Have Yale heard the WPA nonsense and the US Open?

[BmoreMoney]

A union that can't get gauaranteed contracts? A union that agree's to let the commissioner be judge , jury and executioner?

Yes, the Goodell situation is rather unique - especially when compared to other major sports. Honestly I was thinking more along the lines of the money all of these players are making, often tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. When taking the money into consideration, any of the shortcomings become rather insignificant imho. Now compare that to the WPA contract where the players get exactly zero (0) well......... that was point being made.

 

[Bbutler]

If you have a medical condition you would have to apply for a therapeutic use exemption.

When you decide to participate in most sports there is drug testing. High school, college and especially professional athletes are routinely tested.

If you want to see cue sports as an olympic event then there has to be drug testing.

Worrying about the olympics is a waste of time for any serious policy planning. It's currently 2016 and pool was neither in the olympics this year nor was it a demonstration sport. Therefore it's not going to be and event in 2020, period. Plus there are currently no plans for it to be a demo sport in Japan in 2020, which means it's minimum 2024 before it even gets in as a demo sport and 2028 as a regular event. That's twelve years from now.

Also worth noting is that the most doped sport of them all is by far cycling and it's a major event and has been since like the 40s. Go figure.

 

[justnum]

WPA has decades of experience courting the IOC.

Unfortunately, others have been approved for Tokyo.

THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC) TODAY AGREED TO ADD BASEBALL/SOFTBALL, KARATE, SKATEBOARD, SPORTS CLIMBING AND SURFING TO THE SPORTS PROGRAMME FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020.

Billiards didn't even make the consideration stage:

Personally I think Chess will make it before billiards.

http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/sports/future.htm
In June 2015, twenty-six International Olympic Committee (IOC)-recognized Federations proposed events to be considered for inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: 'baseball and softball', karate, squash, bowling, snooker, sport climbing, surfing, wushu, roller sports, air sports, American football, bowls, bridge, chess, dancesport, floorball, flying disc, korfball, netball, orienteering, polo, racquetball, sumo, tug of war, underwater sports and water skiing. Only seven IOC-recognized sports did not apply: climbing and mountaineering, motorcycling, motor racing, cricket, basque pelota, lifesaving and powerboating. On June 22, this list was reduced to a shortlist of eight sports: baseball and softball, bowling, karate, roller skating, sport climbing, squash, surfing and wushu.

https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-approves-five-new-sports-for-olympic-games-tokyo-2020

 

[KissedOut]

IMO cue sports in the Olympics is just another pie in the sky bye and bye hope to put pool on a sound economic basis. But I look around and I do not see many prosperous judo professionals and judo has been in the Olympics forever. The Olympics is not a panacea and shouldn't affect anyone's calculations of what pool needs, IMO.

 

[trob]

The problem with this nonsense is pool players aren't paid contracts to play like say football players. Win or lose they get paid. Pool players don't win they don't eat. You can't limit there ability to earn a living if you aren't guaranteeing a paycheck.

 

[JB Cases]

The WPA has in fact worked hard to keep international professional pool alive. One way they do that is to try and assure promoters that known stars will attend their events. When there are competing events that draw players away the ability of the WPA to attract players to the sanctioned events diminishes.

No player needs to sign this and they simply forfeit their ability to participate in WPA sanctioned events.

Although I don't know if this would affect the US Open given that it's open to anyone including players who have zero practical need to be a member of any pool organization. I would think that the promoter would negotiate an exclusion for Open events.

Personally I would like to see the WPA take a more active role and give the players a list of the benefits of signing with them. For the most part I think that most professional players in North America don't see much benefit in the WPA for them since other than the US Open there are no other WPA events in the USA and Canada iirc.