Matchroom Improvement list

[jbart65]

However, when you have crowd-drawing top notch players investing their time and money to get rankings points only to be left out in invitationals at the expense of MR stooges, what do you call that other than exploitation? If they lose the top players there will be less interest for the sport and their business will decline rapidly, mostly if they get competition from the types like the one in Qatar.

I don't entirely agree with your characterization here, but yes, MR has to improve the selection process or players will lose interest to its detriment.

Businesses are there to make money. They are not there for societal good even though that what they try to portray.

Preaching to the choir, but this is part of my broader point. MR (and Predator) aren't really making money, or much money.

Reminds me of the evolution of Major League Soccer. The MLS had to be very careful with what it spent until the revenue caught up, so the league didn't fail like the old NASL.

If snooker and heyball (which is newer on the scene, I believe) can be successful there is no reason why rotation pool cannot be successful businesses wise.

I think rotation pool can be "successful," but what does success look like? I'm not sure. As I have noted before, snooker is not highly profitable.

 

[jbart65]

i may be a bit prejudiced against british people and dart people, but how much fan attendance would the dart events have if they didn't sell beer? the ones i've seen it seemed like half of them were drunk and disorderly. i'm sure they like darts, but probably also a reason to get away from the missus and sink a few pints..

I think all pool venues should sell beer. The rowdier the crowd, to me, the better. So long as they shut up during a shot. most of the time.

 

[VVP]

I don't entirely agree with your characterization here, but yes, MR has to improve the selection process or players will lose interest to its detriment.

Preaching to the choir, but this is part of my broader point. MR (and Predator) aren't really making money, or much money.

Reminds me of the evolution of Major League Soccer. The MLS had to be very careful with what it spent until the revenue caught up, so the league didn't fail like the old NASL.


I think rotation pool can be "successful," but what does success look like? I'm not sure. As I have noted before, snooker is not highly profitable.

Look, not trying to impress anyone, but I have a bachelor and master degree in Electrical Engineering and also a master in public administration, specializing in economics and public finance. I worked as a regulator in multi billion dollars cases larger than the gdp of most countries on earth.

As a finance person, you should know that profits = revenues - expenses. If an entity bloats its expenses (pays Miss Emily, $5m per year ) the profit will be lower. Most of the adjustments on cases I work on came from our accountants on the financial aspects of the entity's filings. I am talking tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions.

 

[skogstokig]

I think all pool venues should sell beer. The rowdier the crowd, to me, the better. So long as they shut up during a shot. most of the time.

yes, of course. but the culture i described (maybe with prejudice but any dart fan is welcome to correct me) isn't necessarily present in bosnia, spain, philippines and florida. get my drift?

 

[fastone371]

Yes, that's why the introduction of the purple five was a mistake, but the real problem was that they used a color already in use in the standard ball set. Ball sets with different colors were not uncommon in our sport, and had the five ball-been tan, for example, few would have cared.

Still, to suggest that it is a challenge to follow this for either players or fans des not stand up to scrutiny. I have seen (or heard of) the error of shooting the wrong ball exactly once in WNT play in all my time around their events, and that player was playing in his first ever WNT major. I have not seen this error made in the last three years even once.

... and yes, some of the events I attend live have a purple four ball, not a purple five ball, but it doesn't bother me in the least. The transition is pretty simple.

Still, your preferences are your preferences and they do matter very much.

The difference is is that you are as hardcore of a pool fan as there is. I am much more of a casual fan and I almost always forget about the purple 5 when watching MR 9 ball. If all I ever watched was MR 9 ball I'm sure I would automatically remember the purple 5 but because I watch other 9 ball tournaments it takes me a couple of games to remember the player is playing shape on the purple ball after the 3. Many times I am watching a MR tournament and I think the player hooked himself on the 4 because I forget that it is purple and not pink.

 

[sjm]

The difference is is that you are as hardcore of a pool fan as there is. I am much more of a casual fan and I almost always forget about the purple 5 when watching MR 9 ball. If all I ever watched was MR 9 ball I'm sure I would automatically remember the purple 5 but because I watch other 9 ball tournaments it takes me a couple of games to remember the player is playing shape on the purple ball after the 3. Many times I am watching a MR tournament and I think the player hooked himself on the 4 because I forget that it is purple and not pink.

Thanks for sharing that. It's true that as a diehard fan, I may, at times, overlook the plight of the more casual fan.

For the most part, however, in our sport, the 9ball majors along with all other WNT ranking events use one ball set and the 10ball majors are WPA/Predator events that use the more traditional set.

