Bump for the weekend warriors! Would like to hear some more opinions on this article. Thanks to all in advance 
Four Contributors To The Death Of Pool
- Thread starter David Marcus
- Start date
Pool will never rise to the top until the Billiard Rooms unite and take over league and tournament play.
As long as pool is devalued it has no chance.
And it is devalued by every venue that uses league and tournaments as a loss leader to sell alcohol....or to get you to play their poker machines.
As long as pool is devalued it has no chance.
And it is devalued by every venue that uses league and tournaments as a loss leader to sell alcohol....or to get you to play their poker machines.
Every non pool player I know thinks pool is a game with degenerates in smokey pool rooms filled with drugs, gambling and potential danger. When they find out I play pool seriously they always say things like "Oh so your a hustler?" "I know not to play you for money now <wink wink>".
Of course I want to tell them that I spend all this time thinking about pool, playing pool and dreaming about pool mainly to challenge myself personally to constant and never ending improvement in pool and that I dont think they would bet a quarter on pool unless they knew they were stealing. Instead I just usually laugh and say oh, no not me! never! I dont play well at all <wink wink>.
Pool completely has an image problem. Mostly its well deserved, but its still such that I rarely try to tell too many non pool players just how passionate I am for the game because they just wouldn't understand. Its like trying to tell people how Iran is probably a good country full of good people or how most pitbulls are gentle loving dogs. It runs counter to what most people are taught and people resist change. The challenge to change people perceptions is not only on us the pool community but also the very difficult nature it is to change people's mind about anything. Most people are not comfortable with changing their long standing beliefs. We have our work cut out for us that's for sure. I hope I live to see the day when pool is widely respected and admired for the difficult and beautiful game it really is.
Of course I want to tell them that I spend all this time thinking about pool, playing pool and dreaming about pool mainly to challenge myself personally to constant and never ending improvement in pool and that I dont think they would bet a quarter on pool unless they knew they were stealing. Instead I just usually laugh and say oh, no not me! never! I dont play well at all <wink wink>.
Pool completely has an image problem. Mostly its well deserved, but its still such that I rarely try to tell too many non pool players just how passionate I am for the game because they just wouldn't understand. Its like trying to tell people how Iran is probably a good country full of good people or how most pitbulls are gentle loving dogs. It runs counter to what most people are taught and people resist change. The challenge to change people perceptions is not only on us the pool community but also the very difficult nature it is to change people's mind about anything. Most people are not comfortable with changing their long standing beliefs. We have our work cut out for us that's for sure. I hope I live to see the day when pool is widely respected and admired for the difficult and beautiful game it really is.
IMO having a non-smoking and no-alcohol establishment will help, plus market the business as a "family fun center" rather than just pool.
There are many pool playing fathers (and mothers) who'd love to enjoy the game with their sons and daughters, but lack an appropriate venue to do so because of the smoking and alcohol.
Room proprietors will have to think outside the box. Replace cigarette machines with arcades and claw machines. Maybe even partner with local YMCA and schools. Start a summer camp to introduce kids to pool. Section a room for event rentals - office parties, birthday parties, etc.
If any poolroom owner is looking for a business development manager let me know...
There are many pool playing fathers (and mothers) who'd love to enjoy the game with their sons and daughters, but lack an appropriate venue to do so because of the smoking and alcohol.
Room proprietors will have to think outside the box. Replace cigarette machines with arcades and claw machines. Maybe even partner with local YMCA and schools. Start a summer camp to introduce kids to pool. Section a room for event rentals - office parties, birthday parties, etc.
If any poolroom owner is looking for a business development manager let me know...
I believe that in order to grow the game then we need to take a page out of poker and the Mezz West State Tour. We should allow anyone and everyone to enter every tournament with a spot. The MWST currently does pros to 9, semi-pro to 8, and amateurs to 7. this is not enough. If we can make the game breakdown to be 11, 9 with 8 ball spot, 7 with 7 ball spot then we can atttract a lot more players. The more players enter then the prize pool willbe that much greater. This is not perfect but it could be a start.
A lot of truth
There is probably a lot of truth in this. Its never made sense to me how you could get into this business and not have your own in house league that you run yourself or
why you would pay someone else to come in and run tournaments for you.
