Insanity. How does a payer like this not have a sponsor?
- Thread starter aaron.conway
- Start date
Good point Jay, it seems like most players want the bag full of money without putting in the 8-10 hours a day practicing like SVB & Dennis O.
They are great ! These two guys are very serious about treating this as a career, and their results prove it.
If it only took two days work to earn $1,500-1,800, we would all be rich!
aaron.conway
Registered
First of all, I got to almost every mezz event. First does not pay that much and the expenses for two days is higher than you'd think. California is a large expensive state so driving and hotels suck.
Either way, unfortunately I agree with both John and jay. Extensive self marketing and putting the time in to your game are probably the only way for pros to make it. If every pro did that we'd probably have a stronger sport.
Do you want to hear why from the perspective of someone in the business who gets asked to sponsor players every couple days?
Well even if you don't I will tell you
Return on Investment.
When I think of sponsorship I think of a person wanting and needing MONEY. Giving someone a pool cue or a case isn't sponsorship, it's a gift with the faint hope that the use of such will lead to a few sales or a little extra recognition.
But when it comes to actually spending money on a regular basis there has to be some reasonable expectation of exposure and bump in sales to be able to afford that expense. The old saying is I know half of my advertising budget is wasted but I don't know which half.
Most billiard businesses that make products are mom and pop operations and not really turning a lot of profit. Only a handful are companies with millions of dollars in revenue. Of those most are already sponsoring players who participate in lots of tournaments and get a lot of exposure and who have a large fan base.
So that leaves the lesser known pros for the companies that aren't that big. As you can surely tell this is a vicious cycle where lower tier pros don't have the funds to go to lots of events and smaller businesses don't have the funds to send them to lots of events so no exposure means no additional revenue to cover the expense. No tournament participation means that you don't have enough exposure to get decent monetary sponsorship.
Pool is unfortunately a very poor sport. the industry is totally dependent on revenue from players to generate the money they use for advertising. Lots of people are playing but the amount of diehards who spend a lot on equipment is relatively small and the money they spend is divided amongst a lot of competitors.
Lots of people are playing in leagues and tournaments but with no outside money coming in from national brands like Coke, Dell etc... and no national exposure on television - which is still the best medium to reach the most people at one time - which is what would attract national brands - pool's profile remains subdued against the other sports, reality shows, and invented sports like American Ninja Warrior.
Which means in essence that the only way for a player to get Shane Van Boening level sponsorship is to do it the way Shane did it. On his own until such time as he had acquired enough fame to attract steady backers and a major sponsorship.
But I can tell you that Shane's deal is not usual either. Most big companies don't really pay that much because even for them the amount of exposure is greatly diminished by the fact that pool is not consistently on television and so their return on investment is not really sufficient to justify a large budget on player sponsorships. For them tournament sponsorships make more sense because they know that whatever viewership the tournament gets will see their logos and they don't need to take the risk that their sponsored player might not even make it to the streamed tables.
So in conclusion yes it's a shame that a highly skilled player doesn't have a steady endorsement deal that pays him enough to travel to a lot of events. But that's the reality of this sport.
My advice is that any player who has the skills should take their marketing into their own hands. They should first of all make sure they have a website that is polished and professional and highlights the products that they do endorse, even if they don't get paid to endorse them. For example, does he play with a cue he bought? Does he really like it? Then write up a little review of WHY he bought it and why he likes it. Same thing for the tips he likes, the case he uses and so on.....because this SHOWS those of us in the industry that this player is proactive about doing what they can to promote brands they like and use their reputation as a player to help the brands they like. It makes brands which are NOT listed think hard about trying to do what they can afford so as to be associated with such a player.
Secondly I would advise him to engage with others about how to play, tell stories about how he got into pool, how he aims (had to slip that in), what competition at his level feels like etc... in other words create content that is compelling and builds a fan base.
Build a following on FB, Instagram, google+, reddit, twitter, youtube etc.. this helps to not only attract sponsors but also to monetize that following by being able to sell products to your fan base, clothing, lessons, exhibitions....and to get invites to events.
