Pro Pool Is Exactly As It Should Be

[JC]

Humans who do something remarkably well. And they are in balance with society as things should be.

No the problem isn't that pro pool doesn't pay. It's the obscene sums of money and worship we throw at other humans doing physical skills better than everyone else.

Big noisy ignorant fools who can shoot a basketball.

Catch a football.

Hit a curve ball.

People who can entertain us in a whole variety of ways are simply overpaid and over valued.

All the trades have their superstars too. But they work for a living wage.

Not saying socialism has the answers but the situation with athlete celebrity is obscene in modern capitalism.

And it would stop if you would stop but you won't.

 

[Straightpool_99]

I mean, athlete celebrity is nothing new in modern capitalism. Even ancient Rome had famous gladiators etc. It's just a very convenient arrangement. Bread and circus distracts the masses and give them something to aspire to. This makes them work harder, and not to question how things are arranged. The nobility/elite are also entertained and gets to operate free from bothersome questions and riots. This also explains why for instance Quatar is so active in sports. All dictatorships focus very heavily on sports, almost without exception.

Imagine all the people who pour all their hopes and dreams, not to mention work and hard earned savings into making their child a star athlete, something which is so unlikely that they may as well play the lottery instead. What would happen if they instead did something that would be guaranteed to better their lives, with the same intensity and focus?

 

[BeiberLvr]

You left out the reason why those other sports have obscene amounts of money thrown at them.

It's because, to the average person, they are a thousand times more entertaining than watching 2 guys play 9-ball.

 

[The_JV]

I read this this morning about the concept of socialism...

Not saying it's applicable to the OP's thoughts, but it made me laugh regardless

 

[buckshotshoey]

Humans who do something remarkably well. And they are in balance with society as things should be.

No the problem isn't that pro pool doesn't pay. It's the obscene sums of money and worship we throw at other humans doing physical skills better than everyone else.

Big noisy ignorant fools who can shoot a basketball.

Catch a football.

Hit a curve ball.

People who can entertain us in a whole variety of ways are simply overpaid and over values.

All the trades have their superstars too. But they work for a living wage.

Not saying socialism has the answers but the situation with athlete celebrity is obscene in modern capitalism.

And it would stop if you would stop but you won't.

If People stopped paying the big money to see them, they'll stop getting paid the big money.

 

[Cameron Smith]

Although I very much dislike celebrity worship, if you paid every top pro athlete 50-70k a year, the remaining money doesn’t go away. Instead now you probably just make already extremely well compensated executives even richer. The athletes are the ones that generate a lot of the value and they are compensated for it. And you continue to pay high amounts to encourage the next Lebron James to pick up a basketball and stick with it. It pool payed like Tennis, I bet we’d see the next Efren Reyes in the next generation.

 

[mrshifty]

Although I very much dislike celebrity worship, if you paid every top pro athlete 50-70k a year, the remaining money doesn’t go away. Instead now you probably just make already extremely well compensated executives even richer. The athletes are the ones that generate a lot of the value and they are compensated for it. And you continue to pay high amounts to encourage the next Lebron James to pick up a basketball and stick with it. It pool payed like Tennis, I bet we’d see the next Efren Reyes in the next generation.

The money does go away. It goes away when people quit buying Nike's at $200 a pair. It goes away when people quit paying $100's of dollars on tickets to games. It goes away when people quit spending $50 dollars for a ticket, popcorn, and a beverage to see a movie. There would be no money there for the executives. People don't pay to watch pool, that's why there is no money in pool.

 

[Cameron Smith]

The money does go away. It goes away when people quit buying Nike's at $200 a pair. It goes away when people quit paying $100's of dollars on tickets to games. It goes away when people quit spending $50 dollars for a ticket, popcorn, and a beverage to see a movie. There would be no money there for the executives. People don't pay to watch pool, that's why there is no money in pool.

