Is Pool a Sport?
- Thread starter JAM
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Tristan said:
I do not see pool in the Olympics except as a EXHIBITION, as most of the BEST US Players make their living off Pool. They would have to stop that during the games, and training.
As sadly the U.S. does not pay their TEAM like some countries do in other EVENTS. Thinking China, and the Old USSR where Olympians were EMPLOYEES of the state.
God, I have no interest in bringing up the Curling debate AGAIN here on AZ. The fact of the matter is that there IS enough world wide interest in Curling for it to be an Olympic sport. Whether you are interested or not isn't the issue. There are multiple countries who's national sport is Curling. Curling first made its appearance in the Olympics in the 1920s. I can't stress enough that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has been running a pretty darn successful program for over a hundred years. Pool players have a tendancy to make claims like "Pool should be" here or there. But the fact is that there needs to be governing bodies, rules and regulations, and some unity amongst the world's players of a sport before it would even be looked at as an option for the Olympics.Tristan said:
Jamaica the land of NO SNOW had a Bobsled TEAM.
Who plays? Since 1998, billiard participation has risen steadily from 32.3 million players to 36 million in 2005 as reported by the National Sporting Goods Association. This rebound brings participation to a new peak, with the gender demographic remaining at 63% male, 37% female. Based on total participation, billiards ranks 8th, behind walking, camping, swimming, exercising with equipment, bowling, fishing and bicycling.
These are worldwide figures, so these figures do show that Billiards & Pool is a worldwide activity.
I wonder how many people are in to curling, cricket, la cross, diving, hand ball & and other questionable olympic competitions?
If there were different levels, say A, B & C, the audience might start to understand the difficulty of Pool & Billiards. Watching two 3 Speeds battle it out, for a Gold Medal, might even display some comedy. The audience might even think this level of competition was a display in "throwing off".
These are worldwide figures, so these figures do show that Billiards & Pool is a worldwide activity.
I wonder how many people are in to curling, cricket, la cross, diving, hand ball & and other questionable olympic competitions?
If there were different levels, say A, B & C, the audience might start to understand the difficulty of Pool & Billiards. Watching two 3 Speeds battle it out, for a Gold Medal, might even display some comedy. The audience might even think this level of competition was a display in "throwing off".
It seems to me that by the standards of this extremely well-thought out article (not), you can't exclude BMX and auto racing if you're going to include track and field, swimming and cycling(!). BMX apparently doesn't qualify because "you are on a bike most of the time". Did I miss something there?
CocoboloCowboy said:Jamaica the land of NO SNOW had a Bobsled TEAM.
Very good point.
I believe that pocket billiards, pool, whatever you want to call it, would rise in popularity if it were included in the Olympics.
I never followed ice skating, however, until Tanya attacked Nancy Kerrigan by breaking her legs, right before the Olympics. Thereafter, I followed that story, to include all ice skating on the Olympics. I even went and bought tickets to see a live ice skating show of pros in Baltimore. I know it sounds odd, but after Tanya did that to Nancy, I watched and became interested in ice skating. I learned more about the sport, the competitors, and really enjoyed it.
Now, I am not saying that Earl Strickland needs to break Johnny Archer's arm before the U.S. Open, but I do believe if pool was in the Olympics, more people would find the human interest stories about the players interesting, want to see how well they compete, et cetera. Then there's the hundreds of thousands of LEAGUE players in the U.S. who may tune in and check it out pool on TV. Today, nobody watches pool on American TV. Even some pro players themselves very rarely tune in, sad but true.
Who knows, maybe then when Charlie Williams is competing against Rodney Morris on TV, even though it's usually a rerun and very old footage, pool could actually become more popular on mainstream TV.
99.9999 percent of Americans have never heard of Johnny Archer and Earl Strickland. 99.9999 percent of Filipinos know who Efren Reyes is.
The Olympics is INTERNATIONAL, and as such, the coverage of pool in the Olympics may not help pool in the Philippines, but I believe it would help it in the United States.
JAM
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lodini said:
What debate? Someone suggested that because most Americans don't follow professional pool that it isn't popular enough to be an Olympic sport. I countered with the fact that most Americans don't even know the first thing about Curling, and yet it is in the Olympics.
Thus, the public popularity and knowledge of a sport in America need not be considered a prerequisite for inclusion into the Olympics. First, because popularity does not determine inclusion, and second, because the Olympics is a world-wide competition and not dependent only on American tastes.
