Imagine The IPT If....

[cuetechasaurus]

filtered out all the cannon fodder for this year, and in exchange some top players (also outside of those countries I mentioned) got in, how incredible would these fields be? Fong Pang Chao, YANG CHIN SHUN (regarded as the best in Taiwan), Wu Chia Ching, Kuo Po Cheng, Jin Lung Chen, those and a few more from Taiwan. From the Phillipines Rodolfo Luat, Santos Sambajon, Ramil Gallego, ANTONIO LINING (regarded as the best money player in the world) From Japan, Goh Takami, Hiroshi Takenaka (when he is on his game this man's a world beater), Takeshi Okimura, and there are a couple more that I don't remember that names. From other countries, like THOMAS ENGERT, Eric Hjiorlffson, I can't think of any more but there are ALOT. So basically in 2007 and 2008 when the crappy players get weeded out, and the world's best join this tour, this is going to be one hell of a pool tour to watch! World class players are entering thru the qualifiers. Most of the people that tried to qualifiy are also world class players. If they eventually get in the 2007 2008 season, along with the people that already belong there. The fields at those evens will be 10 times as strong as the WPC! We are going to be in for a treat to watch the greatest pool players ever, go at it in long races under tough conditions. I'm excited, are you?

 

[Tbeaux]

filtered out all the cannon fodder for this year, and in exchange some top players (also outside of those countries I mentioned) got in, how incredible would these fields be? Fong Pang Chao, YANG CHIN SHUN (regarded as the best in Taiwan), Wu Chia Ching, Kuo Po Cheng, Jin Lung Chen, those and a few more from Taiwan. From the Phillipines Rodolfo Luat, Santos Sambajon, Ramil Gallego, ANTONIO LINING (regarded as the best money player in the world) From Japan, Goh Takami, Hiroshi Takenaka (when he is on his game this man's a world beater), Takeshi Okimura, and there are a couple more that I don't remember that names. From other countries, like THOMAS ENGERT, Eric Hjiorlffson, I can't think of any more but there are ALOT. So basically in 2007 and 2008 when the crappy players get weeded out, and the world's best join this tour, this is going to be one hell of a pool tour to watch! World class players are entering thru the qualifiers. Most of the people that tried to qualifiy are also world class players. If they eventually get in the 2007 2008 season, along with the people that already belong there. The fields at those evens will be 10 times as strong as the WPC! We are going to be in for a treat to watch the greatest pool players ever, go at it in long races under tough conditions. I'm excited, are you?

I also wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future they don't increase the membership from the current 150. Right now they're just starting out and testing the waters.

Terry

 

[ScottW]

I don't see them going beyond 150. Reason is, it would just be too unwieldy a number of people to deal with, all at once, in a single competition. Granted, you'll never see all the tour card holders show up for a single event - there'll always be folks who can't make it to Event X for some reason - and even then, running an event like that would take forever and require massive resources (dozens of tables!) - especially if they stick with double-elim, race-to-10 matches, with match times averaging a bit over 2 hrs each.

That's just my opinion, though. *shrug*

 

[TheOne]

I don't see them going beyond 150. Reason is, it would just be too unwieldy a number of people to deal with, all at once, in a single competition. Granted, you'll never see all the tour card holders show up for a single event - there'll always be folks who can't make it to Event X for some reason - and even then, running an event like that would take forever and require massive resources (dozens of tables!) - especially if they stick with double-elim, race-to-10 matches, with match times averaging a bit over 2 hrs each.

That's just my opinion, though. *shrug*

The current format is group stages all the way to the final, its not double elim. If they tweak this and end up using something like the WPC (which I think they will when you start to get sharp end dumping) then there is no reason why the tour can't support 256 players. Well other than financial, eg it would need to generate more money to cover the costs of all 256 players to travel around the world playing pool.

Use groups to halve the field, then play straight ko based on group performance. A tournament of this structure for 256 players could easily be done in a week.

 

[onepocketchump]

The current format is group stages all the way to the final, its not double elim. If they tweak this and end up using something like the WPC (which I think they will when you start to get sharp end dumping) then there is no reason why the tour can't support 256 players. Well other than financial, eg it would need to generate more money to cover the costs of all 256 players to travel around the world playing pool.

Use groups to halve the field, then play straight ko based on group performance. A tournament of this structure for 256 players could easily be done in a week.

Well, I do seem to remember that Kevin was asked why the number of players is 150 and his response was that he liked that number. So it is probably open to tweaking. I suspect that once this thing really gets going you will see that there will be a lot of smaller tournaments to feed the big show. Almost everything successful needs a large base to support it.

Millions of football fans paying for $20 seats and $5 hotdogs pay for multi-million dollar salaries. I am going to guess that thousands of pool players worldwide are going to provide a decent revenue stream for the IPT to go along with the otehr revenue ideas Kevin has outlined.

John

 

[ScottW]

Yeah, but there are *tons* of football games every weekend during the season. Any given city that there's a franchise, there's how many games in a season just locally? Meaning, lots of opportunities for someone in a given franchise city to go to local games.

Pool tournaments aren't the same - it's not like you'll have a tour event in your town every weekend or every other weekend. Fans will either have to wait for an event to hit their town, or travel - and that's costly.

