It is the latter. I am not sure how new you are to this forum but I have spent years on here debating ways to make this sport work and coming up with ideas that get posted freely on the forum. Anyone who has spent any amount of time on this forum for any considerable amount of time knows I am quite happy to get right into the middle of discussions on how pool might break out of it's rut.
Yes, I am stating very clearly that Bonus Ball is not the way, it will end up being a huge waste of alot of money and time that would be better spent promoting the game in an entirely different fashion.
My own personal thoughts on what would make pool actually work have been stated on here many times.
1) I think 8-ball is the key game to promote and market. It is THE game that the general public accept, the game they understand, and the game that they play and has been for decades DESPITE the professional pool world largely ignoring it and trying to push rotation pool. The general public have spoken on this, they have done so for decades, but the promoters out there have chosen to ignore what the public have told them and instead try to force feed them 9-ball, 10-ball, and now Bonus Ball. It will not work.
2) For 8-ball to be played at the pro level the equippment needs to be significantly difficult so that the cream of the professional pool world rises to the top. The new 10-foot diamond tables with 4 1/8th inch pockets are IMO the correct tables to use in order to accomplish this. Much like golf the professional game of pool can be played on equipment that is more difficult then the general public tend to play on, that is OK and can and does work in a great many sports. Amature pool can be played on standard 7 foot diamonds with 4 1/2 inch pockets, the pros can play on larger tables with smaller pockets.
3) I think that league pool/national championships should be linked to the professional game. I think that a league needs to step up and become the "Q School" of pool and the people who win at the national/international level of amature pool should win their tour playing cards on an actual tour. I think this helps create a fan base when the people who play in a league are actually now playing in the same organization that the professional tour is part of.
4) I think in order to fund such a professional tour the league system which now acts as the qualifying school for the tour needs to have some of the income from the amature ranks fund the professional tour, at least in the start until sponsorship can increase to a level where it becomes self sustaining. Something like $20/year from each league player's league fees going directly into the professional fund. In turn these league players would gain access to one free online account that would allow them to watch streams of the professional tournaments.
5) I think the website for the league system should be nationalized, instead of having a SML Pool Leagues website that shows the stats for the leagues in Alberta people playing in the major league systems should go to the official major website where ALL of the people in that league system have their stats displayed and stored. You can see where teams stand in their local divisions but you also have stats of all of the players in the entire country that can be seen and compared. This system should be set up so that local league operators can upload all of their leagues data each week in a standardized system and each league in the system plays the same number of weeks in a season and plays the same number of games and by the same rules. With such a universal system all centered in one place the number of hits that such a site would recieve would be huge and thus the potential for sponsorship and advertising revenue is considerable.
6) Due to the fact that the league systrem and professional tour are part of the same organization the website would also serve the professional ranks. It is on that website that advertising for professional events would take place, it is on that website that the links/page to view live streams of professional events would be accessible, it is on that website that interesting news about league or pro accomplishments would be updated such as a player from a local league getting a 5 ERO 50-0 night or a professional player running a 7 pack in a tournament.
7) I think one of the major things needed to be done to promote this sport is to set up pool tournaments and events in public places. In Asia they have used very large shopping malls to showcase the sport and have thus introduced the sport to many people who knew little about it and were simply there to shop. I think if you are doing a tournament in a casino in Vegas then having one table for matches that is actually in the casino and that can be seen by the people who pass by is 1000 times more useful in promoting a sport so very under the radar then having the pro event in the back of a convention center of the casino behind closed doors and with a $10 admission price.
8) I think it is VERY important for pool to attempt to globalize the professional tour as quickly as possible. Regional and even national professional tours need to become a thing of the past and the sport needs to become global with the best players from all of the countries competing against each other in all of the major professional events. I think that there should be events in Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East that take place on the tour each year. This also compels the amature league system to all be under the same umbrella, but for amature championships to save on costs each area of the world can have their own regional championships.
None of this is instant, it is something to work towards, it would start with a serious commitement at the league level and the footwork of creating the fledgling professional tour which would admittedly start small. Early in the development of the pro tour the promotion of the tour with the events in popular areas where the general public can view it is critical and at that time the league system and amature game should be advertised and promoted heavily to get more people into pool as a recreational activity. At the same time the promotion of the game to the youth and in schools, specifically to get the league system going would also be important to push. Junior leagues and the like are huge opportunities to build future interest in the sport.
I could go on and on and on about this. For people actually putting as much effort and time and money into the game as the Bonus Ball people are putting into that I can only shake my head at the direction they chose to go and how much they tried to reinvent the wheel. The public's cries that 8-ball is their game fell on deaf ears yet again. 8-ball has NEVER been given an honest chance at being the proper professional game in pool. The IPT was a gong show that was impossible to watch and had almost no marketing, TAR is awesome but it is a niche product that only pool zealots know about, the general public mostly got tons of 9-ball shoved in their faces for years and they finally tuned right out of this game. Now we are going to give them Bonus Ball and expect them to eat it up? Uhh, no, aint gonna happen, sorry. Even with 8-ball the work that would need to be done to promote the game and get people interested in watching pro pool even when they already know, like, and play the game being presented would be significant.
