Largest audience for a billiard event?

[JAM]

Screenshots. Ronnie, as a rule, dislikes pomp and circumstances, but I think he enjoyed this event a lot. They played "We Are the Champions" when he accepted his trophy. He said this is the best event that he's ever played in. The Hong Kong snooker promoters really went all out. They allowed photo opps by saying look the left, then pause, look straight ahead, then pause, and then look to the right.

 

[Bob Jewett]

No, there is not hidden link, unfortunately. I have written to WST and posted on the WST FB page numerous times. I ended up finding another way to watch it, sad to say, and I feel dirty.

I know someone who can contact Jason Ferguson, the head of WST. Jason is now aware of the problem. My guess is that there was a rights problem, perhaps with the people running the event.

 

[JAM]

I know someone who can contact Jason Ferguson, the head of WST. Jason is now aware of the problem. My guess is that there was a rights problem, perhaps with the people running the event.

Thanks for your efforts. I hope it helps.

Everybody in the world who did not have access to this event were advised to go to Matchroom-dot-live. WST advertised this. It is false advertising and discriminatory to Americans.

As a paid and subscribed member to Matchroom-dot-live, this is not fair and WST owes USA an explanation as to why we could not access it when the rest of the world could.

Source: https://wst.tv/how-to-watch-the-hong-kong-masters/

 

[kling&allen]

Crowd shots.

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Amazing crowd shots! Reminds me of photos from the golden age of pool.

 

[kling&allen]

Thanks for your efforts. I hope it helps.

Everybody in the world who did not have access to this event were advised to go to Matchroom-dot-live. WST advertised this. It is false advertising and discriminatory to Americans.

As a paid and subscribed member to Matchroom-dot-live, this is not fair and WST owes USA an explanation as to why we could not access it when the rest of the world could.

Source: https://wst.tv/how-to-watch-the-hong-kong-masters/

One of the Matchroom videos earlier this year was of their offices at some mansion Hearn owns. It looked like the billiard group was Emily plus a couple dudes stuck in a back room. So I now have properly low expectations of their capabilities.

 

[sjm]

Stu, Your mention of Lou Butera -- whom I saw playing Straight Pool on many dazzling, and rather thrilling occasions -- prompts to suggest that the judgment of fastest surely should be differentiated as Fastest at rotation games, and Fastest at Straight Pool. Big difference for proper and respectful metrics.

Newer (and long time) AZBers will enjoy this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Butera -- As you'll read, (and Stu will already know) Lou B. was tagged as "Machine Gun Lou" because of the rapid-fire sound of 150 balls being pocketed within 21 minutes to win a major Straight Pool (14.1) championship. He literally ran around the circumference of the table. He once said " I can't NOT shoot fast." Just the unique way his pool mind was wired and connected to his subconscious fund of all permanently ingrained (and instant photographic (idetic) recall of all the patterns he'd ever seen or played).

Arnaldo
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Yes, I saw Butera play live many times, all of it in the period 1976-86. There was another player, better known for nine-ball, but also a 200+ ball runner at 14.1, that played 14.1 faster than Lou. His name was Steve "Stevie Wonder" Dobrowolski. As I recall, he lived somewhere near Philadelphia, and his best play came in the 1980s.

Of the 14.1 greats, of course, Lou was the fastest by quite a bit.

 

[skogstokig]

Amazing crowd shots! Reminds me of photos from the golden age of pool.

this is what cuesports deserve imo. in the last wst event, the british open, you could hear crickets almost. i hope ferguson learns from this, and emily frazer too. big crowds adds so much in terms of pressure for the players and ambience for the viewers.

 

[spartan]

This 8 player invitational has very nice generous payout
Ronnie gets 100K pounds, Marco 50K pounds just for 3 matches.
All players guaranteed minimum 22.5K pounds

 

[Baby Huey]

Doesn't sound right. The BCA 8-ball Nationals at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas used to draw 10,000-15,000 players year after year back in the 1990s and 2000s. That said, it is likely that the Miller Lite event you mention set the participation record at the time. If you were there, I'd love to hear about it.

I agree with your assessment of the BCA and APA events. But the aforementioned events consist of multiple events running simultainesly so in total those numbers were higher than the Miller Lite events. But for each division they weren't IMO.