First let me start out by saying that I truly do applaud anyone who is doing something to promote our chosen hobby/sport/obsession. Many times it's a labour of love with little return. I'm sure I'll take some flame for what I'm about to write, but here's what I see.
Unfortunately, I wasn't out in Arizona for the Desert Shoot-Out or any of the accompanying events which were held around the same time frame. From what I've been reading on here, things were extremely well run; even with a major hiccupp thrown in. (change in venues) I don't really have any specific ideas on how to promote the game to get it to reach a higher level of awareness and publicity in the States. But here are a few of my observations on what is right and wrong with what is happening with pool and billiards in America.
1. Regional Tours - Right now, these are the lifeblood of the "professional" pool player in America. Personally for me, and other players of my skill level, (sub shortstop), I love these events as they give me the opportunity to match up against a top level player for a relatively inexpensive fee, and see rooms in other towns/cities that I would not normally go to. But I think that while these tours are really the only thing keeping professional pool in America alive, they are also what is stagnating its progression to bigger and better things. More and more independant regional tours are popping up all over the place, and while this provides more opportunity for players to make a "score", and cuts down on driving distance, (and gas money spent), for the players, it hinders the game by cutting down on attendance levels, causing prize funds to decrease. The overall level of play in these events has also gone down.
An example would be up in the New England / Tri-State area. 11 years ago, the All About Pool tour was active and running. This was an A/B/C/D handicapped tour, running events in each level every month. It had two separate divisions, New England, and Tri-State. Players played in their respective regions for player of the year points in that region, in their level. (A, B, C...ect.) The "A" tournaments were the open events, and they would regularly bring in between 50-60 players, somtimes filling a 128 player bracket. The lower level events would get almost as many, with some of the C events regularly getting at least 50 players, upwards of 100 in some of the more populated areas. Eventually though, and I'm not sure about the particulars of why, this tour died out and was replaced by Mike Zuglans Joss NE 9 Ball Tour. The lower level events were picked up by some other promoters, such as the CT 9 Ball tour, and the Killer B's Tour. Mike's events started out getting great fields of 70+ players. Mike's tour is still going well up in the NE, but has had to localize primarily in the Tri-State area; only traveling up into New England only a handfull of times. The player fields are now regularly struggling to reach 40 players. Again, payouts are suffering, and room owners are getting more and more reluctant to host events that will not pull customers in to offset the cost of the added money and lost table time.
Recently Tony Robles has started up the Predator Northeast 9 Ball Tour (forgive me if it's called something else...can't remember off the top of my head the exact name). This has had a strong showing since its inception, but unfortunately I think that the attendance levels for this are going to drop just like the Joss tour's has after this initial season. From what I have seen, these two tours try to stay out of each others way. But the problem still remains that if there is an event for both events the same weekend, the player pool for both suffers, both in numbers and overall level of play. Again, this causes room owners to take a negative gain in profit, and be reluctant to host more tournaments.
There is a similar situation down where I am living right now in the south, with Mike Janis's Viking Tour, Shannon Daulton's Great Southern Billiard Tour, and Tommy Kennedy's SE Open tour. These tours are running into similar problems with player fields, and sometimes it is hard for room owners to turn a profit.
IMHO, what needs to happen first before people start thinking about national level tours, is these independantly run tours need to get together and stop trying to run over each other. If there could be ONE major tour running in each of the 7 major regions of the country, (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Mid-West, Southwest, California, Northwest), it would restore the player fields to the Open events being run. More people would be inclined to come in to spectate, giving room owners more opportunity to recoup lost income. The level of play would rise. The money for the players would be a little more substantial. And because of the exposure to more people at a given time, sponsors might be a little more willing to back something like this. If these regional tours were under the umbrella of one major organization or governing body, then eventually there could be a graduation of sorts for the top players in each region to a National level tour. Again, JMHO. People like Mike Janis, Mike Zuglan, Marge and Shannon, and others running these regional events have more experience with sponsorships and room owners, and there are more than plenty of people on this board with more business experience than myself. But this is what I see.
2. 9 Ball...I think we've been programed over the past 2 decades to want to promote 9 ball as the game of choice. Now granted, 10 ball recently has garnered a huge upswing in popularity. But, as far as a casual spectator is concerned, there isn't too much of a difference. Also, the format of these tournaments is not very spectator friendly. (when I say spectator in this sense, I'm speaking of an everyday American who does not have our knowledge of the game). A format or hook is needed to be found that will engage the audiences. Poker, which took much of whatever steam pool had prior to the explosion, uses massive dollar amounts to hook the audience. Well, we've seen that in recent years, televised or broadcast ring games have become increasingly popular. I know that out in the midwest there have been ring-9 ball tournaments. I think this format could be successfull if it's incorporated with Alan Hopkins idea of a satellite type system of qualificaiton. Just like the poker model, after so many satellites, the buy-ins get so large that our players would be able to sustain themselves off of tournament winnings. Just a thought...
3. The general attitude of the player community sucks. They want to know when pool is going to take off so they can make a living off of it. Many of them, (not saying all. There are some VERY upstanding top players who go out of their way to promote the sport), want to know what they are going to get before they do anything. I can understand this mindset, they are trying to support themselves, families, and/or habits in some cases. But the whole, "I'm not doing anything until I get paid" attitude is extremely detrimental to the game. You have to give something to get something. As far as antics of some of the players...while I don't agree with what some players may do, it adds a degree of flavor to the games. This is something that a neutral spectator can enjoy due to the confrontational nature of some players. Observers need their "Face and Heel", or good guy / bad guy. A classic case of this in billiards are the old Mosconi vs. Fats matches which were televised. Mosconi was the consumate professional Face, while Fats was the self-agrandizing and highly entertaining Heel. (albeit a lovable heel).
Those are some of my observations. One poster made a great point that you need to look at what has worked and what has failed to work in the past and see what you are left with to work with and improve on. With the way things are going in the states right now with the economy, I don't even know if any of this is even viable. But as I've said numerous times, it's what I see and what I think. I hope this helps some...and I hope you're successfull in your attempt.
Dags