Also make sure you always play nice with promoters and organizers and sport organizations. Volunteer time to do stuff for youth organizations for free to increase exposure and network.
Does all this sound like a lot of work over and above the main job of playing pool for money? It is.
What pro pool players fail to understand, most of them, is that THEY are the product. In order to get people to BUY that product the player has to show buyers the value they are getting for the money. And when the value is high then it becomes a situation where many brands desire to be associated with that player. Just being a good player isn't enough because there is no medium where just playing good gives enough exposure as to be the only reason to justify the expense. So players today need to be more proactive in how they engage so that they can show sponsors that they actually do have a decent amount of eyeballs on them on a consistent basis.
When I owned Instroke we started talking to Ralf Souquet about a possible sponsorship. Ralf faxed us a letter with his request and it was on a professional piece of letterhead with the companies who sponsored him neatly down one side. I took that fax off the machine and the first thing I thought was I want my logo on this letterhead. And we did end up sponsoring Ralf for a five figure amount yearly. But what I told my partners at the time is that if we did it then we would need to spend as much or more advertising the relationship, which we did. At that time we had just shy of $500,000 revenue yearly and what we were spending on Ralf and associated advertising was a healthy amount in comparison. I don't know if we got a really good return on investment even then BUT Ralf Souquet was SO PROFESSIONAL that it felt like we would be seen as a high quality serious company just by association.
And that is really the whole point. If someone makes themselves really attractive by their professional actions then it can hardly fail to pay off provided they have the skill to actually do consistently well in events. Hell I have seen really weak "pros" get sponsorships just because they were good at marketing themselves.
And there you go from one maker's perspective.
Great words of wisdom, John. Best post in the thread!
Földes...didn`t hear that name for a long time...
Although the original poster hasn`t revealed the name of the player yet, I could share a little story about Vilmos:
It must have been at least 10 years ago, maybe a bit more, certainly before a certain Hungarian player had his big breakthrough by winning a bronze medal at the World 9-ball.
I was visiting a friend in a nearby city to play a few frames of snooker at the local club. Soon after we started playing a bunch of foreign guys walked in and started playing pool on the table next to us and as far as I could tell, they were gambling for small amount of money between them. In short, it looked like friends on a night out, playing drinking, having fun.
After 30 minutes or so, we were just setting up a new frame, one of them came over and asked in a mix of German and English if we want to play with them, snooker or pool, two against two, two on one, kind of a ring game...everything we want, but for a few euros...you know, just friends from Hungary here on holiday just this evening, ladida...
Since pool gambling isn`t common in Austria, me and my friend had no idea, that they wanted us to lure into something and started playing 8-ball with them for just 1€ a game.
But after some time, don`t ask me why, me and my buddy looked at each other and without saying a word we both knew, that it was time to stop. The Hungarians made a bit of a drama, that we can`t stop now, that it is so much fun, that we even had won more games than them, that they want to win their money back, that they want to play 2€ a game....
The owner of the pool hall has been watching us for the last three games or so and now comes over to tell them that they should leave us alone, but if they still want to play he would play a few games with them, but for 10€ a game, thinking that that would scare them away.
As a side note, the owner of the pool hall was quite the opposite of me and my friend, a nice guy but also a bit of a dubious person, living in Thailand for a long time in his youth hustling all sorts of games, big tattoos and other marks on his body and also one of the finest pool veterans in Austria at that time.
Anyway, the Hungarians don`t look that scared and decide that one of them, a young man around 20, would play the owner for 10€ a game, but 9ball this time. So they start and in the beginning it gets back and forth which is a bit surprising because the young Hungarian seems to have upped his game quite a bit and slowly the margin between the games he loses and the games he wins gets bigger and bigger and the owner realises, that he was hustled.
But he is not the type of guy who lets some guys walk out of his club with his money, so he asks them, since their player is obviously better than him, if he could bring another player to play for his money. They agree with the condition, that betting also has to get up for now 20€ per game.
