the scorpion said:
I understand your support with these organizations and that is good. However, I think what fired this thread off was an underlining statement to the effect that people are throwing stones at the IPT, yet at the same time no other organization has ever exhibited any positive effects to organizing billiards as a professional organization. Almost each organization has had the same opportunity as IPT to throw lots of money at billiards but for some reason did not.
Clearly look at initiation fees, weekly dues, advertisement and so forth and yes, there was a lot of opportunity to hold higher paying professional tournaments but it seemed the pros were not held in such high regards. Additionally these organizations support pool in bars over billiard rooms, not very professional again. Yes the WPA has an associations with these organizations and therefore WPA is indirectly supporting bar pool.
This is OK but add to it, these same organizations do not provide notable structures that express why for example some players were selected over other players for tournament representation.
Again, everyone claims to be a governing body but who has ever demonstrated as such? This thread should have never been started except it had to because the players and fans did not get deserved respect by a good document as to why some players were chosen. And then some later post comes along stating why almost to make the original poster look foolish. It didn't though, in fact it showed exactly why the poster would consider a post like this - there is limited professional structure.
Again I have no problems with these organizations squeezing as much profit as they can out of billiards, it is their right. But I do have a problem with organizations trying to bash players for participating in other tours that pay respectfully, while at the same time they profited and starved the pros. This is America, let the best win without low ball tactics.