You assume that because I state that most Americans don't know anything about Curling I'm suggesting that it somehow does not deserve to be an Olympic sport. Unfortunately, I neither said, nor meant that. Generally I say what I mean, so please read my posts thoughtfully before getting your knickers in a twist.
The debate I was referring to is one that has been brought up ad-nauseum around here... that if Curling is an Olympic sport then so should Pool.Tristan said:
And please, my knickers should not be a subject in your posts again. There was nothing in my post that was any more aggressive than yours.
It shouldn't be important how the term 'sport' is determined. Pool is a human challenge with parallels to endeavors as vast as those in engineering and professional football.
It's not necessarily a fitness challenge, though hard trainers will derive fitness benefits.
As for the aim of Olympic acceptance I'm 100% against it. I believe it would be highly detrimental to the game's development. Almost every sport that has become reliant on an 'Olympic Status', has become a sport ruled by national bureaucracies overseen by stagnant central committees. This is not the formula for evolving sports. Even Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming and gymnastics are extremely poor sports, but for a few superstars.
If pool was an Olympic sport, no entrepreneurs would dare touch it. They'd have to wait 6 months for the committees to meet to give approval on every decision.
btw. JAM, don't mean to poison your thread, just being an contrarian bastard ;-) You're a gem in my books! Missed you while I was away
Colin
It's not necessarily a fitness challenge, though hard trainers will derive fitness benefits.
As for the aim of Olympic acceptance I'm 100% against it. I believe it would be highly detrimental to the game's development. Almost every sport that has become reliant on an 'Olympic Status', has become a sport ruled by national bureaucracies overseen by stagnant central committees. This is not the formula for evolving sports. Even Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming and gymnastics are extremely poor sports, but for a few superstars.
If pool was an Olympic sport, no entrepreneurs would dare touch it. They'd have to wait 6 months for the committees to meet to give approval on every decision.
btw. JAM, don't mean to poison your thread, just being an contrarian bastard ;-) You're a gem in my books! Missed you while I was away
Colin
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Are you kidding me?
Of course billiards is a sport, and I point to these three immutable truths.
The pool room is the greatest arena of human competition.
The pool table is the toughest and most gruelling test of human skill and endurance.
Sinking the 9 on the break is THE most exciting play in ALL of sport.
How can anyone argue these points?
Of course billiards is a sport, and I point to these three immutable truths.
The pool room is the greatest arena of human competition.
The pool table is the toughest and most gruelling test of human skill and endurance.
Sinking the 9 on the break is THE most exciting play in ALL of sport.
How can anyone argue these points?
I think you're seriously behind on your billiard politics, Jennie. The International Olympic Committee has recognized the WCBS and cue sports as a legitimate international sport for over a decade. Also look into the World Games Organization.JAM said:
The issue with the Olympic Games is not in getting recognition but in being included in the sports at the Games. There are lots of sports not presently there that would like to be included. When Beijing was chosen for 2008, I thought there would be a good chance for cue sports to be included, since China has been doing well and is interested in them, but that didn't happen.
One problem is the present size of the games. The stated intent is to hold the total number of athletes under 10,000. Cue sports would something like 64 to 96 competitors. For those to get in, something else has to go.
From the IOC web site:
Summer sports:
Aquatics
Archery
Athletics
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Boxing
Canoe / kayak
Cycling
Equestrian
Fencing
Football
Gymnastics
Handball
Hockey
Judo
Modern pentathlon
Rowing
Sailing
Shooting
Softball
Table tennis
Taekwondo
Tennis
Triathlon
Volleyball
Weightlifting
Wrestling
RECOGNISED SPORTS LIST
Air sports
Bandy
Billiard Sports
Boules
Bowling
Bridge
Chess
Cricket
DanceSport
Golf
Karate
Korfball
Life Saving
Motorcycle Racing
Mountaineering and Climbing
Netball
Orienteering
Pelote Basque
Polo
Powerboating
Racquetball
Roller Sports
Rugby
Sport climbing
Squash
Sumo
Surfing
Tug of War
Underwater Sports
Water Skiing
Wushu
After seeing last year's spelling bee on ESPN, we got into the discussion of what is considered a sport one day at my local pool hall, and OMG it turned into a topic that is still discussed about a year later.