That’s not what I mean. If you decide not to pay athletes millions of dollars, that money goes to someone else. In the real world, people are not going to stop doing those things you outlined unless the economy falls into a massive depression that puts a halt to such spending and companies can’t afford to pay for advertising like they used to.

 

[CESSNA10]

Humans who do something remarkably well. And they are in balance with society as things should be.

No the problem isn't that pro pool doesn't pay. It's the obscene sums of money and worship we throw at other humans doing physical skills better than everyone else.

Big noisy ignorant fools who can shoot a basketball.

Catch a football.

Hit a curve ball.

People who can entertain us in a whole variety of ways are simply overpaid and over values.

All the trades have their superstars too. But they work for a living wage.

Not saying socialism has the answers but the situation with athlete celebrity is obscene in modern capitalism.

And it would stop if you would stop but you won't.

Great observation since socialism works so well in other countries like Venezuala

 

[Chicagoplayer]

Humans who do something remarkably well. And they are in balance with society as things should be.

No the problem isn't that pro pool doesn't pay. It's the obscene sums of money and worship we throw at other humans doing physical skills better than everyone else.

Big noisy ignorant fools who can shoot a basketball.

Catch a football.

Hit a curve ball.

People who can entertain us in a whole variety of ways are simply overpaid and over values.

All the trades have their superstars too. But they work for a living wage.

Not saying socialism has the answers but the situation with athlete celebrity is obscene in modern capitalism.

And it would stop if you would stop but you won't.

Well said

 

[middleofnowhere]

A lot of money is generated as a result of their efforts and they have a right to their fair share of it. Regardless if you believe what they do is of any value or not. When a pool player can tell somebody he can make money for them then they will be very happy to share a good portion of it with him.

 

[middleofnowhere]

The money does go away. It goes away when people quit buying Nike's at $200 a pair. It goes away when people quit paying $100's of dollars on tickets to games. It goes away when people quit spending $50 dollars for a ticket, popcorn, and a beverage to see a movie. There would be no money there for the executives. People don't pay to watch pool, that's why there is no money in pool.

The money is not generated by a few people paying a lot of money, it's generated by a lot of people paying a little money. Charlie Chaplin made millions of dollars in the 1920s selling a $0.15 product, a movie ticket. You find something that you can market that millions of people want to buy and you get rich.

 

[Straightpool_99]

There are some positives with having pool be more of an "amateur" sport. Take pro cykling for example. Because of all the money and interest in this sport, it has become a cheating horror show to a point where the whole sport is almost a joke. They're now trying to tell us that they've "cleaned up the sport". Even if that was true, which it obviously isn't, nobody is going to believe that now. The incentives to cheat are so great, and the incentives to clean up the sport is almost non-existent. The doping used now is so hard to detect and they always have the cutting edge medications and the tests are always lagging years behind. Nobody want's to bring the sport into even more disrepute by finding out the whole pro tour is cheating, so nobody puts money and effort into anti doping in an amount that would actually get results.

When the monetary rewards in a sport get too great over a long period of time, the winners are always cheats. The margins between winners and losers eventually get so small, because some people will do absolutely anything, no matter how dangerous, self destructive or immoral to win. Even morally upright people are half killing themselves to win. When the talent pool gets deep enough, there will be some cheaters in the top percentile of talent (because the top percentile becomes larger and larger in terms of numbers). You can only train so much, eat so little etc before you die, get injured or burn out. Eventually, as the sport develops "mature" techniques which have been found through decades of trial and error, and are known to all, the only way forward from all the other talented, dedicated people is to cheat, using doping or other means.

To talk of more pleasant things, pool is great in that you can play with, and interact with top pros fairly easily. You don't have to wait in line (usually) or anything and many of them are great, down-to-earth people, though not all. If you want to play golf with a top pro, forget it unless you are a multi-billionaire contributing to some idiotic cause that the pro tour is endorsing.

