Sad state of pool

[Dead Money]

wow...this one was aimed right at me and poolnut. I see your point, but fwiw, I never intended to try and keep business away from TAR. I was just pumped up about the match and wanted to share my enthusiasm with the folks here at AZB.

I for one really appreciated you and poolnuts updates! I am on dialup and live streaming is impossible for me to view

 

[bignasty]

what a great idea....

Since folks won't quit buying Coca-Cola, Fritos & Budweiser, maybe the route to getting these companies to become sponsors, of our much wanted "Pro Pool Tour", is letters from their customers. That is YOU.

The squeaky wheel get's the grease.

I've been a Golf Pro at one of the nation's finest Country Clubs. I know what goes on in the 19th hole & on the course. I also made a living, gambling in Pool Rooms, when I went to college. Golf is great, because there is money behind it & the AVERAGE idiot can seen the "test of skill" required to win.

Maybe each Tournament should be "FRONTED" by some amatuer play or tournament (especially TV), so the audience can see the difference of skill level, between Ball Bangers, 6 Speeds & Pros.

The Pro's need to be a paying member to ONE organization, which is "IN CHARGE".... The organization would sanction the rules, schedule SANCTIONED Tournaments, attract Manufacturer Sponsorships, sell professionally license products & on & on & on.... This is Golf's way of operating.

Activities, like the head-up matches in the ACTION Room, should be going on in every major city, every week of the year, with the approval of the Professional Pool Player's chosen organization. Otherwise, it is just another unorganized, poorly advertised gambling match, much like what happens today.

The Pro Players don't get anything from these events. The sweaters & railbirds get entertained for nothing. The Pool Room may make a few dollars from concessions, but they too are losing revenue. The door "cover charge" should be split between the Room Owner, The Pro's organization & the playing Pros. Any TV or recorded CDs revenue should be split up too.

So.... if you folks want Professional Pool, you have to help support the newly formed organization & write letters to any & all companies, asking for their support.

this is truley a great idea! a pool provider that gives the players a cut of the gate, the dvds,and the merchandise! hmm thats a great idea!

 

[John Barton]

Once again, I see this as primarily a US problem. I don't believe pool has as big of an image problem as people indicate.

Facts are Pool doesn't make great TV for the majority of the US population. It has nothing to do with the "seedy image" in fact that would in most cases help it not hurt it. Look at Jerry Springer if you don't believe me.

Yeah, I agree. It would be great if pool had an image at all. I think that the main thing that the average person thinks about pool is "who cares"

Sure pool might still conjure up images of hustlers and "the bad element" but it's doubtful. For the last 20 years leagues and nice poolrooms have probably pretty much erased that image from the casual observer's mind.

I think that when you ask most Americans about pool the are more likely to say oh you mean what that Asian woman plays. She's pretty.

Some hot button issues that tend to get overblown:

Savers - so what? It's an agreement between two players to divide the pot differently - it does not matter because it is THEIR money to divide. They paid the entry fee, they played well enough to get to the point where they are getting paid so what they do with their money is their business and no one else's. They all still want the TITLE and the larger part of the saver so you can bet that they are playing to WIN. And so with that savers are WIN/WIN all the way around.

Dumping - this is unethical and happens in all sports. This is NOT the reason that pool has no big time sponsors. Most sponsors could care less unless it affects them. Since pool can't even replace the spelling bee results on page 10Z of the local free paper the sponsors are more concerned with THAT aspect than whether a player dumped a match or not. When it comes out in big time sports - everyone is shocked and the beat goes on. This is really a non-issue and one that I highly, highly doubt comes up in sponsorship negotiations as a concern of the potential sponsor.

Calcuttas - Again this is a local thing that is SO FAR under anyone's radar that it doesn't even deserve mention. Ever heard of the office pool. Every year when the College Basketball Nationals comes around everyone talks openly about the betting in office pools including on network news shows. Whatever stigma that one thinks that the general public attaches to a pool calcutta is way overblown. They could care less and would like to get in on if pool was more popular and nationally followed.

Chopping - I guess this falls somewhere between Savers and Dumping??? Not really sure what the person who said chopping is a deterrent to sponsorships meant by it.


"Truth is though, the sponsors are beating on pools door."

Really? Where? Where are all these great sponsors and who are they talking to. Charlie Williams said in an interview on RunOutRadio that NO ONE is stepping up in the United States. He said that is why he prefers Korea because the sponsors there view pool as a sport and as a popular vehicle to advertise with.

I really question the accuracy of such statements. On one hand the writer says that sponsors are never going to come to pool as long as pool is "dirty" and that pool will never be "clean" but on the other hand he says that sponsors are clamoring to be involved with pool. Which is it?

