How to save professional pool...no, really.

sjm said:
Yes, and no doubt, you'd rather be James Simons than Rory McIlroy.

Simons is a hedge fund manager who made $3.4 billion in 2022, which comes to roughly $9,300,000 a day, and, therefore, likely made about $37,000,000 during the four days in which Rory made his $1,890,000.

Whether you are SVB, Rory Mcilroy, or James Simons, you get paid based on the revenue you create for others.

I'll take the $9,300,000 a day, thank you.
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I love it!

Oh well, there aren't enough hours left in my lifetime to spend James' money, so I'll settle for Rory's and play golf every day. Want me to get us a tee time?
 
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Boxcar said:
One of the things I have found while reading JAMs excellent thread and also reading this thread is that there are a lot of people who are really good at telling other people what won't work.
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Ironically, yourself included...lol
 
Boxcar said:
What professional pool needs is what we in golf call a Playing Ability Test (PAT). In golf, an aspiring young golfer must play 36 holes of golf on a rated course in one day and beat "the number," the number being determined by the course rating plus a chosen number of strokes. The PGA has a list of courses in each state which can be used to conduct The PAT. Back home the courses were fair tests of a player's skills and the number was usually around 76. If you beat the number of 152 for your 36 hole day's work, you can qualify.

To get this thing started in pool, the Godfathers would need to get together and establish the standards a player must meet or exceed to qualify. Maybe a 6-pack in a certain amount of time...and a 100-ball 14.1 run....and back to back 15 ball rotation runs...you get the picture. Trials could be conducted in selected rooms in various areas which are easily accessed by the largest number of candidates.

Again, the qualifying standards would need to be established by a board of very experienced and very accomplished mature players (the Godfathers). If an association of professional pool players was established, the management and elected president of the group (perhaps the PPPA of A) would regularly meet with the Godfathers and plan for the future, i.e., venues, tournaments by name, Pro-Ams, Celebrity-Ams, you get the picture. A tour, if managed by real leadership, can become self sustaining. If it becomes self sustaining, it can make its own rules. In point, MR and Predator will need you more than you need them.
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You can come up with all the scenarios for selecting qualified players you want but it means nothing unless you figure out a way to deliver it as a product that rewards the 10s of thousands of hours required to play at a top level.

Golf is the very best example I know of to compare to pool because both require incredibly controlled training of unconscious motor skills sans interference from the conscious mind while trying to control contact down to parts of a millimeter on a ball that it is sitting still waiting to be struck, while simultaneously maintaining zen like control of emotions and conscious interference.

So how would a young person make a decision about which game to spend tens of thousands of hours playing? It is so easy to make this decision it is almost silly since he will make far more money at the 100th best ranking in golf than he would at the number one ranking in pool.

The best people will never decide to compete in your entry match unless their is a sbustantial goal at the end. This is true of virtually every worthwhile human endeavor.

Put a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the best players will work to get to it. You don't need contrivances.
 
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hang-the-9 said:
It is very very rare that someone that is bad wins and someone that is good looses, outside of having a handicap of some sort. Winning is pretty much tied to skill and performance, especially at the higher levels. It's hard to get better without competing. I can't think of any player I know that is a even a C player or better that has not played in leagues or tournaments. I think it's very safe to put abilities to play certain shots or table knowledge to a Fargo rating. It's like a NASCAR race to use another example from the thread, you can't win by just having the fastest average speed, you need a good crew for fast tire swaps, pick a good line, avoid crashes, etc... but that all causes you to win, thus gaining points, thus showing your overall skill. But if you have a good crew and a good car, without being a good driver, you are not winning outside of 30 other cars crashing. Bad drivers = no points = lower Fargo. I can't think of a single player that has done well in competition consistently with bad skills at the table. Sure I lost to players a level below me, then I get crap after a miss or they luck in a 9 ball a few times, but in a year of playing I would still be way up on them in head to head games.
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The above assumes I'm talking about drastic differences in skill.I'm not. There are many players who can consistently run out based on shot making alone. There are many players who can get good shape because of excellent speed control but can't use side spin to save their life. Skill is not a reference necessarily to how well you can play, but how well you know the game and how well you can do all aspects of the game. There are also players that can play the game perfectly on their own but struggle when under pressure.

