Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think this pro wants to be a "regular" on the pro tournament trail. It's not about drumming up money to attend one event a year. I probably have not worded well the dilemma he feels.Ok, so I don't mean this to be as negative as I'm sure you may take it. However I keep seeing you state that this player's "financial inability" to travel to events as a hardship. The honest truth is, he/she just isn't putting enough effort into raising the funds to do so.
There's a ~740 player down the road from me and he manages to do ok as a full time player. Know what he does...? Lessons, tons of lessons, exhibitions, and sells himself for pool room sponsorships. To the best of my recollection, he doesn't have any pool related manufacturing sponsors, (predator, toam, etc). Others slightly down the food chain start GoFundMe accounts when the expensive events come about and it works. I personally wanted to play in the Canadian 10b Championships but maxed out after paying out of pocket for the 9 and 8 ball events. What did I do..? I asked for help and I got it. I was also voluntarily supported by the man who keeps my equipment in shape for me. Thanks Bruno (<- see what I did there?)
The point... Yes I highly doubt that someone who is struggling on the fringe of being considered a pro (based on Fargo), would be able to drum up enough sponsorship to attend everything. Not being able to attend one here and there is more a testament to their commitment than a failure of the system. The idea that this player got an invite to the Worlds and turned it down annoys the crap out of me. Now of course you don't convey how much effort he/she made to collect resources to go. I narrowly missed a chance to go to the Predator World 10 ball. If I got that call, you can guarantee I'd be knocking on doors and selling every square inch of my jersey.
Boils down to how you want it, versus how much you want someone to give it to you.
FWIW, he already gives lessons, does exhibitions, and a whole slew of other pool-related things. It's just not enough to compete full-time on the professional tournament trail today with payouts being what they are. Only the top 2 percent, in my honest opinion, can turn a profit competing in professional pool full-time.
Interestingly, while pool struggles to increase its popularity with mainstream viewers in hopes of getting better payouts for the pros, the recent Cazoo Masters for snooker, won by Judd Trump last night, paid out $330,000-plus (250,000 pounds) for first place. Last year's first place prize was $273,000-plus (200,000) pounds, so this year's Masters got a bump up of $60,900-plus (50,000 pounds) in the first-place prize monies. Not too shabby for the snooker pros. You can live off of that for one year quite nicely.
I appreciate you taking the time to write your opinion.
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