Mark's late fees where a subject when BB announced they would not run in July. All the BB players who hadn't entered the tournament decided to do so. There were MANY complains outside of facebook.
We never heard as many complains the previous years because the same players paid in advance, having no alternative.
Well the only one I heard or read about was Rodney's. But again so what? It's a competitive world. People make choices and deal with consequences all the time. If I complain about late fees then so what? So what if the year before there was no other event scheduled and the players who wanted to attend paid in advance? If you want to be the top event and insure all the players choose your event then make it so attractive financially that no player would dare miss it.
That's the lesson of the IPT if you want one takeaway. The only thing Kevin proved and that BB has proved is that if you dangle a big enough carrot then you get ALL the rabbits. The risk to reward ratio has to be compelling enough.
Maybe you should think about it another way. Last year HAVING NO CHOICE as you put it players opted to go to the event(s). This year HAVING A CHOICE some opted not to. So if I understand you correctly you would prefer a world where there is no choice to insure that you can pay what you want and still get a full field. Is this what you want?
If I had a million to put up in a project that costs at least 2 millions, I would not do it, quite simply.
Really? You think it's that simple?
I would not be so harsh if the way they entered had made sense. Competition the way they played it was the worst possible. No sanctioning of the exisiting bodies, no debate, which in the end put the players in the middle.
I am sorry but who is supposed to sanction a pool game not covered by any organization? The players don't BELONG to anyone. Some of them are members of the APB and even then they don't follow the APB's guideline on where to play. Middle of what? You mean in the middle of choices? Like the cereal companies put me in the middle when I am shopping? Let's see this delicious sugary brand or this healthy bland one - curse you cereal companies for making me choose!!!!!
So, IMO, Chiborak and his peers advertised a dream scenario where pro players would 'get paid to play and not pay to play', which is impossible in the current economic state and current status of our sport.
Why is it impossible? He did it for seven months or so. In fact they got paid even when they were NOT playing. If the money was there they would still be getting paid to play and not paying to play as you put it.
However that statement is the absolute heart of the matter. Players in a tournament environment PAY to play hoping that they will earn enough to make a profit over expenses and maybe get another title to add to their resume so that they can get or keep their sponsors. When offered a CHOICE of getting PAID to play instead some took that choice and decided not to take the risk of going to events to try and make a profit.
And to be clear it was only SOME players. In final analysis just about all the major stars were present and accounted for at the events. Some stars not in BB were also not there.
I feel bad for the players who believed in the impossible, but I do not feel bad for the people who created the dream and explained how and why it was the future.
You keep saying the impossible. What makes you the expert on what is and is not possible? Are you aware that the money we are talking about is barely worth mentioning to the people who invest in startups for a living? What if BB had a 20 million budget and a year to sell their product to a network? Would it be more possible then? We have all seen stupid stuff get funded for up to hundreds of millions.
Too bad you can't have any sympathy for people who put up their own millions to try to make something happen. I hope you NEVER lose any money on an investment and then have people say so what, you should have known better.
Competing this way against you would be opening a shop, advertising a brand new way to create cue cases and sell them for $25 a piece, claiming to have a better quality than you. And then not delivering, because of course it doesn't make any sense.
So BB delivered for seven months, paying the players and then when they ran out of money it suddenly doesn't make sense? I guess by that logic the World Poker Tour doesn't make sense either because the guy who created it spent all of his own money until he was broke developing the concept and was rejected by many channels until finally landing a deal with the Travel Channel. And the rest is history.
So again, the players got screwed. And we all know there is no way this project - as it is - will come back, ever. Just because it does not make any business sense, period.
Does not make sense to you. To me it makes perfect sense. Develop a new game, infuse some drama, make it bright and colorful and put it on TV. Has that ever been done before?
Look up American Gladiators on YouTube to find your answer. Modern day equivalent, Survivor.
And last thing, where do you know that Chiborak ever invested his own money? Do you know this for sure? He has definitely invested a lot of time and effort, but also claimed to have many people invested financially.
I don't know it and this is a fair point. But I would be willing to bet he has a significant chunk of his own money in this. I think with projects like this the founder usually is heavily invested which in turn is attractive to other investors.
Anybody who invests this much time and effort would deserve a fair chance, but again, not the way they acted. They would have to start by blending in the industry, work with others and apologize to a few people, starting with the players.
Now that's a whole other issue. I have no idea what went on behind the scenes and Mark is very upset by it which tells me that it was not pretty. For this reason mostly I don't give a shit if BB comes back or not. Mark is pretty easy to get along with so for him to be publicly pissed must mean that some crap went down. However that does not lessen my sympathy for the loss of a couple million if this ends up being a loss.
The very thing BB and the ABP were advertising, they couldn't produce. They were supposed to create a stream of revenue for pro players, and they left them with debts. No statements, no apologies, nothing more than what many of us feared: a worse debacle than the IPT.
Really? The IPT left much more in their wake. Some pros bought houses based on IPT promises and early payments. The IPT left many debts unpaid to vendors and hotels. What have the pros really lost from BB to this point? A few thousand dollars?
Lets be realistic here. They went out to Vegas for several months and played pool and rented a place to stay. What did they leave behind? Nothing that's what. They didn't quit lucrative jobs to follow the pool dream. They didn't quit a successful professional tour to follow BB. Most of them were broke before they started and they are possibly about the same amount of broke now. They took a shot. BB has nothing to apologize to the players for and I am sure they (Larry and whoever) is working hard to try and keep it going.
Did the WPA apologize for the tournament that was canceled in Finland or Iceland or whatever, the one where many players from around the world had already PAID for the tickets and cleared their schedule? Did they get compensated for that? No of course they didn't. Did the WPA apologize for the FACT that they chose to support Makabenta and thus RUIN the Matchroom World 9 Ball Championships causing a loss of a tournament that paid $100,000 to the winner? No, they did not.
Did they apologize for sanctioning Barry Behrman's US Open and then the subsequent non-payment? No they did not.
So don't act like Bonus Ball and Larry is all evil here and deserves to lose his money. Players get treated like pawns by all sides and always have been. And they seem to want it that way because they also didn't learn anything from the IPT. If they had then they would have a TRULY effective and strong player's association that would not allow their players to go and compete without the money being good.