Fargo rate takes one thing and one thing only into consideration and that is how well someone wins when playing other players. That's not a measure of SKILL at all. That's a measure of ability to compete against others. That's not even taking into consideration that almost any fargo handicapped tournament is going to give a false fargorate to the better players that compete in them and have to give up a spot.

I know several high level, up to and even above 750 players, that will play absolutely lights out against lesser players but then struggle against higher rated players. Again, not a measure of skill, only of ability to compete under pressure.

Just a thought...Some people will laud up fargorate no matter what anyone points out about it and it is the best method of measuring competitive competence that we have, but it's important to not assign to it what it isn't and that is a true level of raw skill in pool.

Jaden
 
So how did golf figure it out? Suppose you decide to watch a pay per view of a golf match or a pay per view pool match.

The golf match will be interesting from beginning to end. There will be numerous cameras at, above, behind, and to the side of every hole. The cameras will move from golf pair to golf pair fluidly so that you are constantly provided with stimulating shots. Highly skilled announcers will be talking about the history of the players, the personality of the players, anecdotes about the players, and yes, technical details about their swing and what they face on a given shot. if you hear a roar from the crowd, just wait a few seconds because you will be able to see what caused the roar from several different camera angles. Towards the end of the tournament you will have seen countless shots performed by your favorite players.

Now let's go to the pool tournament. There is a thing called a "TV Table". At it, you will see two players. They may or not be your favorite players (you may or may not get to see them at all except maybe walking by in the background if you are lucky). A couple of pool nerds are discussing technical details noting that the player might want to use "inside spin off the short rail" or "outside spin off two rails" or "maybe he will play safe", "What do you think Danny"? Danny pauses while watching a player scratch his chin while the other player takes a cigarette break. The camera does not move. Some of the best players in the world are in the room but we do not get to see them play.

The kicker is that let's suppose they do happen to feature your favorite player but he loses the lag and sits there while the other player, the one you don't like, runs 7 racks and starts jumping up and down because it is over with. Meanwhile, instead of moving to another exciting match in the room, the camera continues to feature the guy you don't like and ignore the one who you wish you could have seen play since that is why you coughed up the cash in the first place.

Winner breaks is an awesome concept if you are in a smoke filled back room of a pool hall playing for cash. But it is an absolute loser as a spectator sport. Every single major sport switches the offense back and forth by various criteria, such as a game count in tennis or an outs count in baseball. When a team scores in football or basketball they HAND THE BALL BACK TO THE OTHER TEAM TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE AT OFFENSE. Neither of these sports would be interesting to fans if the teams won the offense back every time they scored.

Now let's come back to golf. It is one of the leading televised sports because everyone is on offense ALL THE TIME! There is no defense in golf (there used to be some defensive play on the greens but they got rid of it long ago).

Now there are some examples of enlightened people trying to create scenarios that are interesting to audiences. Matchroom is at the forefront of this by presenting pool as a team sport with the cameras always rolling on the most important action in an arena setting at the Mosconi Cup. I don't think it would have remotely the appeal it does if they did not have alternate break. Every time your team walks up with that offensive opportunity it produces excitement akin to that in football when your team is receiving the ball with the interesting challenge of only needing two touchdowns in the last two minutes. This is like 100 times as exciting as watching a pro run 5 racks in 9-ball which he is capable of doing repeatedly.

Rodney Morris is proposing an interesting all offensive game called "Rocket Runout" which I think has potential to be a spectator game.

Many of us amateurs played online Bowliards during the pandemic and I think that has some potential to be very exciting as it is all offensive and the offense switches back and forth from frame to frame.

Earl has talked about "placement" billiards and that may have some potential.

But I think there is zero chance of making pool into a sport with the current TV table focus. It is interesting only to about 1% of pool players who have a more technical interest in the game.

If you go back and watch some of the old ESPN videos of Minnesota Fats and Willie and other stars of that era they created some interesting television and perhaps were on an escape path from the smoke filled room towards a legitimate sport. But Howard Cosell made it as much as the play. You will never, ever get fans to pay for consumption of pool while it is being described by guys using technical jargon unfathomable to the average fan.
 
Boxcar said:
One of the things I have found while reading JAMs excellent thread and also reading this thread is that there are a lot of people who are really good at telling other people what won't work.
Click to expand...

