About the NCS
Hi Nine Ball,
And thanks Brady, Kevin and Corey for your responses to help with the initial question.
The National Championship Series (NCS), produced by CueSports International, is a series of 5 U.S national championships in 8-Ball, 9-Ball, 10-Ball, 14.1 Continuous and One Pocket.
The NCS is open to men, women, amateur and professional s who are either US citizens or permanent residents. While not intended to shun our fellow non U.S players, its format and eligibility is designed to develop a foundation to determine an open US national champion. While there are several tremendous independent events such as the US Open 9-Ball Championship in Chesapeake, VA, the US Bar Table Championship (which CSI produces), Turning Stone produced by the Joss Tour just to name a few, there was not an open national championship. Although CSI does also own the BCA Pool League, we do not require membership of any kind to any organization to play in the NCS.
In order to play at an NCS national level event, players must compete at the qualifier level. Qualifier winners will receive minimally their paid entry to the respective NCS national event which the qualifier is for. Qualifiers are held all over the country and an updated qualifier calendar can be found at the following link:
http://playcsipool.com/Events/NCS/NCSEventCalendar/tabid/71/Default.aspx
To host a qualifier, the pool rooms pay a nominal $100 sanction fee, which covers the cost of CSI producing banners and materials which we supply to the pool rooms and to help offset the cost of advertising. The NCS has several goals in addition to having a cohesive open series to determine a national champion:
- To encourage a connection between the local and national pool community
- To expand knowledge of all 5 cue sports, 8, 9, 10-Ball, 14.1 and One Pocket
- To allow players to pay a lower entry fee to win a spot vs. paying a much larger entry fee
- Reach out to and allow more players to participate
- Promote more tournaments on 9’ tables
The entries for 8, 9 and 10-Ball are valued at $550 of which $500 goes directly into the prize fund. The entry value for 14.1 and One Pocket is $350, of which $300 goes directly into the prize fund for those national level events. However on the qualifier level players only pay an average of $60 to play. Some qualifier host pool rooms add money, some airfare or expenses to the national level, but we at CSI felt it should be the host room’s prerogative, not a requirement.
The field limit for all national level events at this time is 64. The inaugural event was the 2009 NCS 8-Ball National Championship. Fifty-Seven players from all over the country played and it had a prize fund of $28,500. The Action Report (TAR) streamed the event of which approximately 30,000 viewers over the course of 3.5 days watched the tournament.
The second national event is the NCS 14.1 National Championship July 31 – August 2, 2009 at Comet Billiards in Parsippany, NJ. The team from Accu-Stats will be streaming that event live August 1-2. The top two players from the NCS 14.1 National Championship will receive paid spots to the 2009 World 14.1 Championship which will also be held at Comet Billiards Aug. 24-29.
Coming up in September will be the NCS 9-Ball and 10-Ball National Championships. Both will be held back to back at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Currently there are numerous qualifiers being held throughout the month of August. The prize fund for each of those two events is $32,000 based on a full field for a total potentially of $64,000 over the course of 5 days. * Additionally, the top two finishers at each of these two tournaments will win a paid spot to the 2010 U.S Open 10-Ball Championship which is a minimally $25,000 added event and a BCA official points tournament.
The 2010 U.S Open 10-Ball Championship will be held in May at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. This event will be played on 9’ Diamond tables in the same arena and immediately following the World Pool Master’s.
The NCS sponsors are: OB Cues, who donates a cue exclusively designed for OB Cues by Danny Janes of Joss Cues, a new OB Breakcue and an OB2 shaft to each NCS national event; DELTA-13 who have donated a custom engraved NCS national championship rack for the winner of each NCS national event and Crown Trophy who has provided the NCS with a solid crystal trophy which is customized for each national event winner.
I hope this helps you understand more about the NCS. Please feel free to either email me at
holly@playcsipool.com or call either the CSI office (702) 719-7665 or via my cell (602) 312-8155.
All the best,
Holly
