Billiard Digest Article About the PBA

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Rickw

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Anyone read the article about how the PBA is trying to become more successful? I thought it was interesting that the current leader, Miller, suggests that for a sports organization to be financially successful, there needs to be an autocratic leadership. He insisted that the players should not have the ability to make decisions if that organization is going to be fiscally successful. Of course they got 30 million dollars infused into their sport by dot comers and that certainly didn't hurt!

Too bad we couldn't get someone with money and connections interested in pool. Some other good ideas were having set tour events like the US Open, the Mosconi Cup, DCC, etc., and having a set TV schedule with ESPN. They have developed a 5 year plan and are following that plan in spite of pressure from within to be more aggressive. I think they are going to be successful. Maybe we can learn some things from them and eventually get the prize money in pool closer to other sports. If we don't, our beloved sport will continue to flounder and pros like Corey and George Sansouci (sp) will continue to want to leave because they can't make a decent living in it.
 
Rickw said:
Anyone read the article about how the PBA is trying to become more successful? I thought it was interesting that the current leader, Miller, suggests that for a sports organization to be financially successful, there needs to be an autocratic leadership. He insisted that the players should not have the ability to make decisions if that organization is going to be fiscally successful. Of course they got 30 million dollars infused into their sport by dot comers and that certainly didn't hurt!

Too bad we couldn't get someone with money and connections interested in pool. Some other good ideas were having set tour events like the US Open, the Mosconi Cup, DCC, etc., and having a set TV schedule with ESPN. They have developed a 5 year plan and are following that plan in spite of pressure from within to be more aggressive. I think they are going to be successful. Maybe we can learn some things from them and eventually get the prize money in pool closer to other sports. If we don't, our beloved sport will continue to flounder and pros like Corey and George Sansouci (sp) will continue to want to leave because they can't make a decent living in it.
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Unfortunitly this is as good as it will get for MENS professional pool. If you can call it professional pool. We are only down to professional tournaments and the player with the most cakes gets to play in it. The men should look at the womens tour and start taking notes. Yes the artical on the pba was an interesting one. Thats is why everyone attached to pool should start comparing pool to bowling and STOP comparing pool to golf, football, baseball, etc. For some unapparent reason, most everyone on this forum keeps on thinking that pool is on the same level as real sports as mentioned above. Bowling is hand in hand with pool. A top notch bowler can make 100k-500k a year in bowling. A top pool player (playing tournaments only) can make 20k-40k a year and think thats great. both are played indoors with little or no fan base in attendence at each event. The article talks about big dollars up front and fortunitly for bowlers most of it accually reaches the players. In pool too many people other than the players see the cash, unless you place in the top 3-4 each tournament ( pro tournaments like the us open). This is the first artical I have every seen with bowling compared to pool and I think it is great.
 
If you look at the players section on this web site, you'll see that the top players do make more than 20k - 40k but not by a whole lot. They're usually making just over 100k but that's just the top 2 or 3. The money goes down fairly quickly as you go down the list.
 
Rickw said:
If you look at the players section on this web site, you'll see that the top players do make more than 20k - 40k but not by a whole lot. They're usually making just over 100k but that's just the top 2 or 3. The money goes down fairly quickly as you go down the list.
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RickW,

You are correct about some players making more than 40K but you have to be the top 4 players to make that kind of money. and if you look at it year by year, if you are not a consistant top 4 player you are struggling. Having said that, most of the top 20 players have some kind of sponsorship to pay for their expenditures to each event. To be a top bowler you can win one event during the year, feed your family, pay your bills and coast the rest of the year and hold a full time job! That is part of the reason why most pool players who try to make a living at pool hustle to make money, yes this also includes stealing, con games and gambling just to put a dollar in their pockets. Also this doen't leave out tournament host, directors and room owners.
I really think the camel tour was the start of something big and should have been the springboard to professional pocket billiards success, but with what I stated above was part of its demise.
 
JustPlay,

You make some good points. Think about this, what should a really good player do, go out on the road under the radar and hustle possibly making a lot of money or take the sunglasses off and play the tournament circuit thereby killing any possibility of hustling? A player that is capable of bieing #5 in the world could make a lot of cash staying under the radar but like you said, they can't make a living if they're trying to make it on the tournament circuit. It becomes a pretty difficult call to make that commitment to play tournaments. I have a friend that is under the radar and he makes pretty good money hustling and another good player I know plays tournaments all the time. The guy that's hustling consistently makes more money by a long shot.
 
Rickw said:
JustPlay,

You make some good points. Think about this, what should a really good player do, go out on the road under the radar and hustle possibly making a lot of money or take the sunglasses off and play the tournament circuit thereby killing any possibility of hustling? A player that is capable of bieing #5 in the world could make a lot of cash staying under the radar but like you said, they can't make a living if they're trying to make it on the tournament circuit. It becomes a pretty difficult call to make that commitment to play tournaments. I have a friend that is under the radar and he makes pretty good money hustling and another good player I know plays tournaments all the time. The guy that's hustling consistently makes more money by a long shot.
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I think though that the "quality of lifestyle" is the issue here too. At the tournament level you can control your life more. Regulated times in a more professional environment. Youre not hustling at all hours in some town you are a stranger to. Sleeping in cheap motels eating crappy food. Plus the fact when you enter a tournament you can get ten times your initial investment. Say entry fee is a $100 and prize is a $1000. Now if you are on the road. You bet a hundred to make a hundred. Or if you got a backer youre getting at tops %50. On the tournament side of things youre not dealing with all kinds of scams and propositions. Hours of "who shot John" negotiating. Im not advocating either way. I just think that you choose your lifestyle that suits you. I think that most quality pros do a balance of both.
 
yobagua said:
I think though that the "quality of lifestyle" is the issue here too. At the tournament level you can control your life more. Regulated times in a more professional environment. Youre not hustling at all hours in some town you are a stranger to. Sleeping in cheap motels eating crappy food. Plus the fact when you enter a tournament you can get ten times your initial investment. Say entry fee is a $100 and prize is a $1000. Now if you are on the road. You bet a hundred to make a hundred. Or if you got a backer youre getting at tops %50. On the tournament side of things youre not dealing with all kinds of scams and propositions. Hours of "who shot John" negotiating. Im not advocating either way. I just think that you choose your lifestyle that suits you. I think that most quality pros do a balance of both.
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Yobagua, this is a Fantastic point period. Try raising a family on pool hustling, getting credit or a mortgage. You can pool hustle every day. Most of them are bums who literily spend 12-24 hours waiting and wasting time for their next mark or game. What alot of waste of time and life.

Have said all of the above, only a handful of american players have really excelled at making a living at tournament pool and don't forget that some of them come from money or have great sponsors. If a top player has a bad year, they will definitly play in money games to make up for the losses in tournaments. However, this thread is about getting mens professional pool back on the radar map like bowling is......
 
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