A good rule for the more casual fan is "if I'm watching a 10ball event, the four is purple, but if I'm watching any WNT major or WNT affiliated event, the five is likely the ball that is purple." Of course, Euro-tour 9ball is WPA, making it an exception, and the rule I have offered isn't good enough for independent events, where the ball sets in use can vary quite a bit.

No question that Matchroom got this wrong, but we fans must all do our best to cope with it. Put yourself in the shoes of the many European fans who didn't watch 9ball at all until the WNT formed about four years ago. They've never seen a four ball that wasn't pink and would be confused if Matchroom reverted to the traditional ball set.

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine Matchroom switching to the traditional ball set.

 

[Vahmurka]

Quit screwing with the fundamentals of how the game itself is played.

1. Put the pockets back to the correct size (4.5").

And pretreat the cloth so that is plays like a two-week broken in. This will make pool a better viewing product.

 

[Vahmurka]

So hope is your strategy?

I have no strategy in this regard, as long as I see there is no way for our concerns to be considered by Matchroom. Okay, hope there is, but it is really in vain, so again, no strategy. Not about things which are out of your control, you know.

 

[Vahmurka]

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine Matchroom switching to the traditional ball set.

A couple of AZers suggested MR is yet to admit the mistake. Actually, at one of the podcasts/interviews, be it Windows Open or Boyes youtube, Emily finally agreed that messing with ball colors was a mistake. So what? We are still there with that Blak ball set.
Probably because it is so hard to return to Aramith and say, alright, thank you for these 3-4 years but we admit it was a mistake and please discontinue the Blak set.
To quote Elton John, 'sorry' seems to be the hardest word

 

[Vahmurka]

Put yourself in the shoes of the many European fans who didn't watch 9ball at all until the WNT formed about four years ago. They've never seen a four ball that wasn't pink and would be confused if Matchroom reverted to the traditional ball set.

That's a poor excuse, IMO. An aspiring fan is supposed (or should I say, obliged) to get familiar with the history of the game. Which in case of pool/billiard is pretty deep.

I'm sure it is not about a certain color of the ball which we feel very sad about. It is the history of the game we love so much was brutally confronted with a purple 5.

 

[sjm]

That's a poor excuse, IMO. An aspiring fan is supposed (or should I say, obliged) to get familiar with the history of the game. Which in case of pool/billiard is pretty deep.

I'm sure it is not about a certain color of the ball which we feel very sad about. It is the history of the game we love so much was brutally confronted with a purple 5.

Not an excuse. Just my opinion on why a return to the traditional ball set seems unlikely.

 

[sjm]

Frazer's answer is this: Create stars and personalities. Create players fans can identify with. Create showmen who can draw crowds, advertisers and, who knows, maybe even TV cameras and media coverage.

Pool's own Luke Littler, if you will. You know, the young Darts star who got a big writeup in the New York Times recently.

This is why AJ Manas was added to the Reyes. Frazer has admitted as much. Matchroom wants a show. Matchroom wants drama. Matchroom wants controversy. Most of all, Matchroom wants stars - especially young ones who can attract a younger audience and have a big social media presence. Expect the WNT to push even more young and rising stars in the the future.

That's why Frazer loved the controversy over AJ's inclusion on the Reyes Asia team. From her viewpoint, controversy is great if it gets people talking. The worst thing for the sport is to be ignored, in her view.

Doesn't look like she wants young stars to me.

Prior to the Reyes Cup, by WNT ranking, the top five ROW players were Gorst, Filler, Kaci, Neuhausen, and Labutis, a potential dream ROW lineup of five in-form guys all twenty-eight years old or less. Unfortunately, they replaced three of them with out-of-form thirty-somethings. No, the proposition that youth was prioritized in the selection process does not hold up to scrutiny.

Wonder if the indefensible Team ROW was, similarly, selected to stir up controversy. That also got people talking, but in an AZB poll, only one in five felt the Reyes Cup should remain a Team Asia vs Team ROW match. The event was something of an embarrassment that turned off many fans.

I'm very happy for Manas that he was included, and his performance was heartwarming, but he is not a first-tier pro yet and I feel like Matchroom, by overselling him to the point of extreme absurdity, has set him up for failure. Biado won his first World 9ball at age 34, SVB won his first at age 38, Efren won his first at age 45 and Bustamante won his first at age 46, and yet everybody at Matchroom would have us believe that Manas will likely win one by his early 20s, and they even got Efren and Bustamante to drink the Kool-aid and, comically, subscribe to this fiction. Geez, I'm a Manas fan, and I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't see anything in Manas that suggests he'll be an all-time great. Contrastingly, my AZB posts of yesteryear made it clear that I saw the greatness of both Filler and Gorst coming, and they are now already two of the best players in our sport's history.

