Confused about number of players

[Steve Lipsky]

After watching the coverage of the KOTH tournament (which, btw, I am fairly impressed with), I am curious about one thing - why the need for such a large tour? 150 players?

The televised tournament had only 43 players, and a great deal of them were never even shown. Two prominent players from New York have yet to be showcased, and at least one of them was eliminated in round 1 (don't remember about the other). So we'll never see him/them for this tournament.

If they don't have enough time to show everyone in a 43 player field, what are they going to do when the field triples? You might say, well what difference does it make, but it does make a big difference - or at least it should. The IPT is guaranteeing 100 players to make $100,000 in 2007, and after watching the coverage of the first event, it seems they will be giving all this money to a lot of players who will never see one second of TV time.

Just seems kind of strange to me.

- Steve

 

[DaveK]

I think bigger is better. When the field is limited the ability to include the best-of-the-best is compromised. There needs to be some limit, and yes no matter what the number is it will be arbitrary, but 150 - 200 seems about right while 50 seems too low.

As far as broadcast coverage, there are many precedents including golf where the folks who miss the cut also miss the coverage (and the money!), and the players down on the leader board get little TV time (for the most part). There are golfers earning 6 figure incomes who rarely get on TV. In tennis the players eliminated in early rounds do not get on TV. I think that the payout rounds come earlier than the televised rounds in most cases.

jmo,

Dave

 

[frankncali]

I wondered about this also but with the level of play around the world I think it was needed to create diversity. The tour will create its own players after the first year and some characters will be eliminated then.

If it were the top 64 players in the world I dont think that there would be alot of "show". Even the PGA tour each year hypes the new guys coming out. Most are characters and add a bit of flair to the fans.

I also wonder if the tour is going to be too diverse. Their could be a limited number of americans advancing deep in each event. With the
american audience I wonder if we are ready for pool on TV as well as pool on TV with limited Americans.
Would we care about the Tour De France if Armstrong were French?

 

[sniper]

Won't there be more TV time for the larger tournaments than the KOTH tourny? Anyways 150 players seems about right to me, think about how many great players aren't apart of the IPT as it is, it would only get worse if they were to narrow the tour down any.

 

[Riggers]

This situation will resolve itself when a few tourmanents have taken place and players are seeded through to later rounds. I expect the TV cameras to only come in for these later rounds. So the good thing about the set up is that it's giving everyone equal chance to take one of those seeded spots.

 

[Colin Colenso]

I think it's part of the IPT's quest for legitimacy as the premium / toughest tournaments on the planet.

Now b4 someone jumps on me about the legitamacy of the original 150, which included HOF's and some lesser known players, the direction the IPT is headed is certainly toward the strongest and most international fields and group of future tour members we have ever seen.

It would be hard not to rate this upcoming North American Open event as perhaps the toughest international event in history to win. And future events are likely to get tougher and tougher.