IPT in the news

A very interesting but uncomplementary article describing the IPT as a way for Trudeau to get around the ban the FTC put on him from doing infomercials:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001479188

Banned Marketer Set for His Next TV Appearance
November 14, 2005

NEW YORK -- Kevin Trudeau—the only man ever banned by the Federal Trade Commission from making infomercials—will be back on TV on Nov. 17, but this time the main product he's selling is pool, as in the bar billiards game.

Trudeau's International Pool Tour, “World 8-Ball Championship,” will be broadcast on Fox Sports Channel from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

But the bête noir of late-night selling (he once aired an ad that claimed Coral Calcium could “cure” cancer) isn't completely out of the herbal cure business.

In fact, when Trudeau's pool tourney rolls out fully with a series of games in 2006, Trudeau will buy time to air the matches, rather than expect them to be covered by cable sports networks, he said. Within the IPT's commercial breaks Trudeau will sell IPT licensed gear, such as balls, sticks, and tables, all of which Trudeau owns.

The IPT thus represents an interesting new development in sports marketing—the sports broadcast as infomercial.

Trudeau is laying out $15 million to fund the venture, which will be staged with the glamour and hype of a boxing match, rather than the hushed tones and dim lighting that currently typifies pool staging.

But will the revenue from the time-buys be enough? Of course, he said, “That's why I'm a billionaire and you're not.”

The show will also tout NaturalCures.com, on which Trudeau sells literature that promotes herbal cures and rages against the FTC, which he once compared to “Nazi Germany” (Brandweek, March 21, 2005).

The competition is an extension of Trudeau's attempts to get around the lifetime infomercial ban. That ban—which stemmed from a Sept. 7, 2004, FTC order preventing him from "making any representation in an infomercial aired or played on any television or radio media" ever again—contained a loophole, as required by the First Amendment, for books and literature. (In addition to the ban, Trudeau was fined $2 million and the FTC took one of his houses and Mercedes.)

Since the ban, Trudeau has been back on the air pitching his book, Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About. That book was the No. 2 best seller among self-help titles, according to The New York Times last week.

FTC officials, who remain irked at Trudeau's recalcitrance, will likely watch the pool tour closely. Trudeau is currently suing the FTC for defamation. That suit, in the Illinois federal courts, is ongoing.

In addition to federal scrutiny, Trudeau (who also owns Britain's Golf TV channel) faces two other challenges before he can recoup his $15 million.

First, the most-famous American player, Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee, will not be participating. She is recovering from back surgery and was unaware that female players would be allowed into the event, according to her representative.

Second, as Trudeau also intends to be in the booth providing commentary during the games, he must also restrain himself from overwhelming the games with his invective against drug companies, fast-food chains and the federal government.

That could be quite a feat, because Trudeau has no shortage of opinions. He called the current handling of pool on TV “horrible,” for instance, and said in an interview last week that top players shouldn't have to behave like “deaf mutes” during matches.

--Jim Edwards
 
Mike the Mouth

Good article in the Orlando Sentinel on Mike Sigel's return to pro pool. Full article at: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-pool0305dec03,0,2539993.story?coll=orl-home-lifestyle

Mike Sigel slouches in a chair at Orlando Billiards Center, a pool cue cradled in his arms. When his opponent misses a shot, Sigel casually stubs out his cigarette and rises.

He pauses at the foot of the pool table, then, as if reacting to a starter's pistol, he's off, buzzing around it with triple-espresso quickness. As he sizes up shots, he delivers a rat-a-tat commentary in a New York-accented baritone.

"Do it this way, and they'll all go in. Bada-bing, bada-boom," the pool champion says to himself. He leans over, brow wrinkled in concentration, sighting a shot as a cluster of players and fans watches in silence. Then he lets the shot fly.

Sigel sends the 10 ball sliding into a side pocket, but the cue ball is misbehaving. Instead of biting into the table's napped cloth, it keeps rolling. "Whoa, baby, I almost did it. Now I'm in trouble. I don't like it." He keeps up the chatter as he checks all the angles. "What do I do here? Is that the right thing to do here? Is that right?"

Then, there it is, the shot he's looking for. The cue ball smacks the 13 ball, which slides into the side pocket with a hollow thud. "Ho, ho, baby, I can't believe I did that. Unbelievable. Did you see that shot? Unbelievable. God, I didn't think I could do that."

