If Bonus Ball fails...

Roger Long said:
So far, we've seen a few people in this thread reiterate their opinions on the damage Bonus Ball has done, and the potential damage it is yet to do, to our sport, but no one has offered any opinions on who and how someone would benefit if Bonus Ball should suddenly disappear.
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This opinion may not be popular, but it seems it needs to be stated. Professional pool is irrelevant. It doesn't move product. It doesn't sell product. In a game that is almost entirely participant based, the vast majority of participants couldn't name even the most popular of current professional players.

Contrast that with bass fishing, golf, or professional team sports. These are entities that move industry product. They move non-industry product. When hockey goes on strike, it affects beer sales. When Tom Brady was injured for the entire 2008 season, it was estimated it shifted 150 million dollars in fantasy football winnings. Make believe football felt the impact. Advertisers and television felt it even more. It is no coincidence the NFL has so many special rules for QBs these days. They're the cash cows. When little Johnny asks a professional bass fisherman how he can become one too, you know what the answer is? 'Go get your business degree'. Not 'work on your casting' or 'work on boat control'. Bass fisherman know what it means to be a professional. It's not about catching little fish, it's about using the image of them catching little fish to sell product.

That's what it means to be a professional sportsman. You make money because you make someone else money. Professional pool doesn't do that. Sure, there will be a handful of people connected to the game that will be personally affected and may argue against me. I wouldn't blame them, because it affects them personally (they can make their points, I'm not going to argue against them). But on any scale, professional pool may as well not exist.

So, if professional pool is largely irrelevant because of these things, what does Bonus Ball failing mean? Nothing, outside of the aforementioned handful of people.
 
Until you've walked in the shoes of another, don't cast judgments. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.
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Who's shoes have you walked in?

Bro, other than Golf or other major sports, you mentioned Bass fishing or Fishing in general.

Only the top anglers are making money, but many have sponsors. Sport fishing can get more peoples butts on the couch watching other anglers cast their lines in the water.

A fun sport but fairly boring to watch. But hey, they do it. They also have tons of advertisers.

I'd rather watch pool over someone other than me fishing but they seem to have the TV audience.

Can you count how many Fishing shows there are out there at the moment.

Lets not even include all the Iron Chef spin off cooking Shows as well.

To me, there should be room for more Pool than there is. But thats what we're doing here in many threads, trying to figure out what went wrong and how
just ordinary players like ourselves can help fix it. No one else is trying, may as well be us, right.
 
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The success of Bonus Ball lies within all the top players.
Everybody has their favorite players, so I would just promote the players, keep their interest up, and the fan base will follow.
The game itself is intense and looks like it could be fun to play, but not really that much fun to watch.
Some professional sports is not that much fun to watch at times, games get boring, but we watch it because of the players, and sometimes just because we made a bet.
The viewing audience doesn't seem to be part of the equation right now, so BB needs to be sold to all of the players, not us.
If I was the owner of Bonus Ball I would sign all of the top players to mega contracts like the NBA, and then see where it goes.
Let the players play and replace the 8-ball girls with cheerleaders
 
Folks, the future of pool will never be the professionals. It is the kids. Where can a kid go to play these days? Unless you are in one of the major metropolitan areas I would imagine not many places. It is normally not socially nor legally allowed. If a kid doesn't grow up with a table in the home, more than likely he will not even discover pool until he turns 21 and is able to visit the local bar. Bonus ball is a very interesting game that should have a broad audience. Combining different games of pool into one, now that is awesome. If you have tried to play it yourself you know the challenge of it. Pool should be marketed to children. Junior national champions can be brought in to expand the influence of the game to younger players. REACH THE KIDS AND YOU WILL GROW THE SPORT.
 
Roger Long said:
I've read a lot of the posts in the threads here that predict Bonus Ball's ultimate failure and I'm just wondering: if it really does fail, (as many people on here seem to hope it will) how will that failure benefit the sport overall?