Some of the greatest tournaments Ive ever played were in house events done on a legal pad and you pulled pills or chips for who you played next. The idea of national pool league systems that recognize each other, allow play within a framework of rules and policies is a good thing but I agree it seems a whole segment of the business has been ignored by the room owners. I guess it seems too hard to run and organize. Many things seem complicated but they aren't so much when you get down to it and they are content to let the league systems dominate the industry with the most of them not giving much back except a trip to Vegas. Whoo Hoo!
The Pool League System do create players unlike the Room Owners and there you have constant feed of new people and rooms come and go. So what does that tell you?
There is probably a lot of truth in this. Its never made sense to me how you could get into this business and not have your own in house league that you run yourself or
why you would pay someone else to come in and run tournaments for you.
Some of the greatest tournaments Ive ever played were in house events done on a legal pad and you pulled pills or chips for who you played next. The idea of national pool league systems that recognize each other, allow play within a framework of rules and policies is a good thing but I agree it seems a whole segment of the business has been ignored by the room owners. I guess it seems too hard to run and organize. Many things seem complicated but they aren't so much when you get down to it and they are content to let the league systems dominate the industry with the most of them not giving much back except a trip to Vegas. Whoo Hoo!
The Pool League System do create players unlike the Room Owners and there you have constant feed of new people and rooms come and go. So what does that tell you?
So you go to a pool hall to give lessons and make more money than you are spending. Yet your complaining about the place your using to make money, trying to make money. Pool is not educational so no I do not want my kids wasting time in school on something that has no educational value to their future. Call it a sport but playing it 8 hours a day will not get you in shape. I don't think pool at an amateur level is dying. Appears more and more leagues are growing. Appears more pool products are being manufactured and sold. Pool halls closing is probably due more to their business model. Can't just put a bunch of pool tables in a room and expect to be successful.
Social setting. Nothing wrong with that right. There are serious players that can socialize at the same time. Not all but most pool halls have two chairs per table. Not take 4 adjoining tables with 4 players each. That's 16 players to 4 tables. Gets pretty crowded. Now take a bar that usually has seating for league play. 16 players to one table. Now who has the better business model. Not even talking about food, drinks, someone that comes over to serve you. Not many people go to pool halls just to hang out and discover pool. Many go to bars to socialize and hang with friend are find an interest in pool. Some with just a little interest are ask to join teams as low ranked players and play in leagues for years. So to some aspect. I think you are taken to a pool hall to discover pool and go to a bar and discover pool. The butt heads in bars would be no different in pool halls. Different personalities anywhere you go.
I think people who end up with a passion for pool somehow find their way to pool. You will find just about the worse players in leagues, playing in bars. Playing 3-5 nights a week. Never getting better but they love the social setting and pool is what brings that together. Not sure pool halls create the same affect.
Social setting. Nothing wrong with that right. There are serious players that can socialize at the same time. Not all but most pool halls have two chairs per table. Not take 4 adjoining tables with 4 players each. That's 16 players to 4 tables. Gets pretty crowded. Now take a bar that usually has seating for league play. 16 players to one table. Now who has the better business model. Not even talking about food, drinks, someone that comes over to serve you. Not many people go to pool halls just to hang out and discover pool. Many go to bars to socialize and hang with friend are find an interest in pool. Some with just a little interest are ask to join teams as low ranked players and play in leagues for years. So to some aspect. I think you are taken to a pool hall to discover pool and go to a bar and discover pool. The butt heads in bars would be no different in pool halls. Different personalities anywhere you go.
I think people who end up with a passion for pool somehow find their way to pool. You will find just about the worse players in leagues, playing in bars. Playing 3-5 nights a week. Never getting better but they love the social setting and pool is what brings that together. Not sure pool halls create the same affect.
Ron Swanson
Banned
If pool wants a future, it must forget its past.
I see the "image" of pool mentioned quite a bit & I don't believe that's it.
Pool started dying with the advent of the Internet & more importantly video games. Young people all have xboxes but they don't own pool cues.
I believe pool will never draw interest without gambling. Does anyone think snooker & its famed high dollar prize events would exist if people there couldn't bet on it as they do? Legalized gambling on snooker allows those that don't play well to wager on it, develop a pseudo personal bond with those they bet on and root for and follow. If you had a tour in the U.S., allowed people to legally wager on it they'd watch it on TV.
Pool isn't boring to watch for those that love the game but to those that don't play, they don't get it. Now allow people to wager on it and it becomes interesting to those people. Many in pool have always tried to portray gambling as the ugly wart of pool, instead of shunning it we should embrace it.
Pool started dying with the advent of the Internet & more importantly video games. Young people all have xboxes but they don't own pool cues.
