This is something I posted on facebook a little while ago and some here may think something like this could work. It's just an idea that could work. Not saying it would, but it could at least to some extent IMO. This was in response to a post by Darren Appleton
Darren makes a lot of great points! I think one of his best points is that the the vast majority of league players have no idea who the top pros are. Yeah sure, the bulk probably know who SVB is, but what about even a guy like John Morra who's right on the edge of that top tier? I bet 9/10 APA 6's and down don't and that's where the bulk of the pool players fall. One idea, why do I know who Daniel Berger is? Hell, why do I know who pretty much all pro golfers are? He's a mid tier pro golfer who I happened to have on my fantasy golf team. Yes, that's right, there's fantasy golf lol.....
I used to hate watching golf on tv, but now that I have players, I have action (legal action too) and everyone in the league I play with love it! I pay attention online without tv as well. You have 12 guys, put your entry in, draft a team and set a certain amount of tourneys. If a guy cashes you get cash and most money wins after x amount of tourneys. You can drop and add up to a couple guys a week. This comes in handy especially with the foreign guys playing the US Open and other big tourneys where guys play, but don't get on the regular tour. There is no pro tour in pool. This is true, but a format like this could still be done. I'm sure I'm not the only one that watches live streams and pays for them when I can. I also try to follow live scoring and live brackets too, especially if streams aren't available. For the bulk of bigger tourneys in the US, if there isn't a stream, online brackets are typically available. Even with online brackets, there's still enough action for most to participate. I have a buddy where we each draft 10-16 guys for some of the bigger pro tourneys and we usually play most money wins. It's fun for both of us, but would be even more fun if you had pods of 10 or 12 person leagues (or groups or whatever) just like fantasy football leagues. Entry fees could vary per league all the same at a $20, $40, or even much higher entries, but the nice thing is that the $20 would give you action for 6, 8, 10, or 12 tourneys or whatever......
Something like this is done for almost all main stream sports in the US! It could be done for pool too. Even in the US, you have the US Open, Texas Open, Turning Stone, Derby City (could do 9 ball div or whatever), White Diamonds, etc.....You could include a few foreign tourneys like the China Open, Japan Open, or World 9/10 ball Championships. Notice, besides the White Diamonds I threw in they are all big table tourneys too. You could mix it up with both bar box tourneys and big table or just big table or whatever.
Yes, I know, it seems like the current state of pool is so far removed from something like this, but it could work! I'm not going to be the guy to help run the leagues if it did, but I would sure get some money in and participate and I'm sure others would too! I know this was a novel and probably hard to read, so sorry about that to anyone who read the whole thing lol. Something like this could work, at least locally at pool halls on a smaller scale, but could develop into something much bigger! Until league players start talking about what happened at last weekends white diamonds tourney or whatever (like people at work tomorrow talking about football), pool will never grow to it's potential IMO.