Thoughts?

Roger
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I think the question needs to be rephrased: if BB fails, what damage will have been done to the sport overall? IMO, that is a much more valid question.

Any kind of failure in the game benefits no one. However, from all appearances, BB is doomed to fail and may very well take other endeavors with them. That's not hoping it will fail, thats just being realistic from what's been seen and said to date.

Lou Figueroa
 
brophog said:
This opinion may not be popular, but it seems it needs to be stated. Professional pool is irrelevant. It doesn't move product. It doesn't sell product. In a game that is almost entirely participant based, the vast majority of participants couldn't name even the most popular of current professional players.

Contrast that with bass fishing, golf, or professional team sports. These are entities that move industry product. They move non-industry product. When hockey goes on strike, it affects beer sales. When Tom Brady was injured for the entire 2008 season, it was estimated it shifted 150 million dollars in fantasy football winnings. Make believe football felt the impact. Advertisers and television felt it even more. It is no coincidence the NFL has so many special rules for QBs these days. They're the cash cows. When little Johnny asks a professional bass fisherman how he can become one too, you know what the answer is? 'Go get your business degree'. Not 'work on your casting' or 'work on boat control'. Bass fisherman know what it means to be a professional. It's not about catching little fish, it's about using the image of them catching little fish to sell product.

That's what it means to be a professional sportsman. You make money because you make someone else money. Professional pool doesn't do that. Sure, there will be a handful of people connected to the game that will be personally affected and may argue against me. I wouldn't blame them, because it affects them personally (they can make their points, I'm not going to argue against them). But on any scale, professional pool may as well not exist.

So, if professional pool is largely irrelevant because of these things, what does Bonus Ball failing mean? Nothing, outside of the aforementioned handful of people.
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People with views like this ruin pool. It's not the players or the games. Everytime something new comes along its always a shitstorm of this very attitude.
I wish people like this would find a different sport . Hell maybe y'all can drag another sport down. If golf had fans like this it would go to shit too.look at all this negative garbage on the forums... You say it needs to be said... BS. I've never seen another sport where the fans do nothing but try to undermine their own sport.
The threads with all these BS titles like... How I know BB will fail, Bogus ball and all the other negative garbage. What pool needs is a fckin miracle with fans like its got :shakehead:
 
JAM said:
The failure of Bonus Ball would be a compound fracture. Since it is bulldozing right over already-existing pool events produced by valued American promoters, it could have killed these events from happening in the future as well.

The pool players will have less events to go to on American soil. Lines in the sand were crossed, and some promoters will segregate these Bonus Ball players from competing in their events after their blatant disregard of scheduling conflicts and disloyalty.

IMO, Bonus Ball puts the nail in the coffin on American pool.
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Jam I understand your frustration with bonus ball but I don't believe their unaccommodating schedule makes them the Grim Reaper of pool. I enjoy watching bonus ball and I sincerely hope it works out. If this takes hold and actually grows pool players could have a SALARY for the first time in history.

I agree that it is totally unfair that some of the best tournament directors EVER are going to have a less than desired field for their upcoming events.

All I can say to this is that life isn't fair and I am 1000% sure that it is impossible to make everyone happy. Please stop blasting BB over a SCHEDULING CONFLICT. Shit happens.
 
center pocket said:
Jam I understand your frustration with bonus ball but I don't believe their unaccommodating schedule makes them the Grim Reaper of pool. I enjoy watching bonus ball and I sincerely hope it works out. If this takes hold and actually grows pool players could have a SALARY for the first time in history.

I agree that it is totally unfair that some of the best tournament directors EVER are going to have a less than desired field for their upcoming events.

All I can say to this is that life isn't fair and I am 1000% sure that it is impossible to make everyone happy. Please stop blasting BB over a SCHEDULING CONFLICT. Shit happens.
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Things will never be the same for me and Bonus Ball unless they change their schedule.