 

[JC]

I mean, athlete celebrity is nothing new in modern capitalism. Even ancient Rome had famous gladiators etc. It's just a very convenient arrangement. Bread and circus distracts the masses and give them something to aspire to. This makes them work harder, and not to question how things are arranged. The nobility/elite are also entertained and gets to operate free from bothersome questions and riots. This also explains why for instance Quatar is so active in sports. All dictatorships focus very heavily on sports, almost without exception.

Imagine all the people who pour all their hopes and dreams, not to mention work and hard earned savings into making their child a star athlete, something which is so unlikely that they may as well play the lottery instead. What would happen if they instead did something that would be guaranteed to better their lives, with the same intensity and focus?

Let's say the best pool players in the world were around 750 fargo.

And we had never heard of an 800

Would we know the difference?

There would still be the best of the best but they would be far more likely to spend their days running a back hoe, or welding, or working on wall street. They would just love the game in a healthy fashion.

Would this hypothetical group of people be more or less happy with their lives than those who spend all day every day practicing pool?

Let's say they held an NBA game and no one came. Or watched on TV. There would still be a group of the best Ballers on the planet they just wouldn't be as good. Same with all of it. Celebrity worship is decay.

 

[tomatoshooter]

It pool payed like Tennis, I bet we’d see the next Efren Reyes in the next generation.

Yeah, if I turned pro I'd have to make the top ten if I didn't want to take a pay cut. I'm sure these guys supplement their income but still, only the top 3 in the AZB leaderboard crack $100K. Minor league baseball players do better.

 

[L.S. Dennis]

All this always gets back down to the root question and that is ‘why are people in other sports paid so much and top pool players paid so little. The exception of course is snooker where the player in England are paid well, but generally why is it that when pool does get on tv the average person tends to skip right past the channel saying to their wife of husband, “oh those pros never miss” before skipping over to watch something else. One answer might be that the general public is not educated of the subtleties of pool and no youth programs teaching it to the young, let alone children’s tournaments like soccer, baseball, you name it. Another thing is people need sports heroes to root for, and this leads back to the chicken and the egg thing. If our pool player can’t get media exposure, people can’t get to know them and rivalries can’t be created. All this has been said before so I’m afraid nothing is going to change this dynamic anytime soon, unless that is if Shane or Earl can learn to hit a 98 mph fast ball!

 

[tomatoshooter]

“oh those pros never miss”

Funny you should mention that, the best straight pool match I have seen was Chris Melling vs Mika Immonen. No spoilers, but It was most definitely different from Mike Sigel's 150 runs.

 

[middleofnowhere]

All this always gets back down to the root question and that is ‘why are people in other sports paid so much and top pool players paid so little. The exception of course is snooker where the player in England are paid well, but generally why is it that when pool does get on tv the average person tends to skip right past the channel saying to their wife of husband, “oh those pros never miss” before skipping over to watch something else. One answer might be that the general public is not educated of the subtleties of pool and no youth programs teaching it to the young, let alone children’s tournaments like soccer, baseball, you name it. Another thing is people need sports heroes to root for, and this leads back to the chicken and the egg thing. If our pool player can’t get media exposure, people can’t get to know them and rivalries can’t be created. All this has been said before so I’m afraid nothing is going to change this dynamic anytime soon, unless that is if Shane or Earl can learn to hit a 98 mph fast ball!

All you said is nice but it still means nothing. Unless there is an industry that makes money from it, it is not a sport.

 

[L.S. Dennis]

All you said is nice but it still means nothing unless there is an industry that makes money from it, it is not a sport.

You are correct, the chicken and egg thing all over again. If there were enough eyeballs on tv screens industry would follow in short order, that’s the way business works as you well know. But getting those eyeballs on screens requires a substantial industry commitment. My advice to you and anyone else is don’t hold your breath…

 

[Bob Jewett]

I read this this morning about the concept of socialism...
View attachment 617583
Not saying it's applicable to the OP's thoughts, but it made me laugh regardless

An interesting part of this story is that it is a story rather than reality. That teacher doesn't exist and that never happened to a class. It's a parable preaching against socialism. (Whatever that is.)