The owner gets out his phone, makes a call and a bit later a maybe 15 or 16 year old boy walks through the door, a very talented boy with a great future in pool, so great that it will win him a world championship over a decade later.
So the young Albin Ouschan starts playing the Hungarian and the story repeats. A few wins a few losses, thight games, but somehow the foreign player always has the better ending and instead of winning money back Albin loses even more of the club owners money.
Did I tell that this guy hates losing his money? So without asking he gets his phone out again and after a short discussion he comes to the table with a big grin on his face telling that he will bring in a new player and yes, the can play for even more per game if they want. The Hungarians don`t seem to be alerted by any means and agree without thinking twice.
Again 15 minutes later the door opens and a girl, not much older than her brother who has lost another two games meanwhile, comes in with her pool case on her back and starts playing the Hungarian.
And you might think that procedure followed the other games, winning, losing etc.
Well not really...because the Hungarian somehow has decides, that he has had enough and so he crushes poor Jassy, running rack after rack till all people involved decide it is time to back off and go home to lick their wounds...
And to complete the destruction of the local pool elite, the young foreigner turns around looks at me and my friend and says:" Actually we just wanted to play with you for fun!"
Thats how i met Vilmos Földes :grin:
Although the original poster hasn`t revealed the name of the player yet, I could share a little story about Vilmos:
It must have been at least 10 years ago, maybe a bit more, certainly before a certain Hungarian player had his big breakthrough by winning a bronze medal at the World 9-ball.
I was visiting a friend in a nearby city to play a few frames of snooker at the local club. Soon after we started playing a bunch of foreign guys walked in and started playing pool on the table next to us and as far as I could tell, they were gambling for small amount of money between them. In short, it looked like friends on a night out, playing drinking, having fun.
After 30 minutes or so, we were just setting up a new frame, one of them came over and asked in a mix of German and English if we want to play with them, snooker or pool, two against two, two on one, kind of a ring game...everything we want, but for a few euros...you know, just friends from Hungary here on holiday just this evening, ladida...
Since pool gambling isn`t common in Austria, me and my friend had no idea, that they wanted us to lure into something and started playing 8-ball with them for just 1€ a game.
But after some time, don`t ask me why, me and my buddy looked at each other and without saying a word we both knew, that it was time to stop. The Hungarians made a bit of a drama, that we can`t stop now, that it is so much fun, that we even had won more games than them, that they want to win their money back, that they want to play 2€ a game....
The owner of the pool hall has been watching us for the last three games or so and now comes over to tell them that they should leave us alone, but if they still want to play he would play a few games with them, but for 10€ a game, thinking that that would scare them away.
As a side note, the owner of the pool hall was quite the opposite of me and my friend, a nice guy but also a bit of a dubious person, living in Thailand for a long time in his youth hustling all sorts of games, big tattoos and other marks on his body and also one of the finest pool veterans in Austria at that time.
Anyway, the Hungarians don`t look that scared and decide that one of them, a young man around 20, would play the owner for 10€ a game, but 9ball this time. So they start and in the beginning it gets back and forth which is a bit surprising because the young Hungarian seems to have upped his game quite a bit and slowly the margin between the games he loses and the games he wins gets bigger and bigger and the owner realises, that he was hustled.
But he is not the type of guy who lets some guys walk out of his club with his money, so he asks them, since their player is obviously better than him, if he could bring another player to play for his money. They agree with the condition, that betting also has to get up for now 20€ per game.
The owner gets out his phone, makes a call and a bit later a maybe 15 or 16 year old boy walks through the door, a very talented boy with a great future in pool, so great that it will win him a world championship over a decade later.
So the young Albin Ouschan starts playing the Hungarian and the story repeats. A few wins a few losses, thight games, but somehow the foreign player always has the better ending and instead of winning money back Albin loses even more of the club owners money.
Did I tell that this guy hates losing his money? So without asking he gets his phone out again and after a short discussion he comes to the table with a big grin on his face telling that he will bring in a new player and yes, the can play for even more per game if they want. The Hungarians don`t seem to be alerted by any means and agree without thinking twice.