I'm glad you are think good of them. Enjoy it while it lasts.
 
CreeDo said:
How would the players feel if a promoter said "Well if this handful of guys don't show up, screw it, I'm done."
Like those big name players were the only ones that mattered to the promoter, and the dozens (hundreds?)
of other 'lesser' players can just go screw themselves.

That's a poor way to treat players too, isn't it?
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You know, as an amateur I would try to make this year the year I go to the Southern Classic. With the scheduling conflict of BB removing some of the top dogs, I might actually cash!!!

How many amateurs out there that read this post feel this way?
 
Roger Long said:
I've read a lot of the posts in the threads here that predict Bonus Ball's ultimate failure and I'm just wondering: if it really does fail, (as many people on here seem to hope it will) how will that failure benefit the sport overall?

Thoughts?

Roger
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Bonus Ball's success at this time seems to only effect a handful of professional players.
If Bonus Ball were to stop tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of league players would still play pool and millions would still play an occasional game of pool in bars and pool halls and rec centers and homes across America and the world.
 
JAM said:
The failure of Bonus Ball would be a compound fracture. Since it is bulldozing right over already-existing pool events produced by valued American promoters, it could have killed these events from happening in the future as well.

The pool players will have less events to go to on American soil. Lines in the sand were crossed, and some promoters will segregate these Bonus Ball players from competing in their events after their blatant disregard of scheduling conflicts and disloyalty.

IMO, Bonus Ball puts the nail in the coffin on American pool.
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Bonus Ball puts $30,000 a week into (mostly) American players pockets....... For what? 2-4 hours playing a game they love?
 
Bonus ball has a good base concept. The geographic teams, the season structure etc. I think the biggest issue is the game itself. Like others have said, I don't think anyone will benefit from failure. It's another nail in the coffin.
If they took the same concept and applied it to already established games, like having the Denver 10 ball Classic, the Miami 9 ball etc etc, they would have a better chance of success. But for anyone to truly benefit from pro pool, there has to be a corporate sponsor with deep pockets to advertise and promote the product. There are no sponsors right now that aren't industry involved.
If Budweiser picked up on it, it could be done. Look at poker and Miller. They got involved with a game that had a small audience and turned it into a major league product. Everybody and their grandmother thinks they're card players now. It took something not widely seen by the public, and went through the roof with viewership and participation.
Pool could have the same thing, but it needs something like Budweiser or Miller beer to get involved and provide the push.
Big companies are hesitant due to past experience with fraud, bad press and a seedy image that does nothing to help the cause. Sorry to say it, but unless the image gets fixed, and a corporate sponsor steps in to put the game in front of people's face.... Nobody will benefit.
IMO, BB is a step in the right direction, but they are going about things the wrong way.
Chuck
 
JAM said:
Ah, I see you're from Canada. This ---> HERE
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I AM from Canada.

I do love the occasional comparisons you make RE Canada vs United States - location. How many of the players can't come into Canada yet are allowed to travel to world events? That was probably a big deciding factor in location.
 
D_Lewis said:
I AM from Canada.

I do love the occasional comparisons you make RE Canada vs United States - location. How many of the players can't come into Canada yet are allowed to travel to world events? That was probably a big deciding factor in location.
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I AM from these United States of America. Made in the USA, just like this forum, just like that venue where Bonus Ball is.
 
JAM said:
I AM from these United States of America. Made in the USA, just like this forum, just like that venue where Bonus Ball is.
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I'd LOVE to have a USA vs Canada discussion, love to. But, not going to happen.
 
my $.02

Opinions being given; here's mine....

Pool will never die.....as long as there's a pool table somewhere with cuesticks and balls, someone will be playing pool.....

Professional pool is what I guess you are all talking about; not so much about Pool itself as a sport or industry.....even with all the pool halls that have closed or will close, I don't believe pool will die.....
 
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