If Matchroom opts, as is their every right, to make Manas one of their most featured players, they are in for a letdown, for he is not yet ready to win WNT titles, let alone world championships. I'm not certain he is even ready to reach the quarterfinals at a Matchroom major but feel sure that they day will come at some point. Wish him well.

 

[sudocrushms]

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine Matchroom switching to the traditional ball set.

Unpopular opinion: The traditional* ball set is is too dark across the board and awful to watch/play with.

*I am assuming you don't mean the Pro Cup set, which is very good.

 

[sjm]

Unpopular opinion: The traditional* ball set is is too dark across the board and awful to watch/play with.

*I am assuming you don't mean the Pro Cup set, which is very good.

I'm really just referring to ball sets having the traditional colors. There are many such sets.

Agreed that visibility should always be viewed as important in selecting a ball set.

 

[VVP]

I have been playing pool for about 5 years and use traditional color balls. I am color blind and I get mixed up with the blue 2 (especially if it’s the darker blue) and purple 4 a lot, and sometimes between the red 3 and brown 7.
I never played with the MR set, but viewing on TV, I have problems distinguishing the pink 4 from the green 6 and to a lesser extent the red 3 from brown 7. That's why I like the ball runner that shows which balls are still in play, it helps a lot.

Maybe they need a target audience of color blind people to figure what's the best colors for regular play and TV audience because some colors might show up different on TV.

 

[Hungarian]

I have no strategy in this regard, as long as I see there is no way for our concerns to be considered by Matchroom. Okay, hope there is, but it is really in vain, so again, no strategy. Not about things which are out of your control, you know.

Why not fire off an email to MR?

 

[VVP]

Here is a solution that might satisfy everyone ... I am all for standardization of the ball set.
1,2,3 no change traditional/MR colors with the 2 dark blue like MR.
4 ball, use MR purple 5 which is a lighter color than the traditional so it is easily distinguishable from the blue 2 for color blind people
5 ball standard orange.
6 ball MR green, which is a lighter shade.
7 ball, maybe MR brown or somthing which stands out from red for us color blind people.
8 and 9 no change traditional/MR colors.

 

[jbart65]

Doesn't look like she wants young stars to me.

Prior to the Reyes Cup, by WNT ranking, the top five ROW players were Gorst, Filler, Kaci, Neuhausen, and Labutis, a potential dream ROW lineup of five in-form guys all twenty-eight years old or less. Unfortunately, they replaced three of them with out-of-form thirty-somethings. No, the proposition that youth was prioritized in the selection process does not hold up to scrutiny.

Wonder if the indefensible Team ROW was, similarly, selected to stir up controversy. That also got people talking, but in an AZB poll, only one in five felt the Reyes Cup should remain a Team Asia vs Team ROW match. The event was something of an embarrassment that turned off many fans.

I'm very happy for Manas that he was included, and his performance was heartwarming, but he is not a first-tier pro yet and I feel like Matchroom, by overselling him to the point of extreme absurdity, has set him up for failure. Biado won his first World 9ball at age 34, SVB won his first at age 38, Efren won his first at age 45 and Bustamante won his first at age 46, and yet everybody at Matchroom would have us believe that Manas will likely win one by his early 20s, and they even got Efren and Bustamante to drink the Kool-aid and, comically, subscribe to this fiction. Geez, I'm a Manas fan, and I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't see anything in Manas that suggests he'll be an all-time great. Contrastingly, my AZB posts of yesteryear made it clear that I saw the greatness of both Filler and Gorst coming, and they are now already two of the best players in our sport's history.

If Matchroom opts, as is their every right, to make Manas one of their most featured players, they are in for a letdown, for he is not yet ready to win WNT titles, let alone world championships. I'm not certain he is even ready to reach the quarterfinals at a Matchroom major but feel sure that they day will come at some point. Wish him well.

I am not expressing approval or disapproval in my series of posts on Matchroom, sjm. Just describing as best I can what Frazer and WNT are trying to do based on interviews with her as well as company financials. I have read or listened to almost every interview she has done in the past few years. It's something I have taken a keen interest in for who knows what reason.

You make many good observations and I am not prepared to dispute them.

