Mowem down said:
The UFC was a hit from the first time anybody saw Gracie choking out guys 80lbs bigger than himself, and elbows to the face that started the blood pouring. The only thing that held it up was, there was only one state that would let the show go on..
Billiards has many problems to deal with. No you cant pin all of them on the pros. Could the pros do some things to make their world better, sure they could, but thats not where their focus is. Ive said befor there are things that need to be done, that one might not see the rewards from in their pool lifetime. What pro is going to do that..
One big thing about billiards (maybe somone has said it befor maybe not). Where is the (BIG) money suppose to come from. Most other games have sponsorships from retailers, those retailers stay in bis. out of the need for their product, for a wide range of reasons. In billiards once you buy a good cue, case, table, your done spending for the most part. Were not going to have a big payday on chalk sales.
I said to the old lady one time, "Cuetech sponsors all these tourneys, who the hell plays with a Cuetech". We play league, I play here and there around town, the only person I know that plays with a Cuetech is the 3 on our team that I sold the Cuetech the Apa gave me in Vegas last year.
Who did you sell the Cuetec to? We sell A LOT of Cuetecs and the reason is because Cuetec is on TV all the time as Allison Fisher is on TV playing with hers all the time and also because Cuetec sponsors half the tournaments that are on TV.
Maybe the people who are buying and playing with Cuetecs aren't even league players (yet).
We sell a LOT of Cuetecs to people who call in (or email) and say that they are looking for a cue for a gift for someone else and they want that brand because they saw it on TV.
And who plays with Cuetec?
Mark Tad. Want to play him? Allison - Want to play her?
The fact is that Cuetec has seen their investment into sponsorship pay off - at least to the point that they have kept it up for 15 years.
The rest of the billiard industry either doesn't have the budget or the balls to do that sort of advertising.
Personally, if I were a millionaire (talking hundreds of millions, cuz a mil ain't worth what it used to be) then I simply buy pool. That's right I would put up a pro-tour and get all the pros under contract and then once I had that I would shape it how I wanted it. This sport is ripe for someone to come in and take it over from top to bottom.
Neither the BCA nor the Pros themselves are doing anything to protect or promote the game so anyone with the right amount of money can own themselves a whole sport and it would take a lot less than buying any other sports.
I wouldn't do it like our old friend KT and try to put a spit shine on it and flip it - no I'd be in it for the long haul and first try to build something solid and working that I could then interests in. I'd do my own production or bring AccuStats in as a partner and let them do all the production.
I would "invite" the BCA. WPA, APA, BCA, VNEA, and the rest of the alphabet to play along by giving up a tiny percentage of their membership dues in order to set up an amateur-to-the-pros pathway that is consistent. If they didn't want to play along which I expect that they wouldn't then I would simply set up my own leagues and fund it myself for a few years until I had all the players.
My marketing would at first consist of recruiting paid "evangelists" to canvas every place in the United States with a pool table and get them to sign up with Church of the Good Pool Hustler.
I'd hire Mark Griffin to run it all and Robin Adair and Randy Goetlicher
to run the tournaments.
Then again, as momma used to say, "if wishes were horses then beggars would ride."
