Ipoola guaranteeing at least half its gross revenue to IPA Championships.

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markcorkum

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Ipoola guaranteeing at least half its revenue to IPA Championships.

Hi,

I'm Mark Corkum, I'm a pool player and I founded the International Poolplayer Alliance (IPA). The IPA's website can be found here: www.ipoola.com .

The IPA is a global community of cue sport players and supporters. It is also an e-commerce portal that donates 100% of its profits which consist of a guaranteed minimum of 50% of its IPA Memberships, IPA Shopping Centre, IPA Gear brand and download purchase revenues and/or commissions. This sponsorship donation will be made directly into the added cash pot of the IPA Championships every year and scheduled to be held for the first time in the fall of 2009.
A buddy of mine named J-Bru is a pool player and a rapper. He wrote what may be the first pool anthem called My Life and this mp3 is available for download exclusively on the IPA website.

The IPA wishes to combine the consumer buying power of the millions of cue sport enthusiasts to raise money for a mega tournament, once a year. The location of this year's event will likely be in Halifax Regional Municipality, in Nova Scotia, Canada. In the future, the IPA plans on splitting the sponsorship monies to support regional tournaments all over the world.

The IPA is the first sporting organization of its kind to my knowledge in the world and I welcome all to visit the site. Pool is one of the biggest sporting activities in the world and by pooling the collective consumer power of its players and fans, it would exceed anyone's expectations as a major league sport. Personally, I am a 35 year old poolplayer who is tired of waiting for angel investors or large corporate salvation. We can get pool there ourselves.

The IPA and ipoola.com are brand new and merchants are continually being added to the site. Thank you for checking it out. Here's to the new age of pool,

Cheers,

Mark Corkum
Founder
International Poolplayer Alliance
www.ipoola.com

Ipoola... together we stand.
 
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I'm not quick on these things, are you saying this is a non-profit pool organization that will set up 1 big yearly money-added tournament, and this added money will come from sales of merch online?

And that a large chunk of this added money will be available because a full 50% of the retail price of stuff you buy online (and half of membership dues) will go towards the prize fund?

Are the people who make and sell the IPA-branded gear also making 0 profit? Or are you saying just the "e-commerce portal" (translation: website?) will make 0 profit, but the guys making the merchandise will still be able to make some money?

If 50% is earmarked for the tournament, but 100% of the profits are donated, what happens with the other 50%?

Hope I don't come across the wrong way, I just want to figure out how the money works in this thing and why it will succeed where so many other organizations haven't. I know that a lot of major sports organizations put 100% of the money made from official merchandise (like official nfl apparel or whatever) back into the league (by splitting it evenly among the teams).

But the other large part of the success of the NFL, NBA, PGA, NASCAR, etc. is through the large corporate sponsorship that you're saying we can live without. Personally I can't see pool ever reaching their level without that sponsorship, and maybe it just can't reach that level period. You can cram thousands of people into a stadium to watch a single football game. You can't do that with a single game of pool. You might get thousands of people watching anyway via TV and live streaming (and indeed the NFL makes like 2/3rds of its money from TV deals) but for whatever reason the world doesn't find pool nearly as interesting to watch as the more 'athletic' sports... especially if they will have to pay to watch... so there will probably never be enough ticket sales to make pool 'huge'.

But, I'm not trying to be a total downer and I respect what you're trying to do. Even if pool can't get huge, it can definitely get 'bigger' and I hope you succeed in doing that.
 
Thank you for your questions CreeDo and also for your time in reading my response to them.

In 2002 I began working toward holding a big pool tournament in Canada that was going to be called the Canadian Open. I worked many, many hours procurring documents and communicating with different companies in Canada. I was so sure that it would be a great business venture I incorporated instead of going non-profit. At about that time though I deliberated on going non-profit and even filled out paperwork for something called the United Poolplayers of Canada. Those papers were regrettably never filed but I still have electronic copies on my computer as a memento. The tournament then was not a go. 99% plus of major companies have policies that prohibit cash sponsorships to for-profit entities, which is what I registered in 2002. Even product donations were tough.

Since then my strategy to acquire the necessary added cash to develop a major annual tournament evolved from relying on external entities to acquiring the capital through my own company. The final decision to donate 100% of would-be profits was just recent, within the last month. I have not had the time to compile all of the necessary information, advice and collaboration with my local peers to make a decision on the deregistration of a corporation and the starting of a non-profit entity. The concept of the IPA was given to various people and large industry companies last fall and when a secret is out of the box, time is of the essence. Your question about that is timely though. Just yesterday and today I was perusing the Government of Nova Scotia website on the policies and processes involved in registering a non-profit and a few days ago I was speaking on that very subject with a lovely gal by the name of Florence who works with Revenue Canada. Presently as a corporate entity, the IPA is a staff of one. Just me. Since I'm not sure how much revenue the IPA will generate, as it is a unique entity in the billiard world, I don't know how much will be left over to pay operational expenses, including human resources. I will tell you and the billiard world this. My salary will never be higher than what the Government of Canada places as a cap on salaries for directors/employees of non-profits, AND, it will never rise above 50% of taxable revenue as long as it is owned by a for-profit. The consideration to go non-profit still remains a real one. In the last ten years I have seen what could be described as a threat to a facet of Canadian culture, a serious drop in the player participation rates of pool. Many say that it goes in cycles. I'm not sure if I want to put my faith in that adage. My hometown of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia has seen the loss of its only two pool clubs and 10 years ago they were booming. Cue sports have been part of our culture here for over a century and one of my first actions as a director of a non-profit would be to work toward applying for funding to aid in the preservation and promotion of cue sports in Canada.

