Golf vs. Pool: Prize Money (mini-Rant)

inside_english

inside_english

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In my opinion it is appalling and insulting that 1st. prize is a mere $20,000 for the upcoming World Pool Masters in Las Vegas this May.

Meanwhile, J.P Hayes, currently ranked 168th. in the PGA tour has already earned $20,670 for 2008 after five events, and we are only in February!

Phil Mickelson has played in four events this year and has earned $1,944,700, while Tiger played in one event and has earned $936,000. Last year Tiger won $10,867,052 in prize money.

I know about the corporate sponsorship, appeal of golf to corporate America and so on, but it really chaps my butt that the prize money totals are worlds apart, especially when pro pool players have to work so hard to be excellent at their game.

Oh well...
 
inside_english said:
In my opinion it is appalling and insulting that 1st. prize is a mere $20,000 for the upcoming World Pool Masters in Las Vegas this May.

Meanwhile, J.P Hayes, currently ranked 168th. in the PGA tour has already earned $20,670 for 2008 after five events, and we are only in February!

Phil Mickelson has played in four events this year and has earned $1,944,700, while Tiger played in one event and has earned $936,000. Last year Tiger won $10,867,052 in prize money.

I know about the corporate sponsorship, appeal of golf to corporate America and so on, but it really chaps my butt that the prize money totals are worlds apart, especially when pro pool players have to work so hard to be excellent at their game.

Oh well...
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There is much more money in golf because it is much more popular than pool. It has nothing to do with how hard the players work. It's how many people want to watch them on TV. Sorry buddy you're just gonna have to get over it.
 
When was the last time you heard Buick looking to sponsor a bar-room game player who just so happens to be pretty good?

You hear the name "Tiger Woods", you know who he is even if you don't play golf.... try the same with, "Shane Van Boening" or "Corey Deuel"....

-Ross
tired of the same threads
 
1pRoscoe said:
When was the last time you heard Buick looking to sponsor a bar-room game player who just so happens to be pretty good?

You hear the name "Tiger Woods", you know who he is even if you don't play golf.... try the same with, "Shane Van Boening" or "Corey Deuel"....

-Ross
tired of the same threads
Click to expand...


Better yet...Have either of them walk into a room with Tiger....If they are not a pool player or a Golfer they will say..."So...who is that guy with Tiger???"
 
Let's face it folks, pro pool will be in the same place 5 years from now. As long as the pros don't get off their asses to get a national org. and continue to wait for that pool loving sugar daddy to come along, the purses will keep dropping and the expenses will keep going up. Johnnyt
 
Forget the PGA, that's in the stratosphere. Pool should at least shoot to be on par with the PBA. Gotta learn to walk before you run.
 
inside_english said:
In my opinion it is appalling and insulting that 1st. prize is a mere $20,000 for the upcoming World Pool Masters in Las Vegas this May.

Meanwhile, J.P Hayes, currently ranked 168th. in the PGA tour has already earned $20,670 for 2008 after five events, and we are only in February!

Phil Mickelson has played in four events this year and has earned $1,944,700, while Tiger played in one event and has earned $936,000. Last year Tiger won $10,867,052 in prize money.

I know about the corporate sponsorship, appeal of golf to corporate America and so on, but it really chaps my butt that the prize money totals are worlds apart, especially when pro pool players have to work so hard to be excellent at their game.

Oh well...
Click to expand...
you must not play golf. golf, hands down, is the most difficult game(sport) in the world to get to that level at. corporate sponsorship is one thing, but another is the aura of golf. it is a gentlemens game built on honesty and integrity. pool is a game built upon the "hustle". nobody in pool wants to be known as the best cause it would ruin their action. well, I say get the best players in the world and make competitions worth playing and watching and the prize money will get better. now will it get the point that golf has gotten to. lay off the pipe, it wont happen. I play both games and enjoy both, but to think you dont have to work hard at golf is kind of insulting to the game. another thing is how many pool tournaments do you see on abc?? bingo. there is your answer. no demand for it.
 
axejunkie said:
Forget the PGA, that's in the stratosphere. Pool should at least shoot to be on par with the PBA. Gotta learn to walk before you run.
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Now that is true. Bowling is you against 10 pins. The same 10 pins every frame. Lanes are all the same length. In my opinion bowling is 1000 times easier than pool but there is more money it. I suck at bowling myself. Best game ever was like 170, but avg. is 105-120. I do it for fun once every 3-4 years. But is pool a more difficult sport, HELL YEAH!!
 