Is there some sort of potential sponsor symposium where all these sponsors are laying out their issues with pool to be solved before they get involved??

I doubt it. I think that NO ONE CAN SELL POOL because no one OWNS POOL. There is no group or individual strong enough to bring the pros of the world under one banner and package and sell that collection of talent.

And the ONLY guy who had the moxie to TRY unfortunately has way too much baggage and not nearly enough resources to do it.

And that's my take on why pool won't get to the level of superstar sports.

I'd like to see it happen - but there is always the adage about being careful what you wish for, you may get it.

 

[Fatboy]

the problem is pool on tv is meaningless to anyone who cant play pool, hell darts are way better on tv its clear what the objective is, but Efren killing his rock on a shot we cant imagine looks like a hanger to the non-pool players and any idiot can watch basket ball or race cars. pool sucks on TV, snooker kinda makes sence on TV to the casual observer and its marketable else where,

 

[CrownCityCorey]

the problem is pool on tv is meaningless to anyone who cant play pool, hell darts are way better on tv its clear what the objective is, but Efren killing his rock on a shot we cant imagine looks like a hanger to the non-pool players and any idiot can watch basket ball or race cars. pool sucks on TV, snooker kinda makes sence on TV to the casual observer and its marketable else where,

Culturaly, us Americans generally do not appreciate the intricacies and finese involved in CueSports. The Asian culture certainly appreciates it moreso and that I believe is one reason they are taking to it like white on rice .

Over here in the US, we wanna see blood. Ultimate Fighting, Monster Trucks, Nascar, Football, Blah-blah.........................more brainy sports are not a draw here.

 

[Snapshot9]

Pool and the Media

I tried for years to get Pool reported on in the Wichita Eagle, just for big tournaments, not regular league, but to no avail. Our paper did not even
report Gabe winning the US Open till much later.

2 articles about Gabe, that's it.

I applaud those newspapers that do have articles about players and tournaments though.

I think the Internet is a far better vehicle for our sport to get the information out there. Many leagues now report league standings, special stats, and schedules online, which is real handy. These websites are not league dependent so different type leagues can still be reported.

One that reports Wichita leagues is: http://www.league-central.com

(C&M Distributers is the main one here).

People in leagues that don't have this available to them might want to tell there League Operator about it, so they can look into it.

 

[DaveK]

Canadian Curling Prize Money Better Than Pool?
2006/2007 Season to March 28
MEN
1. Martin (Edmonton, Alberta) $144,000.00
2. Howard, G (Coldwater, Ontario) $111,661.00
3. Ferbey (Edmonton, Alberta) $105,563.00
<snip>

To be fair in comparison, these are team winnings, which would be split beween 4 players ... $36,000 each if they split it evenly but maybe they short the lead

Dave

 

[supergreenman]

To be fair in comparison, these are team winnings, which would be split beween 4 players ... $36,000 each if they split it evenly but maybe they short the lead

Dave

I was wondering about that. That's kinda what I thought. I tried a google search to see if I could find these standings and came up dry. I didn't put a whole lot of effort into it though.

 

[Scaramouche]

That list only went to the end of March.

IIRC the top team ended up with about $180,000 for the season.

Of course, they probably spent that much on scotch

 

[ceebee]

Since we all have the internet & news or current evnts can be gained through the internet, why not write the editor of the paper & send the Editor a few dozen (if you work hard, you might find a hundred players) subscription cancellations.

Be sure to inform the Editor, there is more to life than Football, Basketball, Baseball & NASCAR. (In the DFW area there is about 4 million people, but they only built the Cowboy NFL stands for 65,000. That is 0.00000025 percent.

Also tell the Editor you are starting a petition to cancel more subscriptions.

We as citizens can continue to be mushrooms (kept in the dark with a diet of S**T) or we can ask the media to do a better job of reporting lots of events, on many things.

Status Quo is for sheep....

 

[elvicash]

Lets make pool big. What if all AZ'rs called their local paper asked about the latest pool scores from the US Open. Then if we all called the nearest large city paper and did the same. We could do it for the men and the womens tournaments.

What if all of us called ESPN and asked about scores from the US Open going on right now. Also at the same time we could let them know it would be nice if ESPN at least had a link to some pool score sites.

I called ESPN a while back but did not know enough about the process to get ahold of a writer. When I did make the call it was later in the day and I had no idea of who to ask for and really made little if any progress but at least I tried. I basically spoke with thier first line of defense but if we all tried and shared results we could make our voice heard.

What would be nice to have on AZ would be to have a a section on making pool big and we had a storehouse of links to places where different people could E-mail to let people in the larger media we world that we care about pool. In the same section we could also have some some info on large advertisers and how to get pool into their market research.