Again 15 minutes later the door opens and a girl, not much older than her brother who has lost another two games meanwhile, comes in with her pool case on her back and starts playing the Hungarian.
And you might think that procedure followed the other games, winning, losing etc.
Well not really...because the Hungarian somehow has decides, that he has had enough and so he crushes poor Jassy, running rack after rack till all people involved decide it is time to back off and go home to lick their wounds...
And to complete the destruction of the local pool elite, the young foreigner turns around looks at me and my friend and says:" Actually we just wanted to play with you for fun!"
Thats how i met Vilmos Földes :grin:
Tell 'em Jay-
You forgot to tell 'em how difficult it is being a stake horse!
Vilmos has been very successful on Oscar's Mezz Tour out here, winning several times and placing high most others. They typically pay $1,500-1,800 for first place for a weekend tourney. Not a bad paycheck for two days work, where you can drive to the event and spend only one night in a motel. Low entry fee also.
The problem is there isn't much else out this way. It seems most of the good regional events are all held East of the Mississippi. You got Chinook Winds in Oregon and the CSI events in Vegas, plus one good event per year at the Rum Runner. Pretty spare pickings for someone who wants to make a living playing Pool. Vilmos has played in many major tournaments with mixed success. He's like a lot of good players in the U.S. Good enough to win on the regional level and not quite good enough to cut it in the big ones. There must be twenty or thirty players just like him.
Look how good John Schmidt (California boy) plays and he can't make a living at Pool. Even John Morra, a world class player is giving up the game. Pretty slim pickings unless your name is Shane VB or Dennis O. Good just isn't good enough. Great is what it takes to make it in this game, until Prince Charming comes along with a bag full of money. Trudough couldn't cut it. He ran out of gas after only two tournaments. Took him three years to pay off the third one.
You forgot to tell 'em how difficult it is being a stake horse!
When a talent like John Morra gives up the game professionally, that should act as a warning sign for players up and coming, who are thinking about trying to make a career of playing professionally. Unfortunately being a great player isn't enough. If you're not in the top 10 in the world, you probably need a real job.
For those who haven't read it, a great article about Dennis Orcollo and $$ in pool: http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id...lo-best-money-game-player-world-espn-magazine
For those who haven't read it, a great article about Dennis Orcollo and $$ in pool: http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id...lo-best-money-game-player-world-espn-magazine
justinb386
Banned
Do you want to hear why from the perspective of someone in the business who gets asked to sponsor players every couple days?
Well even if you don't I will tell you
Return on Investment.
When I think of sponsorship I think of a person wanting and needing MONEY. Giving someone a pool cue or a case isn't sponsorship, it's a gift with the faint hope that the use of such will lead to a few sales or a little extra recognition.
But when it comes to actually spending money on a regular basis there has to be some reasonable expectation of exposure and bump in sales to be able to afford that expense. The old saying is I know half of my advertising budget is wasted but I don't know which half.
Most billiard businesses that make products are mom and pop operations and not really turning a lot of profit. Only a handful are companies with millions of dollars in revenue. Of those most are already sponsoring players who participate in lots of tournaments and get a lot of exposure and who have a large fan base.
So that leaves the lesser known pros for the companies that aren't that big. As you can surely tell this is a vicious cycle where lower tier pros don't have the funds to go to lots of events and smaller businesses don't have the funds to send them to lots of events so no exposure means no additional revenue to cover the expense. No tournament participation means that you don't have enough exposure to get decent monetary sponsorship.
Pool is unfortunately a very poor sport. the industry is totally dependent on revenue from players to generate the money they use for advertising. Lots of people are playing but the amount of diehards who spend a lot on equipment is relatively small and the money they spend is divided amongst a lot of competitors.
Lots of people are playing in leagues and tournaments but with no outside money coming in from national brands like Coke, Dell etc... and no national exposure on television - which is still the best medium to reach the most people at one time - which is what would attract national brands - pool's profile remains subdued against the other sports, reality shows, and invented sports like American Ninja Warrior.
