This article is meant to cause controversy and I hope there is a lot of it. These opinions and conjectures are from 45 years of playing the game and watching it go downhill due to shortsighted visions by people that can make a difference. I am old enough now to not care about whose toes I step on or if they are idiots in my estimation. I do care about this game and if I can change a few minds and outlooks then I’ve accomplished something.
My observations:
1. Of the approximately 50 million pool players in the United States, only .0001% (50 players) have a chance of winning a Pro tournament. Most tournaments are won by only 10 of those 50.
2. Compared to other major sports, overall, pool is a lower purse sport that is dependent upon entry fees to make the purse.
3. Better players want “perfect” conditions in which to play. “Perfect” conditions apparently are very tight pockets, new cloth, fast rails, absolutely true roll, etc.
4. Better players want to take the “luck” factor away. Please name a sport where luck is NOT a factor.
5. The professional game for spectators is boring. There is no “WOW” factor, except for SVB never missing a jump shot, the amazing Efren Reyes, Alex Pagulayan having fun and the antics of Earl Strickland.
6. The Break is too big? It is, only in the pro and top amateur game.
7. Lesser players (as opposed to pros) are needed in tournaments to increase the purse size.
8. The “ball in hand” rule is too huge of penalty.
9. The game is not better or worse depending upon the equipment used. It is just played with different strategies.
10. Pool Rooms that don’t have a junior league system are dumb. Where are your next players coming from?
11. The BEF needs to hire a full-time presenter and team up with table/cue/accessory manufacturers to persuade school systems into the lifetime sport aspect of pool.
12. The majority of players just want to make the ball.
13. There are no current hard statistics to be found on playing ability (with the exception of the IPT).
14. The IPT tournaments caused more excitement in pool and brought more players back to pool since “The Color of Money”.
15. Media coverage for pool sucks.
16. There have been no technological advances for broadcast media specifically for pool in decades. (If there ever has been any.)
17. There is no real men’s tour because they can’t get along and do what is good for the game.
18. The WPBA is falling apart because they can’t get along and do what is good for the game.
19. What is good for the game will be good for the professional players.
20. They don’t make the cups smaller in golf for the pros.
21. Why is most of the industry table specifications based around those 50 players?
22. There are shot selections that can’t be considered with the 4.5 inch pockets that are reasonable with larger openings.
23. I see players who can’t make straight in punt shots espouse the virtues of tight pocket tables. (Monkey see, monkey do.)
24. No matter the table set up, (pockets, cloth, etc.) the better player is always the better player even if they lose 1 in 20 because the table isn’t to their satisfaction.
25. Why do manufacturers allow their products to be sold on the internet undercutting the room sales which the room needs to keep in business? Without the room, there is no business.
26. By my count using the Yellow pages, in 2003 there were approximately 5000+ rooms. Currently, there are about 3500 rooms.
27. If the BCA is now currently a trade organization by their own admission. Why are they allowed to choose players that represent the U.S. in world events?
28. The BCA strayed from its historical mission by becoming a trade organization. STUPID. This move has caused much disarray in pool.
29. Valley Tables/Leagues and the creation of the John Lewis run BCA (not BCAPL) pool leagues were two of the best things that happened to pool.
30. In 1986, Resorts, Int. in Atlantic City put on the first “Last Call for 9-Ball” tournament and had 364 players. Last year’s US Open only had 237 entrants.
31. No smoking laws put a hit on the pool rooms. There is nothing that can be done now, the laws are hardly going to be repealed especially over the plight of such low status pool rooms. Deal with it and go after the new customers.
32. New customers will not stay if they can’t make balls.
33. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) study in 2008, Billiards/Pool ranked 10th in the country for participation at some 17,178,000 players that averaged playing 13 days a year. .
34. Participation growth is stagnant or in decline.
35. I get sick when I see a BCAPL player go to the national tournament, play on a Diamond table, hit a long rail ball into the 1st diamond by the pocket and can’t figure out why it isn’t going.
36. I don’t like the way the game is played today.
37. Every game on TV has stats and player background to back-up the announcers ---except pool. Did Accu-stats forget their mission? Player stat sheets should be part of every tournament and sent in to an independent national entity. Players then ranked by the hard stats.
38. I hate when I hear someone say the cure that pool needs is another blockbuster, epic movie. A movie would help the pool business but wouldn’t cure ills.
39. All the “fighting” rules need to be changed.
40. Grow pool from the bottom up, not the top down.
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