I believe pool will never draw interest without gambling. Does anyone think snooker & its famed high dollar prize events would exist if people there couldn't bet on it as they do? Legalized gambling on snooker allows those that don't play well to wager on it, develop a pseudo personal bond with those they bet on and root for and follow. If you had a tour in the U.S., allowed people to legally wager on it they'd watch it on TV.
Pool isn't boring to watch for those that love the game but to those that don't play, they don't get it. Now allow people to wager on it and it becomes interesting to those people. Many in pool have always tried to portray gambling as the ugly wart of pool, instead of shunning it we should embrace it.
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Is pool really "dying," though?
Yes, core participation numbers have dropped in half (20 million players playing 13 or more times per week to 11 million players) from 2007 to 2012, but I think that had a lot to do with the recession and the rise of online gaming, the latter being a much cheaper alternative for entertainment for younger people than going out to a bar/pool hall. Even then, pool still has more core players than golf, bowling, tennis, aerobics, etc.
I agree that pro pool in the US is dead, but that has much more to do with the fact that watching pool on television isn't interesting to 99.99999% of American viewers, and I don't think this hasn't anything to do with pool's "image."
Bowling, a sport that once got football and baseball television type ratings, has also suffered a similar fate, and its pro tour was on life support until those guys from Microsoft bought the tour and breathed some life into it, but still, bowlers aren't faring much better, and their image has always been Boy Scout squeaky clean.
Americans just don't like watching indoor games of that type (ping pong, darts, pool, bowling, etc).
Snooker and darts work in the UK because given the UK's weather and pub culture, I think those type of games are more culturally significant for them than us.
Hopefully the Hustlers gets renewed. I don't see it saving pool or anything, but I do see it bringing in some new players and/or rekindling the interest of people who might've been on a few year pool playing hiatus, like myself. Yeah, it had some corny reality TV cliches, but I think its overall presentation and respect to the game was quite good considering their target audience (I honestly expected the show to be centered around Jen, who is marketable, and feature dumb shit like pros taking money from clueless bangers [who would be actors] shooting proposition trick shots and the like). Despite the name, it didn't exalt "hustling" and the matches were played on the straight up.
Yet, all over the net I pool players were trashing it and refusing to watch. In the interest of the game, watch it, giving it your ratings point, so at the very least it keeps pool in the popular consciousness.
Yes, core participation numbers have dropped in half (20 million players playing 13 or more times per week to 11 million players) from 2007 to 2012, but I think that had a lot to do with the recession and the rise of online gaming, the latter being a much cheaper alternative for entertainment for younger people than going out to a bar/pool hall. Even then, pool still has more core players than golf, bowling, tennis, aerobics, etc.
I agree that pro pool in the US is dead, but that has much more to do with the fact that watching pool on television isn't interesting to 99.99999% of American viewers, and I don't think this hasn't anything to do with pool's "image."
Bowling, a sport that once got football and baseball television type ratings, has also suffered a similar fate, and its pro tour was on life support until those guys from Microsoft bought the tour and breathed some life into it, but still, bowlers aren't faring much better, and their image has always been Boy Scout squeaky clean.
Americans just don't like watching indoor games of that type (ping pong, darts, pool, bowling, etc).
Snooker and darts work in the UK because given the UK's weather and pub culture, I think those type of games are more culturally significant for them than us.
Hopefully the Hustlers gets renewed. I don't see it saving pool or anything, but I do see it bringing in some new players and/or rekindling the interest of people who might've been on a few year pool playing hiatus, like myself. Yeah, it had some corny reality TV cliches, but I think its overall presentation and respect to the game was quite good considering their target audience (I honestly expected the show to be centered around Jen, who is marketable, and feature dumb shit like pros taking money from clueless bangers [who would be actors] shooting proposition trick shots and the like). Despite the name, it didn't exalt "hustling" and the matches were played on the straight up.
Yet, all over the net I pool players were trashing it and refusing to watch. In the interest of the game, watch it, giving it your ratings point, so at the very least it keeps pool in the popular consciousness.
??
Doing it without alcohol is a real challenge. I do know of a small pool hall that was successful back in the '80s that was alcohol and smoke-free. I believe it closed only when the owner passed away.
The problem is not "music", it's excessively loud music. If you have to shout to make people standing next to you hear, it's too loud.
There are quite successful establishments that are smoke-free. I've played in a few of them.
