"Does drama MAKE or BREAK pool?" What I mean is, we've all seen how boring pool can be if there is no emotion, no personality, no drama whatsoever, so does a touch of drama and emotion make pool more interesting?
Me personally, I've always thought that pool should have an element of "pro wrestling" to it. Make it more about showmanship and entertainment. We need promoters. Have smoke machines and lasers and fireworks when introducing the players during a major tournament. Let the players talk trash before and after the match, or even between games, like "rasslin'". DURING the match, it's all about business, quiet, respectful, serious business; but before and after is the chance to make it pop, to promote it, to make it more like entertainment. I don't even watch pro wrestling like I did when I was a kid, but you can't beat a winning formula.
I can watch some of the best players in the world on the internet. I can go to YouTube and watch three hour long matches. BUT, after about the first hour and a half to two hours, I'm asleep in my recliner, snoring loud enough to wake myself up. It becomes tedious and boring to everyone but the players themselves.
I would consider myself a traditionalist - I like that pool and billiards should be a respectable game played by gentleman; however, we've seen FOR YEARS that trying to force the game to be respectable and convince everyone else that it's respectable is hurting more than it's helping. I work as a producer at a television station, and from my experience (well over a decade), people want to be entertained so that they can forget their own miserable lives for a brief amount of time. If pool is not entertaining, then the small minority of the billiard world who has the stamina to watch pool for hours on end is simply not enough to sustain and maintain the sport we so dearly love. It's sad. It really is.
In my opinion, and this is my opinion only, we need MORE Earls, not less. Not in the aspect that we need more crying, whining, and complaining, but we need more personalities. I'm not promoting Earl, or his antics. We need LESS Johnny Archers. I'm a huge fan of Johnny Archer, I think he's a cool dude, I like his attitude. BUT, watching him playing and circle the table seven times and pick lint from the table repeatedly is an entertainment-killer. I can only watch so much of his matches anymore before I am going on to something else. We need faster play, a shot clock, during ALL matches except the obvious 14.1 and One Pocket matches. That's the main reason why basketball developed a shot clock - teams holding the ball forever, low-scoring games, and bored audiences, which equaled NO FANS AND NO MONEY!
So to wrap up my rant: faster play, more personalities, and more showmanship, in my opinion, would help us grow the game we love. MORE EARLS!
Me personally, I've always thought that pool should have an element of "pro wrestling" to it. Make it more about showmanship and entertainment. We need promoters. Have smoke machines and lasers and fireworks when introducing the players during a major tournament. Let the players talk trash before and after the match, or even between games, like "rasslin'". DURING the match, it's all about business, quiet, respectful, serious business; but before and after is the chance to make it pop, to promote it, to make it more like entertainment. I don't even watch pro wrestling like I did when I was a kid, but you can't beat a winning formula.
I can watch some of the best players in the world on the internet. I can go to YouTube and watch three hour long matches. BUT, after about the first hour and a half to two hours, I'm asleep in my recliner, snoring loud enough to wake myself up. It becomes tedious and boring to everyone but the players themselves.
I would consider myself a traditionalist - I like that pool and billiards should be a respectable game played by gentleman; however, we've seen FOR YEARS that trying to force the game to be respectable and convince everyone else that it's respectable is hurting more than it's helping. I work as a producer at a television station, and from my experience (well over a decade), people want to be entertained so that they can forget their own miserable lives for a brief amount of time. If pool is not entertaining, then the small minority of the billiard world who has the stamina to watch pool for hours on end is simply not enough to sustain and maintain the sport we so dearly love. It's sad. It really is.
In my opinion, and this is my opinion only, we need MORE Earls, not less. Not in the aspect that we need more crying, whining, and complaining, but we need more personalities. I'm not promoting Earl, or his antics. We need LESS Johnny Archers. I'm a huge fan of Johnny Archer, I think he's a cool dude, I like his attitude. BUT, watching him playing and circle the table seven times and pick lint from the table repeatedly is an entertainment-killer. I can only watch so much of his matches anymore before I am going on to something else. We need faster play, a shot clock, during ALL matches except the obvious 14.1 and One Pocket matches. That's the main reason why basketball developed a shot clock - teams holding the ball forever, low-scoring games, and bored audiences, which equaled NO FANS AND NO MONEY!
So to wrap up my rant: faster play, more personalities, and more showmanship, in my opinion, would help us grow the game we love. MORE EARLS!
Which is just proof that Pool is going nowhere whilst its concern is TV, TV, TV... 