A big improvement and help is leages. They already have access to a large population and they could disseminate info and get this

It would be good if the leagues would get behind trying to boost up the pool profile in the media world.

What I would like is to see pool enhanced. I would like to see more of it and I would really like to see it better produced. The current offering is pitiful and as bad as it is we see it regurgitated and replayed over and over for years.

I do not care if pro pool player's ever make the same kind of income as golf and doubt I will ever see it in my lifetime. I would like to see pool advanced and if that happened then their income would rise and that would be a good thing. I know some top tier quality players who do not play currently as it does not return enough to be worth the full time effort. That is a shame.

We could do it if we tried.

 

[Jimk]

It is something were all aware of, but i had a first hand look(a while back) at just how on a regular basis to cover travel, losses and most importantly to support his life, family, etc. But the guaranteed $$$ he needs just isnt there after covering travel, entry fees, hotels, loss of endorsments(OR lack of, now days), appearance fees etc. There is no $$$ in pool, unless your single with no family to support then a bad streak is ok, but with a family you CANT have a bad month.

I went to a friends house, its a nice house nothing crazy but a very nice house for sure, he has a beatiful family, a man couldnt have it better. he is a top pro pool player, a player that we all aspire to play like unless your playing him, right now given the industry as a whole with endorsements, tournment winnings, and action he can barely cover his nut(no extra for a bad thing), if he was a golfer at the same level he would have a private jet, 3 houses across the world, and things I havent ever heard of. Everyone here knows him he is a celebraty in our world(with no bad habits) and honored where ever he goes, to a tournment or by the manufactors, magazines etc. And is stressed out to support his family. Even doing paid appearances in addition to everything else dosent do it. He dosent live beyond his means or have bad habits etc. he lives comfortably. And is very smart with his $$$. I would help him if he asked but he's not that kind of guy-i offered, he declined. Its tempoary for him, but man pool is down especially the endorsments-only buy from manufactors who use pros to endorse products-that will help our pro's.

my point here is not him, but for all of us support pool, buy the products you like, cues, cases, magazines...whatever from companys pro's endorse. Our pros need it. Believe me If I said his name no one here would believe me-everyone would think he is stacked up with $$$, please dont ask or guess who, I will NOT say-I respect his privacy as he does mine, again my point is, support pool how ever you can-playing aint enough-its a start but do more if you can.

This post applies to just about any pro out there, thats why i posted it.

Pool has always been a fringe game. Lots of people play but few understand the nuance and detail of the game. All of the people I know who rely strictly on pool for a living are just getting by. Even bowling has a lot bigger fan base. It's a crying shame.

 

[memikey]

Lets make pool big. What if all AZ'rs called their local paper asked about the latest pool scores from the US Open. Then if we all called the nearest large city paper and did the same. We could do it for the men and the womens tournaments.

What if all of us called ESPN and asked about scores from the US Open going on right now. Also at the same time we could let them know it would be nice if ESPN at least had a link to some pool score sites.

I called ESPN a while back but did not know enough about the process to get ahold of a writer. When I did make the call it was later in the day and I had no idea of who to ask for and really made little if any progress but at least I tried. I basically spoke with thier first line of defense but if we all tried and shared results we could make our voice heard.

What would be nice to have on AZ would be to have a a section on making pool big and we had a storehouse of links to places where different people could E-mail to let people in the larger media we world that we care about pool. In the same section we could also have some some info on large advertisers and how to get pool into their market research.

A big improvement and help is leages. They already have access to a large population and they could disseminate info and get this

It would be good if the leagues would get behind trying to boost up the pool profile in the media world.

What I would like is to see pool enhanced. I would like to see more of it and I would really like to see it better produced. The current offering is pitiful and as bad as it is we see it regurgitated and replayed over and over for years.

I do not care if pro pool player's ever make the same kind of income as golf and doubt I will ever see it in my lifetime. I would like to see pool advanced and if that happened then their income would rise and that would be a good thing. I know some top tier quality players who do not play currently as it does not return enough to be worth the full time effort. That is a shame.

We could do it if we tried.

Am prepared to be corrected if the following perception is not right, but if USA league players in general mirror those in most of the rest of the world, then a large proportion of league players probably (a) have little significant interest in seeing pool tournament news in the newspapers in any case (b) have never attended a pro pool tournament in order to spectate (c) do not consider pool tv viewing or live spectating of pro pool as something which can hold their attention for more than a half an hour tops and have absolutely no interest or intention of making any effort to change that (d) couldn't identify from a photograph more than one or two current international stars or even correctly name current world champions and do not consider the fact that they cannot do that as being in any way relevant to their life or as being anything they ought to try to change.

