Excuse me but, if you're an amateur doing a live stream, then don't charge to watch it. Al's been doing this for 4 years now. I think he's had enough experience to call himself a pro. If there are some complaints about the stream they should be noted. Trust me, I get a ton of slack for my shows year after year and it no longer bothers me anymore - I take it in as feedback and I work from there to make it better. I don't think defending Al is really that necessary. I'm sure he can do that fine on his own.
Well said, Daniel.
The following observations/comments/opinion in respect of the recent SBE stream are intended to be a positive critique; hopefully, those involved in streaming pool, in particular PPV, will find them to be of benefit when planning future events.
Before purchasing the stream I wanted to have an opportunity to see what I was purchasing. I posted an inquiry on the thread that had been established to link to the stream asking if I could find the brackets and a list of matches scheduled for the streaming table. 24 hours later Al responded with a link. That link connected to the SBE site which had been showing a “brackets to be posted” message. The only indication of who would be playing consisted of follow-up posts as to who was coming up. The first thing that could be improved would be to let the consumer know what was being sold in respect of content. I assume that the streamer is working in conjunction with someone who is scheduling the tournament and at least the first matches could be known in advance; similarly, the information of who is scheduled should be posted as soon as possible. Accustats does this quite well.
I bought the stream and would have bought it anyway but wanted this information so I could plan my work schedule in a way that would let me watch the matches that I felt would be of most interest to me. I think that many of us have a difficulty to watch events like this from start to finish especially on week days.
Admittedly, as a somewhat die-hard fan of this sport, I enjoy the stories and background that Al and his guests provide. However, I had a friend visit on Saturday who likes to watch pool (has enjoyed watching the Mosconi Cup with me) but is a more casual fan than I; his feedback was revealing.
By way of full disclosure, he is a marketing director for a national brand that has used other sports opportunities to advertise. Also, I may have tainted his opinion over the years by going after him with evangelical zeal in terms of how I think he could benefit from throwing a little support to pool. His comments were as follows;
The commentating was not professional nor was it geared to improve the experience of the customers who paid for the event. In discussing this (from a less die-hard fan point of view) I had to admit that I have long since grown tired of Al’s comments in respect of how hard he works to put this on for us and the ongoing amplification of this theme from his many guest commentators. The play by play was mostly non-existent and buried beneath a colour commentary that often deteriorated into a love fest as to Al’s, and his guests, contributions.
Switching to a secondary table after the primary match concluded to keep the action going is fine but to do this with no sound commentary and no score added to the overall point of view that this was a very non-professional streaming of the event.His conclusion was that no serious brand would want to be associated with a PPV stream like this.
He questioned the value that the advertisers that were involved were getting although he did concede that in terms of directly being able to target the exact market there was some merit especially for Molinari gloves (I argued that but for seeing this on the various streams I would not have been interested in buying one). He also conceded that the quality of picture and sound was good and the stream angles, when they were used, allowed for the customer to see the match well.
I had to concede that the negatives in terms of unprofessional commentary during key parts of the matches (especially, the Upstate Al is the second coming of Mother Theresa for putting on this event and allowing us to pay for the privilege to listen to the supporting testimonials to this by his many guests), no sound or score on the secondary table etc. did not bode well for building a greater fan and advertiser base and left me, a die-hard fan, feeling that I was not being seen as a customer.