That is because there are a lot of things that won't work. And virtually none that will. It's a curious combination of recognizing reality and applying critical thinking.
 
bioactive said:
So how did golf figure it out? Suppose you decide to watch a pay per view of a golf match or a pay per view pool match.

The golf match will be interesting from beginning to end. There will be numerous cameras at, above, behind, and to the side of every hole. The cameras will move from golf pair to golf pair fluidly so that you are constantly provided with stimulating shots. Highly skilled announcers will be talking about the history of the players, the personality of the players, anecdotes about the players, and yes, technical details about their swing and what they face on a given shot. if you hear a roar from the crowd, just wait a few seconds because you will be able to see what caused the roar from several different camera angles. Towards the end of the tournament you will have seen countless shots performed by your favorite players.

Now let's go to the pool tournament. There is a thing called a "TV Table". At it, you will see two players. They may or not be your favorite players (you may or may not get to see them at all except maybe walking by in the background if you are lucky). A couple of pool nerds are discussing technical details noting that the player might want to use "inside spin off the short rail" or "outside spin off two rails" or "maybe he will play safe", "What do you think Danny"? Danny pauses while watching a player scratch his chin while the other player takes a cigarette break. The camera does not move. Some of the best players in the world are in the room but we do not get to see them play.

The kicker is that let's suppose they do happen to feature your favorite player but he loses the lag and sits there while the other player, the one you don't like, runs 7 racks and starts jumping up and down because it is over with. Meanwhile, instead of moving to another exciting match in the room, the camera continues to feature the guy you don't like and ignore the one who you wish you could have seen play since that is why you coughed up the cash in the first place.

Winner breaks is an awesome concept if you are in a smoke filled back room of a pool hall playing for cash. But it is an absolute loser as a spectator sport. Every single major sport switches the offense back and forth by various criteria, such as a game count in tennis or an outs count in baseball. When a team scores in football or basketball they HAND THE BALL BACK TO THE OTHER TEAM TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE AT OFFENSE. Neither of these sports would be interesting to fans if the teams won the offense back every time they scored.

Now let's come back to golf. It is one of the leading televised sports because everyone is on offense ALL THE TIME! There is no defense in golf (there used to be some defensive play on the greens but they got rid of it long ago).

Now there are some examples of enlightened people trying to create scenarios that are interesting to audiences. Matchroom is at the forefront of this by presenting pool as a team sport with the cameras always rolling on the most important action in an arena setting at the Mosconi Cup. I don't think it would have remotely the appeal it does if they did not have alternate break. Every time your team walks up with that offensive opportunity it produces excitement akin to that in football when your team is receiving the ball with the interesting challenge of only needing two touchdowns in the last two minutes. This is like 100 times as exciting as watching a pro run 5 racks in 9-ball which he is capable of doing repeatedly.

Rodney Morris is proposing an interesting all offensive game called "Rocket Runout" which I think has potential to be a spectator game.

Many of us amateurs played online Bowliards during the pandemic and I think that has some potential to be very exciting as it is all offensive and the offense switches back and forth from frame to frame.

Earl has talked about "placement" billiards and that may have some potential.

But I think there is zero chance of making pool into a sport with the current TV table focus. It is interesting only to about 1% of pool players who have a more technical interest in the game.

If you go back and watch some of the old ESPN videos of Minnesota Fats and Willie and other stars of that era they created some interesting television and perhaps were on an escape path from the smoke filled room towards a legitimate sport. But Howard Cosell made it as much as the play.
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You're my new favourite poster on the forum.. Absolutely crushed this. Can't agree more.
bioactive said:
You will never, ever get fans to pay for consumption of pool while it is being described by guys using technical jargon unfathomable to the average fan.
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Or dinosaurs sucking on their gums that are out of touch of how the modern game is played.
 
bioactive said:
So how did golf figure it out? Suppose you decide to watch a pay per view of a golf match or a pay per view pool match.

The golf match will be interesting from beginning to end. There will be numerous cameras at, above, behind, and to the side of every hole. The cameras will move from golf pair to golf pair fluidly so that you are constantly provided with stimulating shots. Highly skilled announcers will be talking about the history of the players, the personality of the players, anecdotes about the players, and yes, technical details about their swing and what they face on a given shot. if you hear a roar from the crowd, just wait a few seconds because you will be able to see what caused the roar from several different camera angles. Towards the end of the tournament you will have seen countless shots performed by your favorite players.