Doing it without alcohol is a real challenge. I do know of a small pool hall that was successful back in the '80s that was alcohol and smoke-free. I believe it closed only when the owner passed away.
The problem is not "music", it's excessively loud music. If you have to shout to make people standing next to you hear, it's too loud.
There are quite successful establishments that are smoke-free. I've played in a few of them.
Music Problems
The problem is control. If a room has a music box and the people want to play pool just don't pipe the music everywhere and make everyone listen. I recently played at a place that didn't have surround sound and it was wonderful.
When you play at a place where their is a bar those customers like loud music so let them....at the bar....don't make everyone suffer....its easy to direct the music you just adjust the speakers or cut them off to the pool area. We hear enough so its background and that's all you really want.
The problem is control. If a room has a music box and the people want to play pool just don't pipe the music everywhere and make everyone listen. I recently played at a place that didn't have surround sound and it was wonderful.
When you play at a place where their is a bar those customers like loud music so let them....at the bar....don't make everyone suffer....its easy to direct the music you just adjust the speakers or cut them off to the pool area. We hear enough so its background and that's all you really want.
Ron Swanson
Banned
Enough with this nonsense. Enough. It's embarrassing.
Snooker is popular because it is a good game.It was a good game when Lada cars sponsored it. When cigarette companies sponsored it. When Mercantile Credit sponsored it. When Pukka bloody Pies sponsored it. Geddit yet?
Pool is in a timewarp, exemplified amply by a handful of posters on here, who are quite clearly more interested in money and self aggrandisement than they are the sport itself.
Some truth
You speak a lot of truth here, if we concentrated on getting more people to the game of pool and exposed them to all of the games the world would be a better place and the entire universe of pool, snooker and billiard games better.
You speak a lot of truth here, if we concentrated on getting more people to the game of pool and exposed them to all of the games the world would be a better place and the entire universe of pool, snooker and billiard games better.
Ron Swanson
Banned
The UK banned smoking in all pubs, clubs & restaurants etc only 8 years ago. It is unthinkable to have to put up with smoking today, and i was against the smoking ban at the time it was being put into law. Opposition to smoking bans fades quickly, as the stubborn see sense.
People must compromise if they want pool to grow. They must make sacrifices. Trouble is, most pool players cannot see beyond the end of their noses and want wwhat THEY like, even if no one else likes it.
Pool can explode in popularity in less than 2 years. Its going to need jr high and high schools to create inter school teams.
The kids would swarm at the chance to get involved, parent involvement including equipment sales would soar.
But... we need an invention that would tilt the tables on their sides with the help of a few school custodians, and roll them to corners of the school gym.
Then, of course we need town interest in giving the kids a chance at this.
Once the youth population is involved, the growth will be enormous.
The kids would swarm at the chance to get involved, parent involvement including equipment sales would soar.
But... we need an invention that would tilt the tables on their sides with the help of a few school custodians, and roll them to corners of the school gym.
Then, of course we need town interest in giving the kids a chance at this.
Once the youth population is involved, the growth will be enormous.
Lot of pieces to the puzzle
A wonderful idea with a lot of pieces to the puzzle and while it sounds great its highly unlikely that anything this huge would begin without first fixing what is wrong with the system we have in place.
Fix problems of recruitment with what we have now and other things are possible.
A wonderful idea with a lot of pieces to the puzzle and while it sounds great its highly unlikely that anything this huge would begin without first fixing what is wrong with the system we have in place.
Fix problems of recruitment with what we have now and other things are possible.
"The problem is not "music", it's excessively loud music. If you have to shout to make people standing next to you hear, it's too loud."
I'm a music lover but I don't go to the pool hall to listen to music and I don't go to the pool hall to listen to the same songs being played over and over.
But I'm reasonable and would be willing to a compromise of simply l o w e r r I n g the volume to a level that allowed players to speak to each other.
The APA hall here in Connecticut is the absolute worst. We are headed there again for playoffs and I dread the experience.
I'm a music lover but I don't go to the pool hall to listen to music and I don't go to the pool hall to listen to the same songs being played over and over.
But I'm reasonable and would be willing to a compromise of simply l o w e r r I n g the volume to a level that allowed players to speak to each other.
The APA hall here in Connecticut is the absolute worst. We are headed there again for playoffs and I dread the experience.
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Why, sure we could. We could have pizza night at the pool hall, too.
Parents could provide pepperoni pizzas for pupils at the pool hall, along with Pepsi, and prizes for the best pool players among the pupils.
Personally, I prefer Mountain Dew.