China Open

[Island Drive]

For starters, I have interacted with pool's fan base on a regular basis since 1976, having attended several hundred events live over that period. Nonetheless, that is only a small part of the picture.

The fans have not only spoken out on this subject but they have screamed out. Twenty-five years ago, several players and event producers tried to replace 9ball with 10ball, speculating that the fans wanted a harder game and that 9ball would soon fall of the face of the earth. Twenty-five years later, there are probably still twenty 9ball events for every 10ball event in pro pool. Call shot 10ball is not what the fans wanted. 9ball was, and 9ball remains the game in which pool players make most of their livings. When a couple of event producers tried call shot call safe 10 ball, they were even more wrong, and that version of 10ball basically disappeared, ultimately rejected by both fans and players.

Poker has to be the most boring thing on television. Pool was not better to watch back in the day and few were watching. Pool was worse. There are plenty of "characters" in the game today (Shaw, Oi, Pagulayan, Melling, Kaci, Souto, Sanderson to name a few). Perhaps the action scene was more vibrant back in the day, but more people watch action matches today than ever before.

I am on the other side of this argument. I think the game may already be too hard. The four inch pockets with the narrow break box version of 9ball in use in WNT events makes the game very difficult and packages are few and far between. At the World 9ball in July, there was just one 5-pack and one 4-pack in the entire event. Packages are not as big a part of the game as they were back in the day. The 4 3/4" pockets of yesteryear meant more, not less, offense and less strategy than today.

Finally, I have seen no evidence that player personalities come out more when the game is harder.

This line truly has allot of good meaning.... I believe the sport/players should decide POCKET SIZE.
Too me it's exactly the same as having every tee box in golf lined with trees narrowly for at least 200 yrs.
Takes the game outta the game.
I've felt strongly that 4 1/4'' for all the corners is correct.
The fans want scoring/offense..... not a game where a non player can tell what a pros going to do ''most the time''.
Making the pockets too small also keeps top end pros in their 40's More outta the game.

 

[sjm]

Have you seen evidence to the contrary? I'm going to go out on a limb and say players show more raw emotion (personality) when frustrated than they do with success. The table-jumping-fist-pumping celebration after a big finals victory is so contrived it's cringeworthy.

Another point (please don't take offense): yourself and the people you interact with at tournaments (including me) are not a good representation of the average person promoters would hope to attract to increase pool viewership. Reminds me of the old adage "fish see water last".

As a social experiment, try polling random adults in a busy mall to name five famous pool players from any era, dead or alive. I'm guess that on average, people will be able to name 3 or 4 in total and then draw a blank. Guess what the most common answer would be. I'd speculate it would either be Willie Mosconi or Minnesota Fats. Of course, Willie Mosconi we could all understand because of his accomplishments. Minnesota Fasts is where we should draw our attention though. He was largely known because of his entertaining personality.

In my opinion, we will increase viewership and make pool spectatorship more mainstream when we focus more on entertainment then the subtleties of world class pool that only a tiny fraction of the general public will ever see or understand. As diehard pool fans like us, we can only hope that answer doesn't dilute the beauty of the game itself.

Having all that been said, I hope you don't mind me challenging you on this. Trust me, if I ever planned on dumping big money into a pool calcutta, I would seek out your advice first and take it above all others. We just differ on how to increase pool viewership and of course...I could be wrong; I'm wrong often.

Nice post, and rest assured that no offense is taken. You have debated with civility, clarity, and in a tone of mutual respect. Your opinion matters a lot to me.

There's no need for us to see eye to eye here as we come from different points of view and different experiences. I think I'm much more in tune with the existing pool fan than the prospective fan, and yet the latter, as you seem to sense, may be of far greater importance.

Where we agree is that the focus must be on entertainment value of the game. In fact, the premise of the thread is that some of the pool's entertainment value was compromised by the use of alternate break and many agreed. In my opinion, things like "winner breaks" and "30 second shot clock" cater to the entertainment value of pool more than the needs of the players, and I think Matchroom has shown a keen understanding on these points.

We have slightly different views regarding what would make pool more entertaining, but what's wrong with that? All points of view matter here and this is the kind of debate that AZB is all about.