Now let's go to the pool tournament. There is a thing called a "TV Table". At it, you will see two players. They may or not be your favorite players (you may or may not get to see them at all except maybe walking by in the background if you are lucky). A couple of pool nerds are discussing technical details noting that the player might want to use "inside spin off the short rail" or "outside spin off two rails" or "maybe he will play safe", "What do you think Danny"? Danny pauses while watching a player scratch his chin while the other player takes a cigarette break. The camera does not move. Some of the best players in the world are in the room but we do not get to see them play.

The kicker is that let's suppose they do happen to feature your favorite player but he loses the lag and sits there while the other player, the one you don't like, runs 7 racks and starts jumping up and down because it is over with. Meanwhile, instead of moving to another exciting match in the room, the camera continues to feature the guy you don't like and ignore the one who you wish you could have seen play since that is why you coughed up the cash in the first place.

Winner breaks is an awesome concept if you are in a smoke filled back room of a pool hall playing for cash. But it is an absolute loser as a spectator sport. Every single major sport switches the offense back and forth by various criteria, such as a game count in tennis or an outs count in baseball. When a team scores in football or basketball they HAND THE BALL BACK TO THE OTHER TEAM TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE AT OFFENSE. Neither of these sports would be interesting to fans if the teams won the offense back every time they scored.

Now let's come back to golf. It is one of the leading televised sports because everyone is on offense ALL THE TIME! There is no defense in golf (there used to be some defensive play on the greens but they got rid of it long ago).

Now there are some examples of enlightened people trying to create scenarios that are interesting to audiences. Matchroom is at the forefront of this by presenting pool as a team sport with the cameras always rolling on the most important action in an arena setting at the Mosconi Cup. I don't think it would have remotely the appeal it does if they did not have alternate break. Every time your team walks up with that offensive opportunity it produces excitement akin to that in football when your team is receiving the ball with the interesting challenge of only needing two touchdowns in the last two minutes. This is like 100 times as exciting as watching a pro run 5 racks in 9-ball which he is capable of doing repeatedly.

Rodney Morris is proposing an interesting all offensive game called "Rocket Runout" which I think has potential to be a spectator game.

Many of us amateurs played online Bowliards during the pandemic and I think that has some potential to be very exciting as it is all offensive and the offense switches back and forth from frame to frame.

Earl has talked about "placement" billiards and that may have some potential.

But I think there is zero chance of making pool into a sport with the current TV table focus. It is interesting only to about 1% of pool players who have a more technical interest in the game.

If you go back and watch some of the old ESPN videos of Minnesota Fats and Willie and other stars of that era they created some interesting television and perhaps were on an escape path from the smoke filled room towards a legitimate sport. But Howard Cosell made it as much as the play. You will never, ever get fans to pay for consumption of pool while it is being described by guys using technical jargon unfathomable to the average fan.
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Nice, very nice! Very well thought out. What would you think about Big Screen Split Screen?
 
bioactive said:
You can come up with all the scenarios for selecting qualified players you want but it means nothing unless you figure out a way to deliver it as a product that rewards the 10s of thousands of hours required to play at a top level.

Golf is the very best example I know of to compare to pool because both require incredibly controlled training of unconscious motor skills sans interference from the conscious mind while trying to control contact down to parts of a millimeter on a ball that it is sitting still waiting to be struck, while simultaneously maintaining zen like control of emotions and conscious interference.

So how would a young person make a decision about which game to spend tens of thousands of hours playing? It is so easy to make this decision it is almost silly since he will make far more money at the 100th best ranking in golf than he would at the number one ranking in pool.

The best people will never decide to compete in your entry match unless their is a sbustantial goal at the end. This is true of virtually every worthwhile human endeavor.

Put a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the best players will work to get to it. You don'
t need contrivances.
Click to expand...
Also very well thought out!

If you will, bear with me for a moment. Why do the networks and the Golf Channel not cover college golf?
 
Thank you. I was referring to regularly scheduled, ongoing matches between colleges and universities who have golf programs.
 
Boxcar said:
Thank you. I was referring to regularly scheduled, ongoing matches between colleges and universities who have golf programs.
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No worries. You didn't mention the finer details that were swimming around in your mind.