When was the last time you saw 80,000 people at a pool tournment in 1 day, like they had at Phoenix 2 weeks ago. Plus they charge 15-200 dollars for a ticket to see a golf tourny. We have a long way to go.
 
Johnnyt said:
Let's face it folks, pro pool will be in the same place 5 years from now. As long as the pros don't get off their asses to get a national org. and continue to wait for that pool loving sugar daddy to come along, the purses will keep dropping and the expenses will keep going up. Johnnyt
Click to expand...
Don't sugar coat it John! We have allready blown five good chances.
Two movies and three well sponsored tours, and still no one has
gotten through too MOST of the players about that necessity.
 
it's a tired topic but i share your frustrations. especially as pool is a harder game than golf imo. even if it isn't, there's not much difference and yet the money is light years apart.

golf has some sort of upper class respectable aura about it which pool hasn't got. u get loads of people who just like golf for the sake of it and because it's cool to do so. pool doesn't have that kind of image.

sadly in life skill and ability doesn't nessecarilly correllate with money earned. just last night i was playing pool and where i play there are some HUGE pictures on the wall. one of geoff hurst lifting the world cup for england in 1966 and the other is evander holyfield and another boxer fighting. now i've been going there for years and i always assumed they were photos. The pool room owner told me they were paintings and he watched the man paint them in a couple of hours when the room was new. They are AMAZING. Brilliant feats of art.

I said to my friend it's like being a pool player. That man could very well be one of the best artists ever to have lived and yet nobody knows who he is, and makes just basic money.

like i said, talent doesn't nessecarilly equate money sadly.
 
JoeyInCali said:
It's called corporate sponsorship.
Click to expand...

It's also called "fans".

For example, in 2006 the FBR Open set a PGA Tour single day attendance record with over 168,000 fans in attendance on Saturday, Feb. 4, as well as drew tournament week attendance of 536,367 fans.

What does pool get per event? A few thousand for the big ones? It's just not comparable, guys.
 
Last edited:
lodini said:
It's also called "fans".

For example, in 2006 the FBR Open set a PGA Tour single day attendance record with over 168,000 fans in attendance on Saturday, Feb. 4, as well as drew tournament week attendance of 536,367 fans.

What does pool get per event? A few thousdand for the big ones? It's just not comparable, guys.
Click to expand...


And that was the same week as the Super Bowl
 
worriedbeef said:
it's a tired topic but i share your frustrations. especially as pool is a harder game than golf imo. even if it isn't, there's not much difference and yet the money is light years apart.

golf has some sort of upper class respectable aura about it which pool hasn't got. u get loads of people who just like golf for the sake of it and because it's cool to do so. pool doesn't have that kind of image.

sadly in life skill and ability doesn't nessecarilly correllate with money earned. just last night i was playing pool and where i play there are some HUGE pictures on the wall. one of geoff hurst lifting the world cup for england in 1966 and the other is evander holyfield and another boxer fighting. now i've been going there for years and i always assumed they were photos. The pool room owner told me they were paintings and he watched the man paint them in a couple of hours when the room was new. They are AMAZING. Brilliant feats of art.

I said to my friend it's like being a pool player. That man could very well be one of the best artists ever to have lived and yet nobody knows who he is, and makes just basic money.

like i said, talent doesn't nessecarilly equate money sadly.
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Speak the truth, brother.

I've always found this phenomenon fascinating. How the meritocracy we live in respects and rewards certain things while at the same time ignoring talent that is deemed "useless." What's tragic is that the practicioners of these "useless" talents get no recognition, can't make a living from something they're the best at and passionate about.

