Professional Players as Teams

[D C 6 Pocket]

IF......you could have teams in pool like other team sports (Baseball-Football-) and they represented a city with the team being owned by a private investor and there was a season........How many players would you have on a team, how many teams and why?

 

[Masayoshi]

I would like to see teams of 7; 2 doubles matches and 3 singles matches, possibly more if you include subs. The matches could be a mix of different games, maybe 10 ball and 8 ball for the doubles and 14.1, 10 ball, and one pocket for the singles.

It would be nice to have strategy in matching up the players, for example, if your opponent has a strong one pocket player, you might want to use Efren. If they don't, you might want to save him to be Bustamate's doubles partner.

At first, I think only big companies like predator, brunswick, or cuetec could afford to salary pool players for teams. If interests builds, then maybe cities would start building teams.

Of course, if you did this more for the player's enjoyment and kept competiton mostly local during the regular season, teams full of shortstops and local pros could be fielded for practically pennies, but they would have to keep their day jobs.

Scheduling would be difficult. You can't really have weekly events with the big name pros if there is a major pool tournament going on somewhere in the world pretty much all the time.

 

[D C 6 Pocket]

I would like to see teams of 7; 2 doubles matches and 3 singles matches, possibly more if you include subs. The matches could be a mix of different games, maybe 10 ball and 8 ball for the doubles and 14.1, 10 ball, and one pocket for the singles.

At first, I think only big companies like predator, brunswick, or cuetec could afford to salary pool players for teams. If interests builds, then maybe cities would start building teams.

What about this, 3 person teams, 20 teams = 60 top pros and 1 team plays another each week so you have 10 matches going on at the same time every Saturday somewhere in the USA. Each team plays each team twice during the season then you have a 4 week playoff. 44weeks.

Every owner puts up 20K to own a team in this league and that goes to the prize fund for the teams to win. The cities furnish the place to hold the game, (only 3 tables) and between the city and owner they pay players traveling exp. Money from ticket sales are split.

Now you can sell T-shirts, hats and other stuff because you want to support the team that reps your city. Proceeds are split up. I believe at this point you not only get sponsors from the billiard industry but now you have a chance for outside the business sponsors because you are building a fan base with the public.

Does any of this make sense?:smile:

 

[tomgearhart]

Pro Billiard Team Sports

IF......you could have teams in pool like other team sports (Baseball-Football-) and they represented a city with the team being owned by a private investor and there was a season........How many players would you have on a team, how many teams and why?

This is not a new idea. This was bandied about back in the mid nineties by the now neferious, Don Mackey, then commish of the Pro Billiards Tour. Then, as now, the biggest reason it wouldn't work is because there is not much interest from the amateur base for the pros. The amateurs like to play pool on their leagues, but don't really care to follow the pros. Sad, but true.

We at the Glass City Open are trying to change that by having pros play along side the amateurs in an "Open" team event this Thanksgiving weekend. With $15,000 added to the two events, we are trying to stimulate interest in both the pros and amateurs.

The amateurs then can truly see how much better the pros play compared to their own game and watch how a pro thinks through shot problems and the patterns necessary to help them get out. This will help many amateurs with their own game strategies.

These humble beginnings will help the pros appreciate the fan base needed to bring pro pool up to the next level where sponsors will be attracted to our sport.

 

[Georgia Boy]

This is not a new idea. This was bandied about back in the mid nineties by the now neferious, Don Mackey, then commish of the Pro Billiards Tour. Then, as now, the biggest reason it wouldn't work is because there is not much interest from the amateur base for the pros. The amateurs like to play pool on their leagues, but don't really care to follow the pros. Sad, but true.

We at the Glass City Open are trying to change that by having pros play along side the amateurs in an "Open" team event this Thanksgiving weekend. With $15,000 added to the two events, we are trying to stimulate interest in both the pros and amateurs.

The amateurs then can truly see how much better the pros play compared to their own game and watch how a pro thinks through shot problems and the patterns necessary to help them get out. This will help many amateurs with their own game strategies.

These humble beginnings will help the pros appreciate the fan base needed to bring pro pool up to the next level where sponsors will be attracted to our sport.

This sounds good to me and as I am fairly new to Pool I am not sure how this Pro-Am part works.

I would like to see a Pro-Am alongside a main Tournament where a Pool Room Team is represented. That Team would be made up of the Pro who's either associated with or owns that Pool Room, plus say 3 or 4 League players. The League players should be registered with APA, TAP, BCA etc and must have played a certain number of games in the preceeding 6-12 months for a League Team.

I believe this is a great way for both the Pro's and Fan's to get a greater appreciation for each other. It could also be a very good way to get some TV Coverage started, especially with all the rage currently being reality type shows. These reality shows are about winning not just the participants but the audience too, either by simply chosing their favorite person or team etc or with a prize associated with it. This Tournament could add a chance for the audience to participate by running a competition for them alongside it? It could be structured so many ways with so many prizes they are too numerous to begin to list out. But for instance you could have them call in or pick winning Teams etc and maybe the overall prize could be a trip for 4 to the The Mosconi Cup in Vegas, perhaps the Cup venue would help out with sposorship of Room and Board, I could go on and on but I won't.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[D C 6 Pocket]

This is not a new idea. This was bandied about back in the mid nineties by the now neferious, Don Mackey, then commish of the Pro Billiards Tour. Then, as now, the biggest reason it wouldn't work is because there is not much interest from the amateur base for the pros. The amateurs like to play pool on their leagues, but don't really care to follow the pros. Sad, but true.

We at the Glass City Open are trying to change that by having pros play along side the amateurs in an "Open" team event this Thanksgiving weekend. With $15,000 added to the two events, we are trying to stimulate interest in both the pros and amateurs.

The amateurs then can truly see how much better the pros play compared to their own game and watch how a pro thinks through shot problems and the patterns necessary to help them get out. This will help many amateurs with their own game strategies.

These humble beginnings will help the pros appreciate the fan base needed to bring pro pool up to the next level where sponsors will be attracted to our sport.

I wish you much success. Have you already filled the field for the pro side?

I was not aware that someone has already tried this, although my idea is a little different in that it has the teams playing a point based game, not the regular games we are fimiliar with. Obviously I am pushing the game 6 Pocket and when I ran my idea of how the season works by an off shore betting site, they said they would be willing to book it if I ever got it off the ground. Who knows......if we all keep networking toward the same goal, big money in pool could become a reality.

 

[mlalum]

This is not a new idea. This was bandied about back in the mid nineties by the now neferious, Don Mackey, then commish of the Pro Billiards Tour. Then, as now, the biggest reason it wouldn't work is because there is not much interest from the amateur base for the pros. The amateurs like to play pool on their leagues, but don't really care to follow the pros. Sad, but true.

We at the Glass City Open are trying to change that by having pros play along side the amateurs in an "Open" team event this Thanksgiving weekend. With $15,000 added to the two events, we are trying to stimulate interest in both the pros and amateurs.

The amateurs then can truly see how much better the pros play compared to their own game and watch how a pro thinks through shot problems and the patterns necessary to help them get out. This will help many amateurs with their own game strategies.

These humble beginnings will help the pros appreciate the fan base needed to bring pro pool up to the next level where sponsors will be attracted to our sport.

Now this analysis and action is something to be applauded. So many of the pool business folks overlook the obvious fact that most of the people who play pool for fun/leagues could care less about the pros (for good reason in some cases) and vice versa. They keep spending marketing dollars on the pros like in other sports where they're known and idolized. That's not the case in pool. At least this well thought out attempt is trying to bridge that business-killing gap.