You are correct MR has plenty of relatively young stars - true stars - but Frazer has often complained about how hard it was to get them to do social media. Much younger players like Manas grew up with it, and think that is why she has been favoring and promoting them. She is looking for future stars with flare, personality - and followers.

That's why she invited Edward Koyongian and Anh Nhiet to the Premier League of Pool this year, along with AJ, even though they were not ready. All three were among the worst performers. But she wants to promote potential young stars from countries she considers promising pool hot spots.

That said, she has promoted older players too. Duong Quoc Hoang is the best Vietnamese player with a big following. There is no one ready to replace him as the face of Vietnamese pool. Hence he has become a WNT darling.

WNT has also promoted Fedor a lot because he is the most social media savvy player, by far, among the sport's top 15 players.

Maybe it is a shortsighted approach. It's not what you or I would do. But Frazer is trying to blaze her own trail. All we can do is watch.

 

[sjm]

I am not expressing approval or disapproval in my series of posts on Matchroom, sjm. Just describing as best I can what Frazer and WNT are trying to do based on interviews with her as well as company financials. I have read or listened to almost every interview she has done in the past few years. It's something I have taken a keen interest in for who knows what reason.

You make many good observations and I am not prepared to dispute them.

You are correct MR has plenty of relatively young stars - true stars - but Frazer has often complained about how hard it was to get them to do social media. Much younger players like Manas grew up with it, and think that is why she has been favoring and promoting them. She is looking for future stars with flare, personality - and followers.

That's why she invited Edward Koyongian and Anh Nhiet to the Premier League of Pool this year, along with AJ, even though they were not ready. All three were among the worst performers. But she wants to promote potential young stars from countries she considers promising pool hot spots.

That said, she has promoted older players too. Duong Quoc Hoang is the best Vietnamese player with a big following. There is no one ready to replace him as the face of Vietnamese pool. Hence he has become a WNT darling.

WNT has also promoted Fedor a lot because he is the most social media savvy player, by far, among the sport's top 15 players.

Maybe it is a shortsighted approach. It's not what you or I would do. But Frazer is trying to blaze her own trail. All we can do is watch.

Yes, well said. Your posts on this subject have been thoughtful and lucid, and yours is one of the most informed points of view on AZB. I am just doing what I can to try to piece this all together.

There's no real consistency to Matchroom's approach. Promoting a superstar like Fedor is obvious. He is one of the best 9ball players in history. His sustained excellence will be worth watching for many more years. In the end, however, Matchroom must also manage field quality, and if they scare away too many stars of the game with their policies of playing favorites, we might possibly end up in a world where WPA events are the ones that feature the best fields in the game. That's the result I DON'T WANT. I've got a dog in this fight and it's Matchroom.

I understand the points you have made and recognize that they are based on actual Matchroom/Frazer comments, but actions speak louder than words and I'm not able to easily reconcile Matchroom's stated goals with their actions.

I want Matchroom, the best event production company this century in our sport, to set the world of pool on fire, and believe they have the management team to do just that, but let's see where it goes from here.

 

[VarmintKong]

Lots of criticism of WNT/Matchroom lately from some fans, players, influencers and sport VIPs like Yohan Ruysink.

Some of the criticism is quite fair. Some of it might be unreasonable given the financial and limited-audience realities of the sport.

Here’s my list of MR improvements I’d like to see. I’ll add extended commentary in a followup post.

1) Create and publish the schedule well in advance.

2) Collaborate better with WPA/Predator on scheduling.

3) Revamp and unify the point system. It’s too top heavy.

4) Improve and publish the rules on qualifying for invitational events.

5) Merit-based Reyes/Mosconi player selection.

6) Set and stick to an invitational lineup.

7) Stop playing favorites.

8) Reward top-ranked players.

9) Fix and improve WNT.TV.

10) Get rid of the purple 5 ball.

What up JBart?

For a guy who has only payed attention to this for a couple of years you really do a good job of sharing informed opinions.

I look at your list and there is something that is GLARINGLY missing. You were likely not a fan the last time it was relevant. I’ve been waiting for a new iteration of it and it seemed it was being teased as a marquee event, but now is being buried, bound to be forgotten.

1. and 1a: when will we get an event that is equivalent to the World Cup of Pool?

The tournaments build drama through the year based on geography. The WCOP was THE ultimate geographical based skill test. No need for wild cards and company men. The top two make the grade. No restrictions based on market share as Greece is represented the same as Canada the same as USA the same as everyone else.