The IPT has five tournament dates scheduled for this year - mostly in Nevada (LV/Reno). How many folks are going to go there multiple times to see these events? How many folks could afford to?

 

[wayne]

The current format is group stages all the way to the final, its not double elim. If they tweak this and end up using something like the WPC (which I think they will when you start to get sharp end dumping) then there is no reason why the tour can't support 256 players. Well other than financial, eg it would need to generate more money to cover the costs of all 256 players to travel around the world playing pool.

Use groups to halve the field, then play straight ko based on group performance. A tournament of this structure for 256 players could easily be done in a week.

They will probably end up having a couple of very large tournaments like this.
They will have no problem getting the necessary space and tables because the casino cities will be drooling and competing to get a huge amount of wild gamblers to play at their venue. The casino added revenue from gambling, rooms etc will make it very enticing for them to hold the events.
Another possibility is KT may just build his own poolhall to his exact specifications that will be designed to give him the exact product he is looking for and then the major events will be held at this location. It would only cost him several million and if it makes for better TV then he will reap a lot more rewards.

 

[Colin Colenso]

Regarding the Original thread post:

We've seen that even the Qualifiers generate quite a buzz regarding the depth of talent in the fields. I think the 2006 IPT events will exceed these considerably, despite a lot of great players that won't be there. There are 30+ big name proven performers on the 2006 schedule, likely a few dozen suprise packages that many haven't heard about and the 10 IPT qualifiers, plus 50 qualifiers for two of the events.

Whoever wins an event in 2006 will be making an accomplishment seen near on par with any events held anywhere in the world up until now. In 2007 the fields are going to be awesome. Tournament winners will appear somehow super-human. And imagine a dozen events like this scheduled each year as is the plan for 2008. Amazing all these breakthroughs could be so close!

 

[Colin Colenso]

Regarding the 256 player tour idea:

The tour plan is to move towards about 12 events per year.

Each tour member would then have expenses of approximately 12 x 2.5k = 30k per year. Plus their opportunity costs of likely forgoing work, which should be priced somewhere around 40k. So each of the 256 members would need to expect earnings of at around 70k per year to make it worthwhile.

So adding another 106 players means around 7 million in extra prizemonies would be syphoned off by the lower 106 members. This level of expense would likely make it much harder to guarantee that an IPT membership provides a secure career for the time of participation.

If returns were lower than this, many tour members may start to avoid some of the events due to cash flow problems, hence diluting the tour.

This I think is the main reason for tour memberships remaining limited to 100 or 150 or similar numbers.

 

[sjm]

Fong Pang Chao, YANG CHIN SHUN (regarded as the best in Taiwan), Wu Chia Ching, Kuo Po Cheng, Jin Lung Chen, those and a few more from Taiwan....I'm excited, are you?

Chang Pei Wei, who was second in the 2004 WPC and who won the gold medal at the 2005 World games, also merits mention as a Taiwanese great.

You'll get your wish soon. The policy of 50 out, 50 in will make this tour more elite each and every year. It will automatically correct any errors made in selelction of the original 150.

Yes, I'm excited about how strong this tour will be in a couple of years.

 

[SlimShafty]

Regarding the 256 player tour idea:

The tour plan is to move towards about 12 events per year.

Each tour member would then have expenses of approximately 12 x 2.5k = 30k per year. Plus their opportunity costs of likely forgoing work, which should be priced somewhere around 40k. So each of the 256 members would need to expect earnings of at around 70k per year to make it worthwhile.

So adding another 106 players means around 7 million in extra prizemonies would be syphoned off by the lower 106 members. This level of expense would likely make it much harder to guarantee that an IPT membership provides a secure career for the time of participation.

If returns were lower than this, many tour members may start to avoid some of the events due to cash flow problems, hence diluting the tour.

This I think is the main reason for tour memberships remaining limited to 100 or 150 or similar numbers.

Absolutely right, I still can't understand why current organizations haven't realized this. One of the problems today is too many players fighting for what small pie is out there, there has never really been a true pro tour of touring professional pool players. I think 150 is actually a bold start considering the opens have 200, even at that the bottom 80 will lose money in the Opens, So even if the total prize purse increases I think he will boost the payouts and not add more players.

He realizes the current system is diluting much of the prize money and hurting the sport by not offering the touring professional any security. The current system has failed to promote players and allowed too many part time or johnny come lately players to jump right in and take away from professional players making a living. New players will have to earn their way on the tour, just like golf and many other sports. This will be healthy for the sport and the best players will always be showcased, another reason why they are using slow cloth and tighter pockets and round robin formats, the best will shine in this format. Too many tournaments today have conditions that allow a player of slightly lesser skill to win tournaments over better more skilled players.

The 150 player format solves many of the sports problems, including players not playing in all the events, today the risk reward sometimes is just not worth it. The PGA, Baseball, Hockey etc... These organizations realize what level of support is available to keep the players and the sport healthy and try to balance that, and sometimes today you have sports adding too many teams and some struggle and play is diluted, you don't want to overshoot your market and available funds to support the tour.

If you allowed anyone to enter who had the entry fee, or had a 256 player field, the IPT would fail before ever starting.

Forget logistics, it's economics, something the sport has not put enough thought into in the past.