Guinness 9 Ball tour. Boon or Bane?

[MasterClass]

I watched the Guinness 9 ball tour China leg last week and noticed a very odd and rather sad thing.

The Audience or rather the lack of it. There are only about a handful of people there. I think even the kids outside by the road playing with their skateboards gets a better crowd!

And the event involves big name top players. World champions, world number 1 etc.

The telecast of the event inadvertently revealed how unpopular the sport it! Why is this so? How did it become like this. The location is probably one reason as there is still not much following in pool in china. But then shouldn't somebody be trying to promote the game to the people there?

Or should we just leave it be. Or are the sponsor main concern just to get some publicity from it and do nothing to promote the game.

I can think of a dozen things to change just to make it a little better. Surly the organizers could come out with some just to make things better. Or they really cannot be bothered.

 

[Hail Mary Shot]

I watched the Guinness 9 ball tour China leg last week and noticed a very odd and rather sad thing.

The Audience or rather the lack of it. There are only about a handful of people there. I think even the kids outside by the road playing with their skateboards gets a better crowd!

And the event involves big name top players. World champions, world number 1 etc.

The telecast of the event inadvertently revealed how unpopular the sport it! Why is this so? How did it become like this. The location is probably one reason as there is still not much following in pool in china. But then shouldn't somebody be trying to promote the game to the people there?

Or should we just leave it be. Or are the sponsor main concern just to get some publicity from it and do nothing to promote the game.

I can think of a dozen things to change just to make it a little better. Surly the organizers could come out with some just to make things better. Or they really cannot be bothered.

because it's Guinness. anyway, I believe that Guinness is just opening up a market in China. regardless of pool being a not-so popular yet of a game/sport in China, it is the only game or sport that Guinness could use to promote their product. anyway, we should be optimistic here. pool may not be so popular right now in China, but it will in time. any game and sport had began from scratch. including snooker in China.

 

[Cameron Smith]

What day was this? Crowds can be sparse for weekdays.

 

[Colin Colenso]

I ran some events in China. At one event we had around 500 spectators.

It's likely the Chinese Billiards Association ran this event and they may not have done any promotion at all. That's just the way they do things.

Unless someone else makes the effort to do a press conference and to send out fliers to all the pool halls, the fans may be completely unaware that the event is on.

Colin

 

[MasterClass]

I was just wondering. In the Olympics almost all the sport you will see a sell out crowd. I doubt there is going to be a lack of fans or even people to attend.

But even with the biggest names in this pool event, the lack of interest and a big empty hall with just the players playing really looked quite terrible.

I know people has been complaining for almost forever since this tour started about the commentators. I thought that maybe it cost too much just to bring in pro commentators. But the crowd thing is probably something they could do about economically. It just needed to be given some thought.

 

[gobrian77]

It might not have been terribly crowded at the venue, but Star Sports is rebroadcasting the latest matches at least once per day- obviously they feel there is a market for it, and broadcasting rights is where the money is.

I'll say one thing about that crowd- they held onto their applause like it was money- a shot had to be AMAZING to get a reaction.:grin:

 

[Hail Mary Shot]

I'll say one thing about that crowd- they held onto their applause like it was money- a shot had to be AMAZING to get a reaction.:grin:

this reminds me of the audience in the women's event, where they would applause on every shot !

 

[Scaramouche]

Snooker is the biggy billiard game.

Shanghai Open
China Open

TV audiences purportedly of several hundred million

Ronnie O'Sullivan picked up fat endorsement contracts - more than $1 million.

 

[14.1player]

Lack of marketing and promotion!

Guinness' focus is the fact that they have 15 hrs of TV advertising time over 3 days

When you go to these events they really are small budget productions...

 

[Black-Balled]

...
Unless someone else makes the effort to do a press conference and to send out fliers to all the pool halls, the fans may be completely unaware that the event is on.

Colin

A shame not to ride the Boy Wonder (Wu) for all that he is. Does he have and sense of celebrity to him?

 

[14.1player]

A shame not to ride the Boy Wonder (Wu) for all that he is. Does he have and sense of celebrity to him?

I think you highlight the other problem...

Out of the 24 players at each leg, maybe only 8 are true world class pro speed, the Taiwanese and Filipinos, the rest are from developing pool countries looking to fill the numbers. Occasionally, because of the lottery group stage format, you will see the odd Indonesian, Japanese or Mainland Chinese in the quarter-finals, but they will most likely run into one of the elite 8 players and get annihilated.

If this were a true Asian 9-ball Tour the 24 players would be 12 Taiwanese and 12 Filipinos.

The format sucks and the coverage is amateurish at best, but the positive is that its 15 hrs of pool on Asia's leading sports TV network...

 

[gopi-1]

It would've been different if one of the Guinness tour stops is in the Philippines, pool there is HUGE! Primetime TV, full coverage, headlines in all Sports pages of all major newspapers, sometimes they even make it to the headlines! But Guinness knew it will be just an exercise in futility with San Miguel having a stranglehold of the beer market there.

Pool players are treated like a rock star there, everybody knows you. Major products that's not even pool related are fighting tooth and nail to get a 30 second/1 minute commercial time slot there which will cost them a fortune, but they know they will get a big bang for their buck, we're talking about 50 to 70% audience share here!