"Mike the Mouth" is back with a capital B.

Sigel retired more than a decade ago, but you would never know that he's brushing the dust off his game. After bowing out of tournament play that has taken him around the world more than 30 times, this 52-year-old Winter Garden man is back on the scene with the force of a cue ball making a break. Smack!

Sigel is "King of the Hill" on the International Pool Tour. He won the title in August when he defeated top female pool player Loree Jon Jones in a Vegas-glitz battle of the sexes, a la Bobby Riggs versus Billie Jean King.

Now, 42 players are gunning for Sigel, hoping to take his crown Sunday when the IPT 8-Ball tournament, a five-day, sold-out event, concludes at the Orange County Convention Center. The victor of the final match will go home with $200,000 and will be King of the Hill.

It's just like the old days, only better, Sigel says.

Over the next several years, the tour will offer more prize money than has ever been up for grabs in pool, says Kevin Trudeau, IPT founder and Natural Cures author and spokesman. To make things more competitive, the tour has reduced its pool tables' pocket size and is using a napped cloth on them that slows balls. That makes players' strength and finesse larger factors in victories.

Sigel, who has lived in Central Florida for 11 years, liked the money and the challenge, so he has put retirement on hold. "Now I'm going back," says Sigel. "I mean, what's not to like here?"

Newman, Cruise, Sigel

Sigel has been the guy to beat for decades. Like a grade-school crush, his affair with the game was love at first sight. He was 13 and living in Rochester, N.Y., when his father, who sold sporting goods, brought home a pool table. Though he is right-handed, Sigel picked up a stick with his left hand and started shooting.

"I hit, like, three balls, and I knew it was what I was going to do for the rest of my life," he says as he warms up for a practice game Monday with Nick Varner, who also is playing in the IPT tournament.

At 15, Sigel started sneaking into Rochester pool halls, where he picked up tips from greats such as Irving Crane and Larry Hubbard. At 17, "guys would come in and I'd beat them all. They put an X on the map and said, 'Don't go there.' Word got out: 'Watch out for a thin, left-handed kid.' "

The kid soon hit the road with Hubbard. The pair would tumble into poolrooms across North America and take on their best players. That gave way to tournament play, and, at 21, Sigel won his first U.S. Open title. The victory would light the fuse of his firecracker career.


.....................click on above linke for full article and some pics.
 
Following blurb appeared in the Boston Sentinel:

A pool 'idiot'

Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon played on a different green surface the other day. Damon played 8-Ball with Hall of Fame player Mike Sigel when the International Pool Tour rolled through Damon's hometown of Orlando, Fla. Damon went head to head with Sigel, a 10-time world champ.
 
Includes a video from the news

Article from an Orlando local news channel; click on a the link for a video from a story about mike that appeared on the news.

http://www.wesh.com/news/5429966/detail.html

'King Of Pool' Making Comeback

POSTED: 6:50 pm EST November 29, 2005
UPDATED: 7:33 pm EST November 29, 2005

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ORLANDO, Fla. -- The king is making a comeback. The man named the greatest living pool player in the world is coming out of retirement Wednesday.

He'll rack them up at a tournament in Orlando with the richest purse in history, the International Pool Tour, WESH 2 News reported.

If you took Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky and rolled them all into one guy, he still wouldn't be as dominating as Mike Sigel is in the sport of pool.

"When 2000 came around, they were trying to figure out who the best player was for the last 100 years, and my name came up. Thousands of people voted, but all of the sudden now, everybody's gunning for me. It puts a lot of pressure on you," he said.


Sigel is a true superstar. He made it into the Hall of Fame 40 years earlier than anyone else. He's won nine tournaments in a row when no one else has even won four, and nobody's won more overall than he has.

"My record is second to none in pool. I've done things that I can't believe myself," he said.

But he retired more than a decade ago. He's been living in Winter Garden and now he's making a comeback, just in time to help launch the biggest thing to ever hit his sport.

"In '06, we're talking $8 million in prize money. In '07, $20 million in prize money, and in '08, over $50 million," Sigel said.

He hopes big exposure and big prize money helps take him right back to the top. He also hopes with two tournaments set for Orlando to take his hometown right up there with him.

"I would love to see one or two huge events a year right here, like the Bay Hill tournament," he said.

Play starts Wednesday at the Orange County Convention Center. It's the first tournament ever for the International Pool Tour.
 
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