to clean up their own act. This fact has been proven over and over historically. People have a tendency to adapt themselves to the environment they populate. A bum knows he can't go into the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas without first cleaning himself and his clothes up substantially. By the same token a rich man wouldn't feel too comfortable in the ghetto. He would probably dress way down to better fit his new environment. Open a clean modern poolroom/sports bar, and your clientele will be somewhat upscale for the most part. Open a dump and guess who you'll attract!
Problem with pro pool is there is just enough money to keep a group of excellent players chasing it. The very best of the bunch can make a decent living off the game. Six figure incomes are possible if you are in the elite. After that it is all a dream about bigger paydays, which never seem to materialize. Once in a while a player grabs the golden ring on the merry go round that is pool. Santos labored ten years in this country without seeing his family in the Philippines, before winning the big shoot-out in New York that paid him 75K. Efren grabbed the 500 thou payday (reduced to 350K by taxes) in the final IPT event. In the early days of the Matchroom WPC it was 100K to the winner. So it does happen just enough that this dangling carrot of hope keeps luring them on.
That's the reality we face today and it probably won't change anytime soon. Players can organize, proselytize, plead and demand; but it won't change anything. At least not significantly. We will have basically the same environment as before and the elite players will be forced to travel the globe seeking remuneration for their skills. Pool still needs a fairy Godmother to wave her hand and bestow countless riches on the game and it's players. It happened with bowling and Paul Allen (Bill Gates partner) so it could happen some day with pool. As Justin said, give me ten million and I can change everything. :thumbup:
If you clean up the environment (bigger, more prominent and more lucrative events), people tend to clean up their own act. This fact has been proven over and over historically. People have a tendency to adapt themselves to the environment they populate. A bum knows he can't go into the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas without first cleaning himself and his clothes up substantially. By the same token a rich man wouldn't feel too comfortable in the ghetto. He would probably dress way down to better fit his new environment. Open a clean modern poolroom/sports bar, and your clientele will be somewhat upscale for the most part. Open a dump and guess who you'll attract!
Problem with pro pool is there is just enough money to keep a group of excellent players chasing it. The very best of the bunch can make a decent living off the game. Six figure incomes are possible if you are in the elite. After that it is all a dream about bigger paydays, which never seem to materialize. Once in a while a player grabs the golden ring on the merry go round that is pool. Santos labored ten years in this country without seeing his family in the Philippines, before winning the big shoot-out in New York that paid him 75K. Efren grabbed the 500 thou payday (reduced to 350K by taxes) in the final IPT event. In the early days of the Matchroom WPC it was 100K to the winner. So it does happen just enough that this dangling carrot of hope keeps luring them on.
That's the reality we face today and it probably won't change anytime soon. Players can organize, proselytize, plead and demand; but it won't change anything. At least not significantly. We will have basically the same environment as before and the elite players will be forced to travel the globe seeking remuneration for their skills. Pool still needs a fairy Godmother to wave her hand and bestow countless riches on the game and it's players. It happened with bowling and Paul Allen (Bill Gates partner) so it could happen some day with pool. As Justin said, give me ten million and I can change everything. :thumbup:
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Sold! You got it...but I don't ,sorry.
Tap, tap, tap!!!
IMO, I cannot understand what the fuss is all about. Pool doesn't need fixing. There's nothing wrong with the game. Participation worldwide is well into the MILLIONS. People just need to quit thinking that there HAS to be money made as the reason for playing. I literally see hundreds of league/local tournament players weekly that not only couldn't name 5 pro players, they couldn't give a rat's ass if there even was a pro tour. I mean, why the hell don't the very best Croquet players or the very best Badmitton players make any money for what they do? The answer is in JAM's above quote. Same as pool, no mainstream interest, and getting worse yearly (with young people having many more avenues of interest).
Let's just shoot pool and have fun and accept it for what it is, a game, and not a mainstream, major sport.
You can always gamble on it anyways. Two people throwin' down on one another epitomizes a true sport, imo. I have always thought a tennis match is the true test of two persons abilities. A pool gambling match would be similar to a tennis match. There is how money should be made in pool, and I'm not even a gambler. Poolplayers paydays from funds of outside sources is a lo-o-o-o-ng way away (at least on a consistent basis) is the way I see it.
Maniac