I have always thought that pool could really synergize with poker websites, and that hotel companies and travel bureaus would be an awesome connection to create. Matchroom seems to have these already and they throw in Buick and Best Buy as well!
I seriously think that the future of this sport is going to lie in the internet to a large extent. The streaming of matches that are paid for via PPV and possibly live free streaming in the future if the sport can attract advertisers and the large online audiences watching the event. This is why I think TAR has a good foot in the door and has started a new type of format that this sport might prosper under.
All that said Matchroom seems to be doing very well on the advertisers and they are largely focused on only one single pool event each year. An organization such as a professional pool tour could do at least this well, hitting up a variety of cities/countries, getting hotel sponsership for the tour from someone like Westin, getting some advertising dollars from travel bureaus of each city the tour travels to.
During the streaming of events running a 30 second commercial for a product or service at each racking break would work well. If you have 6 different sponsors then cycle the advertising, or weight it based on the amount of advertising dollars spent (you might have 3 Buick commercials for different models of cars for each Simonis commercial and 2 Westin commercials and 2 pokerstars and 1 diamond table in that same cycle).
The way I see it the internet is in general in it's infancy. It was not that long ago that a 486 compture was considered powerful and the internet was a shadow of what it is now. The spread of higher speed internet is ever growing, the amount of bandwidth that can be sent over data lines increases along with the compression and uncompression of data becomming more efficient and reliable.
I don't think pool will EVER be a TV sport, but this is in large part because I think that alot of sports are going to become more focused on the internet as a medium as time progresses. Alot of sports are starting to focus on PPV, Hockey games black out in many cities and you need to pay a small amount of cash to watch the game as a PPV. These types of things are actually better to do on the internet if you can set up the framework because the actual organization doing the streaming will see less of a split of the profits on an internet stream then a TV based PPV. The TV itself is slowly becomming incorperated with the computer as well, we are not too far off where your computer and TV will be virtually one in the same. Both will run on the same display and you will be able to watch TV while sending an email on a small window off to the side and surf Ebay. Already alot of websites of TV channels show full episodes of their shows (comedy central comes to mind), so you can actually watch TV on your computer paying for the internet connection, not paying a thing for cable TV, and yet watching cable TV shows. This will more and more become the norm, you will have to watch an ad or two during the stream of your TV show, but no more then you would watching the show on cable.
Anyhow, this post took on a life of it's own, Matchroom sports has gotten the attention of some great sponsors. It makes me have alot of hope in the future of this sport.
I seriously think that the future of this sport is going to lie in the internet to a large extent. The streaming of matches that are paid for via PPV and possibly live free streaming in the future if the sport can attract advertisers and the large online audiences watching the event. This is why I think TAR has a good foot in the door and has started a new type of format that this sport might prosper under.
All that said Matchroom seems to be doing very well on the advertisers and they are largely focused on only one single pool event each year. An organization such as a professional pool tour could do at least this well, hitting up a variety of cities/countries, getting hotel sponsership for the tour from someone like Westin, getting some advertising dollars from travel bureaus of each city the tour travels to.
During the streaming of events running a 30 second commercial for a product or service at each racking break would work well. If you have 6 different sponsors then cycle the advertising, or weight it based on the amount of advertising dollars spent (you might have 3 Buick commercials for different models of cars for each Simonis commercial and 2 Westin commercials and 2 pokerstars and 1 diamond table in that same cycle).
The way I see it the internet is in general in it's infancy. It was not that long ago that a 486 compture was considered powerful and the internet was a shadow of what it is now. The spread of higher speed internet is ever growing, the amount of bandwidth that can be sent over data lines increases along with the compression and uncompression of data becomming more efficient and reliable.
I don't think pool will EVER be a TV sport, but this is in large part because I think that alot of sports are going to become more focused on the internet as a medium as time progresses. Alot of sports are starting to focus on PPV, Hockey games black out in many cities and you need to pay a small amount of cash to watch the game as a PPV. These types of things are actually better to do on the internet if you can set up the framework because the actual organization doing the streaming will see less of a split of the profits on an internet stream then a TV based PPV. The TV itself is slowly becomming incorperated with the computer as well, we are not too far off where your computer and TV will be virtually one in the same. Both will run on the same display and you will be able to watch TV while sending an email on a small window off to the side and surf Ebay. Already alot of websites of TV channels show full episodes of their shows (comedy central comes to mind), so you can actually watch TV on your computer paying for the internet connection, not paying a thing for cable TV, and yet watching cable TV shows. This will more and more become the norm, you will have to watch an ad or two during the stream of your TV show, but no more then you would watching the show on cable.
Anyhow, this post took on a life of it's own, Matchroom sports has gotten the attention of some great sponsors. It makes me have alot of hope in the future of this sport.