Which means in essence that the only way for a player to get Shane Van Boening level sponsorship is to do it the way Shane did it. On his own until such time as he had acquired enough fame to attract steady backers and a major sponsorship.
But I can tell you that Shane's deal is not usual either. Most big companies don't really pay that much because even for them the amount of exposure is greatly diminished by the fact that pool is not consistently on television and so their return on investment is not really sufficient to justify a large budget on player sponsorships. For them tournament sponsorships make more sense because they know that whatever viewership the tournament gets will see their logos and they don't need to take the risk that their sponsored player might not even make it to the streamed tables.
So in conclusion yes it's a shame that a highly skilled player doesn't have a steady endorsement deal that pays him enough to travel to a lot of events. But that's the reality of this sport.
My advice is that any player who has the skills should take their marketing into their own hands. They should first of all make sure they have a website that is polished and professional and highlights the products that they do endorse, even if they don't get paid to endorse them. For example, does he play with a cue he bought? Does he really like it? Then write up a little review of WHY he bought it and why he likes it. Same thing for the tips he likes, the case he uses and so on.....because this SHOWS those of us in the industry that this player is proactive about doing what they can to promote brands they like and use their reputation as a player to help the brands they like. It makes brands which are NOT listed think hard about trying to do what they can afford so as to be associated with such a player.
Secondly I would advise him to engage with others about how to play, tell stories about how he got into pool, how he aims (had to slip that in), what competition at his level feels like etc... in other words create content that is compelling and builds a fan base.
Build a following on FB, Instagram, google+, reddit, twitter, youtube etc.. this helps to not only attract sponsors but also to monetize that following by being able to sell products to your fan base, clothing, lessons, exhibitions....and to get invites to events.
Also make sure you always play nice with promoters and organizers and sport organizations. Volunteer time to do stuff for youth organizations for free to increase exposure and network.
Does all this sound like a lot of work over and above the main job of playing pool for money? It is.
What pro pool players fail to understand, most of them, is that THEY are the product. In order to get people to BUY that product the player has to show buyers the value they are getting for the money. And when the value is high then it becomes a situation where many brands desire to be associated with that player. Just being a good player isn't enough because there is no medium where just playing good gives enough exposure as to be the only reason to justify the expense. So players today need to be more proactive in how they engage so that they can show sponsors that they actually do have a decent amount of eyeballs on them on a consistent basis.
When I owned Instroke we started talking to Ralf Souquet about a possible sponsorship. Ralf faxed us a letter with his request and it was on a professional piece of letterhead with the companies who sponsored him neatly down one side. I took that fax off the machine and the first thing I thought was I want my logo on this letterhead. And we did end up sponsoring Ralf for a five figure amount yearly. But what I told my partners at the time is that if we did it then we would need to spend as much or more advertising the relationship, which we did. At that time we had just shy of $500,000 revenue yearly and what we were spending on Ralf and associated advertising was a healthy amount in comparison. I don't know if we got a really good return on investment even then BUT Ralf Souquet was SO PROFESSIONAL that it felt like we would be seen as a high quality serious company just by association.
And that is really the whole point. If someone makes themselves really attractive by their professional actions then it can hardly fail to pay off provided they have the skill to actually do consistently well in events. Hell I have seen really weak "pros" get sponsorships just because they were good at marketing themselves.
And there you go from one maker's perspective.
That was a really great post. Very interesting. Your post made me thing of a great movie called, The Pursuit of Happyness. The main character in that movie ended up a great success, in part because of the way he marketed himself.
justinb386
Banned
Also, that 2 days of work might only be once a month. Unless you can travel (far away), you are not going to find weekly tournaments that pay $1500 for 1st place every week. Maybe in New York, but I do not know. And if you are not as strong and consistent as SVB for example, then you may not be able to win all of them.
justinb386
Banned
That was a really cool story.
Fun story! Thanks for sharing.
true words. i enjoy watching great pool, even like watching good pool.
get a job. get a JOB, not a pastime. if you don't pay into 401k,social security, etc. you're sure not getting it back! living pool table to mouth isn't very much fun.
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Good story, thanks