One of the consensus offered was that, "If it has a ball or balls, its a sport." (With hockey having a flattened ball)...
Another popular definition offered was, if it is organized, has a practice associated with it, and/or a uniform required, its a sport.
I agree with most posters here that pool is of course a sport.. but one major reason why, is because in College, one day we researched "Life Time Sports", and pool was one of them.
One of the consensus offered was that, "If it has a ball or balls, its a sport." (With hockey having a flattened ball)...
Another popular definition offered was, if it is organized, has a practice associated with it, and/or a uniform required, its a sport.
I agree with most posters here that pool is of course a sport.. but one major reason why, is because in College, one day we researched "Life Time Sports", and pool was one of them.
akinnyz said:
I think anything that takes practice, focus, and ability in competition is a sport. Lets take something pretty silly, like professional eating. Any dope can eat, but to compete as a professional eater it takes training and stamina. Once you add those in, it's a sport. Something like guitar playing, while it takes a lot of practice and skill and learning, is not a sport as it's done for personal and performance enjoyment, not so much to "win" anything.
Billiards, for anyone that has the brain power to think past the idea that a sport is not a sport unless you have running or jumping, is as hard to master as anything on the planet, and has almost as much strategy as chess. It talkes practice, some natural skill to play at a top level, focus and studying to be good. It's also usually done competively instead of just for the act of playing (unlike a musical instrument skill).
Bob Jewett said:
I was cutting and pasting what I found on the Internet via SEARCH on Google, Bob.
I still do not understand why pool is not in the Olympics as the "GAMES."
My intention of initiating this thread was that I was hoping to generate a little dialogue about pool in the Olympics; thus, the reason for my posting the numerous links in this thread.
I am hoping that maybe I will learn more from the august and learned souls like yourself.
JAM
ETA: I would hasten to guess that not many readers of this forum are aware of the alphabet soup of international pool organizations. Maybe this thread can be a learning tool to enlighten the pool public about WHY pool is listed as a game on the Olympics website. Yet, pool has not happened YET in any Olympic games.
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So let's say that in 2012 CueSports was going to be apart of the Olympic Games. What would it look like? How would we compete against other countries and ourselves?
Would it be like Track and Field, where you have 8 person tournaments and the top 2 advance to the next round for Singles? Both Men and Women?
Would we have a team event like the BCAPL? Or like the Mosconi Cup?
What discipline's would there be? Would we have 8-ball, 9-ball, 14.1, 1-pocket, trick shots, snooker, bumper pool j/k, etc?
I could see Singles, Scotch and Team Events, much like the Vegas tournaments, but on a much smaller scale.
Then, who would you want to represent the different countries?
List your: (From each country)
-Top 5 Men Singles 8-ball,
-Top 5 Women Singles 8-ball,
-Top 5 Men Singles 10-ball,
-Top 5 Women Singles 10-ball,
-Top 2 Teams from each country (Not necessarily the same as the singles players) both Men's and Women's Teams.
How would we hold qualifiers? Like Track and Field? Like Swimming? Qualifying events? Or do just have some organization choose the players like Basketball does? How are the Mosconi players chosen each year?
Would it be like Track and Field, where you have 8 person tournaments and the top 2 advance to the next round for Singles? Both Men and Women?
Would we have a team event like the BCAPL? Or like the Mosconi Cup?
What discipline's would there be? Would we have 8-ball, 9-ball, 14.1, 1-pocket, trick shots, snooker, bumper pool j/k, etc?
I could see Singles, Scotch and Team Events, much like the Vegas tournaments, but on a much smaller scale.
Then, who would you want to represent the different countries?
List your: (From each country)
-Top 5 Men Singles 8-ball,
-Top 5 Women Singles 8-ball,
-Top 5 Men Singles 10-ball,
-Top 5 Women Singles 10-ball,
-Top 2 Teams from each country (Not necessarily the same as the singles players) both Men's and Women's Teams.
How would we hold qualifiers? Like Track and Field? Like Swimming? Qualifying events? Or do just have some organization choose the players like Basketball does? How are the Mosconi players chosen each year?
I have no doubt that pool is a sport and have read many arguments on the subject. I would love to know the source of the article, you posted? There is tremendous physical skill involved in playing pool. In basketball, they just toss a ball through a hoop and no one questions the skill involved. Well, when then can use a stick to hit that huge ball, into another ball and then make that one through the hoop. Well, then I'll be impressed. 