If you follow this link you will find the 2023 schedule for roughly 24 events between January to May. Not sure if that means they will have coverage or not, but they list it so it stands to reason they will on some level. I'd imagine there's a limit to the available hardware needed to cover literally everything. The point though is, the NCAA does have coverage on the golf channel (NBC).
 
Fatboy said:
Which isn’t gonna happen. This isn’t yacht racing or dressage where Rolex is going to pop up with huge sponsorship monies.

It’s pool, and since I been around it’s suffered a 2nd tier image. It’s associated with lowlife busted out people. I’m not gonna judge, but that’s the image.

It is what it is, we need to do the best we can from within.

Fatboy
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I don't believe it has to be associated with the "lowlife busted out people." I agree with some of the other posters here where there needs to be more of a centralized leadership in the game to try and change that image. It appears to me that we have a good group of junior players moving up, while still having a group of younger players at the elite level of pool, through these players along with the centralized leadership I believe the image can be changed to draw the bigger sponsorships. If you listened to the owner of Matchroom after the Mosconi Cup, he wants to make that happen, only the other organizations aren't willing to work with him. Until there is some kind of unification of leadership, then I don't believe pool can attract those kind of sponsors.
 
Papa Bear pool said:
I don't believe it has to be associated with the "lowlife busted out people." I agree with some of the other posters here where there needs to be more of a centralized leadership in the game to try and change that image. It appears to me that we have a good group of junior players moving up, while still having a group of younger players at the elite level of pool, through these players along with the centralized leadership I believe the image can be changed to draw the bigger sponsorships. If you listened to the owner of Matchroom after the Mosconi Cup, he wants to make that happen, only the other organizations aren't willing to work with him. Until there is some kind of unification of leadership, then I don't believe pool can attract those kind of sponsors.
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pool may have that image, but if I compare the people I've played pool with and gambled a bit and the people I play in golf events weekly when the weather cooperates, I have to say there isn't less honor in the pool environment. Hiding your speed in amateur golf is kind of accepted. If someone does it in pool they're a scum bag.
I like the people on both sides but I really have had people on the pool side be more honorable about the rules etc. than I've had in golf.
 
Papa Bear pool said:
I don't believe it has to be associated with the "lowlife busted out people." I agree with some of the other posters here where there needs to be more of a centralized leadership in the game to try and change that image. It appears to me that we have a good group of junior players moving up, while still having a group of younger players at the elite level of pool, through these players along with the centralized leadership I believe the image can be changed to draw the bigger sponsorships. If you listened to the owner of Matchroom after the Mosconi Cup, he wants to make that happen, only the other organizations aren't willing to work with him. Until there is some kind of unification of leadership, then I don't believe pool can attract those kind of sponsors.
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Far as bigger sponsorship that caters to the broad public, I think it would take replacing the tie breaking foul shot shout out with a knife fight, that might draw the audience they're looking for.
 
Boxcar said:
I admire what MR is doing. Over the next 15 to 20 years, they may well be able to move American pool over to Network television. But I can remember watching Irving Crane and Luther Lassiter, etc. on TV years and years ago. Why didn't that work. What MR is doing has already been tried and it failed. That feels like status quo to me. Maybe this time is the charm, but there is no good reason to put all your eggs in one basket. What if something else might work? What if?

The critical question is this: how many American pool players are making a good living playing for MR? Do you know the answer? Making a living is not sleeping in your car and eating catsup. OK, say 100 guys are making a decent living working for MR. Again, let me ask the question: what about the other 29 million of us that want some action, too? What about us?
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did you watch the interview with the owner of MR after the Mosconi Cup? I think if you watched that interview you might have a slightly different view of the situation. He is trying to unite the leadership of pool around the world. He is getting push back from the other organizations. I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall, so he could be a shister for all I know. He has had success in other ventures with lesser sports, from what I have heard.
 
Papa Bear pool said:
I don't believe it has to be associated with the "lowlife busted out people." I agree with some of the other posters here where there needs to be more of a centralized leadership in the game
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You're preaching to the choir. I wonder why so many people insist upon projecting their failures onto such a noble game? The origin of pool easily predates golf. Pool was played by Kings and their courts. We need to pump it up, not beat it down. Matchroom may be the answer, but their great success with snooker can be largely attributed to the fact that Brits love to gamble on snooker, and betting is encouraged. Matchroom has had the ball since 1990 and this is where they are now. Could organization and leadership, applied appropriately, make a difference. YES!!!!
 
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