Bola Ocho said:
HA!
Welcome to free market economics. Something few people understand.
Who cares about the other events - IF the IPT is financially stable, and is going to be around, all the money and excitement will be there.
In my opinion, the other events are so been-there-done-that. The IPT will only get more interesting as the money list and rankings begin to become and issue and people fight tooth and nail to keep their tour card.
Now, as for the other events. I don't want to see them fail, but I don't care if they can't survive either. In other words, if there is a demand - there will be a supply. I doubt that everyone in the world and here is going to be happy with 8-ball on carpet cloth round robins. The other events will survive so long as there's an interest to see them. Will pool fans all of a sudden not like to watch 9-ball anymore? I doubt that.
As for the players....some of you folks are making statements as if the IPT is to blame for being the force behind taking away all the players from these events. Guess what? The IPT forces absolutely no one from playing in these events (unless KT makes membership exclusive someday *more on that below). The one's who will make the decisions on where to play will be the players. Their decision will clearly be made by their desire to make more money by playing on the IPT and their NEED to play as many events as possible to retain their tour cards. All of which are their choices alone.
What's wrong with that? Don't blame KT or the IPT. Blame the players for being "sell outs"...that's all you can really do, and doing that is just absurd.
Now, I don't think IPT membership will become exclusive anytime soon. The entire basis behind making membership exclusive would be the potential successful branding of players. That requires that they become somewhat popular or kind of celebrities in some type of media, mostly TV. If the IPT spent all that money and time, as well as was the main vehicle for getting their faces out and making them characters/stars or whatever, they have a legitimate claim to the player's popularity. That player will draw viewers, fans, attention, which then brings in advertisement dollars etc..why should some other event or promoter or organization profit from the celebrity status of a player that the IPT made?
It is exactly the same reason record labels sign new artists to LONG contracts. You owe that label x amount of albums or singles before you can go your own. Why? Because they will spend millions of dollars getting your face everywhere, getting your music out, and promoting you. They want a return on their invenstment and then some.
Will this happen to pool players? I seriously doubt it. So I don't see KT's brainstorming of exclusive membership in the IPT ever becoming a reality.
That will always leave the choice of where to play and what to play up to the players. Which brings us back to the free market. The players will go where the money is at - end of story. Don't like it? Tough. The players aren't your personal entertainers or slaves to do as you please. If you can't stand the fact that the top talent won't play in other events because of the IPT -- vote with your wallet and remote control and boycott the IPT.
It's a free country.
In the same vein as no man is an island, no country in the world is exclusively a free-market economy. Not the USA, not Dubai, not Hong Kong, and not Singapore. Why? Because as attractive as a
laissez-faire economy sounds, it just does not work that way in the real world. why? because people tend to be greedy and corrupt. and there is no one greedier and more corrupt than the person with absolute power.
if the department of justice did not say that AT&T was a monopoly and broke them up into baby bells, we'd still be paying for long-distance calls through our noses. if microsoft wasn't stopped, we'd never get firefox or opera to work on windows.
The OPEC controls majority of the world's supply of oil. Their decisions could make or break entire countries reliant on oil. Which mean practically every country in the world. Remember the oil crisis in the seventies? or even the oil crisis we're facing now. Everyone feels it. In a free market, we can say, hell, F**K the OPEC! I'll buy my gas elsewhere. Uh, where?
So what to do? Well, middle-east countries can't produce everthing on their own. They have to get their cars, fresh produce, microchips, lumber, vodka, butter, or missiles somewhere else. Get the picture?
Sure, they have all the money in the world, they can BUY these stuff! Not if you're driven by something else other than greed. The UN and the G7 nations can impose sanctions, put up trade barriers. Why? To protect the smaller countries who have no bargaining chips. That's what they're there for.
I only wish the best for the IPT, KT, and pool in general. However, someone who declares that he wants to "own pool" should not be taken lightly. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If and when the IPT becomes the only game in town, who's to stop KT from imposing his will on everyone?
A little regulation never hurt anyone. It's meant to keep everyone honest. If we left everything to the free market, chaos would ensue. Remember, free markets only work in a perfect world. Something we're still a long way off.