I love Basketball, but stand back for a moment and consider how silly the game is. People running up and down a court and trying to throw ball into a cylinder, but for whatever reason, the game is one of the US's greatest past times and is starting to become a worldwide trend.

For example, I watched a couple of documentaries about the world's best Scrabble players and Crossword Puzzle players. What these people can do, I find more impressive than what the richest athlete in the world, Tiger Woods, can do. Finishing a 150 word + puzzle in under 5 min. But sadly there's just no market for those types of games, so the payouts are relatively small and the great talent these people have is reduced to being called "silly" "a waste of time", etc...

On the other hand, I look at Auto racing as a stupid, stupid, thing, and I don't think the amount of money they make is justified for the talent they possess, but it's huge all around the world and the market is rich enough for the drivers to make a very, very comfortable living. (Really? How is billiards more boring to watch than 50 cars going around a track for 5 hours? But people tune into Nascar and fill the stands en masse.) That's fine with me. Great talent should find a way to be rewarded. I guess in a perfect world, this would be a reality, but certain things have a way of capturing society's consciousness and other things go sadly unnoticed.
 
midnightpulp said:
Speak the truth, brother.

I've always found this phenomenon fascinating. How the meritocracy we live in respects and rewards certain things while at the same time ignoring talent that is deemed "useless." What's tragic is that the practicioners of these "useless" talents get no recognition, can't make a living from something they're the best at and passionate about.

I love Basketball, but stand back for a moment and consider how silly the game is. People running up and down a court and trying to throw ball into a cylinder, but for whatever reason, the game is one of the US's greatest past times and is starting to become a worldwide trend.

For example, I watched a couple of documentaries about the world's best Scrabble players and Crossword Puzzle players. What these people can do, I find more impressive than what the richest athlete in the world, Tiger Woods, can do. Finishing a 150 word + puzzle in under 5 min. But sadly there's just no market for those types of games, so the payouts are relatively small and the great talent these people have is reduced to being called "silly" "a waste of time", etc...

On the other hand, I look at Auto racing as a stupid, stupid, thing, and I don't think the amount of money they make is justified for the talent they possess, but it's huge all around the world and the market is rich enough for the drivers to make a very, very comfortable living. (Really? How is billiards more boring to watch than 50 cars going around a track for 5 hours? But people tune into Nascar and fill the stands en masse.) That's fine with me. Great talent should find a way to be rewarded. I guess in a perfect world, this would be a reality, but certain things have a way of capturing society's consciousness and other things go sadly unnoticed.
Click to expand...

I just don't see how every great talent out there could be rewarded. Professional sports are a business, just like any other business. They are able to give big payouts because they generate BIG MONEY. Plus, those athletes are serving a greater purpose than throwing a football or hitting a 3 point shot. They serve as role models (some better than others). They provide an entertainment value that people are willing to pay for. They have marketing value in which attaching their name to a product makes selling that product easier.

If people didn't flock to the movie theater, buy DVDs, pay for pay-per-view movies, watch TV non-stop, engorge themselves in the lives of their favorites actors/actress... then that business wouldn't pay much either.

No one is saying that being a great pool player, scrabble player or whatever isn't an awesome thing, and that those people shouldn't be proud of themselves. Is it worth lots of money? No. The simple answer is... if there isn't an influx of money (via fans, retail merchandise, ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, websites, etc), then there just can not be big payouts.
 
inside_english said:
In my opinion it is appalling and insulting that 1st. prize is a mere $20,000 for the upcoming World Pool Masters in Las Vegas this May.

Meanwhile, J.P Hayes, currently ranked 168th. in the PGA tour has already earned $20,670 for 2008 after five events, and we are only in February!

Phil Mickelson has played in four events this year and has earned $1,944,700, while Tiger played in one event and has earned $936,000. Last year Tiger won $10,867,052 in prize money.

I know about the corporate sponsorship, appeal of golf to corporate America and so on, but it really chaps my butt that the prize money totals are worlds apart, especially when pro pool players have to work so hard to be excellent at their game.

Oh well...
Click to expand...
Look no further than this forum. Look at all of the names people use. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it is what it is.
 
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