At the time being, the only products and services that the IPA sells directly are IPA Memberships and Downloads. The IPA guarantees the payback of at least 50% of these revenue sources. For the products and services that are not sold directly from the IPA, the IPA receives commissions on the sales. From the commission revenues, the IPA guarantees the payback of at least 50%. In the IPA Shopping Centre you can view what the percentage is of the total before-tax sales volume revenue that is guaranteed to be donated as a sponsorship. Commissions are only paid to the IPA from merchant sales generated through their banners on the IPA site.

The IPA website was paid with my money and my 7 years plus of time and research and passion for pool. It was paid with thousands of hours in pool clubs and a subsequently failed marriage together with the financial inability to share custody of my daughter. My company is all that I have of potential financial value. This is a free world and capitalism will triumph over this recession and so will pool, regardless if the benefactor is for-profit or not-for-profit.

I agree with you on the need for corporate sponsorship. The IPA wishes to be this sponsor.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Again, thank you for asking and I encourage you to visit the IPA website at www.ipoola.com . I must get back now to uploading more banners to start earning more added cash for the tournament. The IPA has members already and it was just advertised today for the first time as being launched.

Cheers,

Mark
 
So it's basically an affiliate shopping portal with the pitch that we should buy merchandise through it so that profits are used to support pool?

And what if the price of the goods are higher than elsewhere?

Pool players aren't that altruistic. We drive around fro three hours to save $5 on the price of a motel room so that we will have more money to gamble with :-)

In order to fund a "mega-tournament" you are going to need a LOT of people buying stuff through your website and honestly, the pool world isn't that big and the people in it don't care very much to fund any sort of mega-tournament other than the ones they already support with their league dues. And they ONLY support that because they get to participate.

It's a grand idea but unfortunately a non-starter. I will HAPPILY eat my words if I am proven wrong on this one.

Now, if SOMEONE could figure out a way to get .25cts a week from all the league player's weekly fees we could have a MEGA-TOUR that was on TV and attracting big name sponsors. Something like that would make pool bigger and increase participation in pool leagues, wouldn't that be great? But I have a million billion trillion dollars that says it will NEVER happen in the fractured pool world.
 
It sounds like you're all in on this one. It's impressive what you've done so far with a 1 man operation! I wish you luck on it... it's an uphill battle but if done properly I think it could work well.

I checked out the site and it seems pretty well done. Since the site is your main way of interacting with the public (for now) I hope you won't mind if I point out one or two small things. I feel a little bad that all I'm offering is [constructive] criticism on the page, but websites are something I know. I don't know enough about the rest to offer much help :) In any case I know you want it to look as professional as possible to attract business and merchants.

- not a big fan of the 9 ball rising over the earth pic... I think you can convey the image of a "new dawn" for pool without having a pool ball in there (esp. that 9 ball), and the satellite arm seems out of place. The pic itself is a little grainy too, and you'd give that slightly more professional look if you use a unique font instead of the ones that come with the PC.
Some pics I liked:
http://www.usageorge.com/Wallpapers/Scenery/Blue-Planet-Earth.html
http://www.crestock.com/image/617256-Sunrise-over-Earth.aspx

On the first one, it'd be neat to subtly shade the earth itself to look more like a pool ball, or replace the small moon with a black 8-ball.

- Also on that main page just under this pic is an empty rectangle. It's a table with a thin black outline. I guess you or the web designer planned on having something there at some point. But for now it's empty so it doesn't look good to have this floating empty rectangle.

- On the links page the righthand block of links is partially blocked out by that member login box. It looks like that block should move about 200 pixels left. That's in firefox. In IE6, the main menu and login sidebars are gone so the entire page is just the links.


I don't have anything else except that the rest of the site looks good and seems pretty functional. Best of luck. Contact me if I can help with the page in some way.
 
lol. I know my hopes are up but they have to be. Wouldn't it be great if it came to be? A concept like the IPA requires good word-of-mouth and support from those who would benefit the most from inside the pool world. Being immediately after the site announcement, this positive momentum is especially critical. I know that dwelling on the negative will never result in anything positive and if there's one sport that could use an Oprah intervention its pool so we have to be positive or else I'll sic Oprah and her quantum physicists on ya. LOL.

Regarding that cheap hotel room, IPA Members save 15-20% off on Choice Hotels (Comfort, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, Econolodge and Rodeway) as well as at least 5% on Enterprise Rent-a-Car rentals.

The affiliate sites are big, reputable companies and many have a lowest price guarantee.

As mentioned on the site, in the future when I have administrative help and/or the ability to quickly manage data, I'd like to split the sponsor dollars to support pre-existing regional tournys all over the world. The current IPA Sanctioning is close to $0.25 at $1/person. I was thinking about just dropping the $1 requirement and say its just a suggestion and that the amount is up to the league/tourny operator.

Thanks for the suggestions and the encouragement guys. As president and vice-presidents in all categories I haven't had a lot of time to perfect the home page yet and I imagine the site will always be a work in progress. I'll see if I can help the links page this morning. I'm wiped... 8 hours sleep in the last couple of days, yikes.

The IPA is looking for industry affiliates too.

Mark
 
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Ipoola is the new IPA and...

Ipoola is the new IPA and profits will now be paid to support existing pool events. There is no sanctioning override, no separate IPA or Ipoola Championships, instead the profits will be used to sponsor current pool events. Ipoola website will be updated by tomorrow to reflect this at www.ipoola.com and feel free to join the Ipoola facebook group as well.
 
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