League players tend to mainly use league pool outings and their other pool playing sessions for the purposes which pool has always tended to serve best.....as a vehicle for a pleasant evening out with friends spiced up by some reasonably competitive team and individual participation in a game in which it is relatively simple to achieve an adequate competence level to take part.

This begs a question. Seems to me this numerically large body (league players), along with the other large body of keen players who don't bother with league pool but who just hang around pool rooms for some play, some gambling or some buzz, both of which groups obviously have 'some' considerable existing interest in pool, have already clearly demonstrated over and over again that they have no real interest in pool as a spectator sport nor, other than the occasional daydream, in the philosophical concept of elevating pool to some 'higher level' (whatever that really means)........if this is the case (and remember these groups are the very heart of the community who profess to already have love for pool).......what on earth makes anyone assume it is likely or even possible that enough of either sponsors or the non pool playing public would ever take interest in the game in the sort of numbers which would be necessary to mean anything significant to the potential financial rewards for anyone being good at pool?

 

[Drew]

Am prepared to be corrected if the following perception is not right, but if USA league players in general mirror those in most of the rest of the world, then a large proportion of league players probably (a) have little significant interest in seeing pool tournament news in the newspapers in any case (b) have never attended a pro pool tournament in order to spectate (c) do not consider pool tv viewing or live spectating of pro pool as something which can hold their attention for more than a half an hour tops and have absolutely no interest or intention of making any effort to change that (d) couldn't identify from a photograph more than one or two current international stars or even correctly name current world champions and do not consider the fact that they cannot do that as being in any way relevant to their life or as being anything they ought to try to change.

League players tend to mainly use league pool outings and their other pool playing sessions for the purposes which pool has always tended to serve best.....as a vehicle for a pleasant evening out with friends spiced up by some reasonably competitive team and individual participation in a game in which it is relatively simple to achieve an adequate competence level to take part.

This begs a question. Seems to me this numerically large body (league players), along with the other large body of keen players who don't bother with league pool but who just hang around pool rooms for some play, some gambling or some buzz, both of which groups obviously have 'some' considerable existing interest in pool, have already clearly demonstrated over and over again that they have no real interest in pool as a spectator sport nor, other than the occasional daydream, in the philosophical concept of elevating pool to some 'higher level' (whatever that really means)........if this is the case (and remember these groups are the very heart of the community who profess to already have love for pool).......what on earth makes anyone assume it is likely or even possible that enough of either sponsors or the non pool playing public would ever take interest in the game in the sort of numbers which would be necessary to mean anything significant to the potential financial rewards for anyone being good at pool?

In other words...that's a lot of people who are not interested in pool. Each one of them paying 10 bucks a week. Sounds like a decent purse.

 

[worriedbeef]

Originally Posted by memikey
Am prepared to be corrected if the following perception is not right, but if USA league players in general mirror those in most of the rest of the world, then a large proportion of league players probably (a) have little significant interest in seeing pool tournament news in the newspapers in any case (b) have never attended a pro pool tournament in order to spectate (c) do not consider pool tv viewing or live spectating of pro pool as something which can hold their attention for more than a half an hour tops and have absolutely no interest or intention of making any effort to change that (d) couldn't identify from a photograph more than one or two current international stars or even correctly name current world champions and do not consider the fact that they cannot do that as being in any way relevant to their life or as being anything they ought to try to change.

League players tend to mainly use league pool outings and their other pool playing sessions for the purposes which pool has always tended to serve best.....as a vehicle for a pleasant evening out with friends spiced up by some reasonably competitive team and individual participation in a game in which it is relatively simple to achieve an adequate competence level to take part.

This begs a question. Seems to me this numerically large body (league players), along with the other large body of keen players who don't bother with league pool but who just hang around pool rooms for some play, some gambling or some buzz, both of which groups obviously have 'some' considerable existing interest in pool, have already clearly demonstrated over and over again that they have no real interest in pool as a spectator sport nor, other than the occasional daydream, in the philosophical concept of elevating pool to some 'higher level' (whatever that really means)........if this is the case (and remember these groups are the very heart of the community who profess to already have love for pool).......what on earth makes anyone assume it is likely or even possible that enough of either sponsors or the non pool playing public would ever take interest in the game in the sort of numbers which would be necessary to mean anything significant to the potential financial rewards for anyone being good at pool?

bloody hell really depressing but true

 

[whitewolf]

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveK
You just need a better imagination or more exposure to other second or third tier professional games / sports. There is no way a professional curler could earn enough to raise a family on curling earnings exclusively.

Dave

Canadian Curling Prize Money Better Than Pool?
2006/2007 Season to March 28
MEN
1. Martin (Edmonton, Alberta) $144,000.00
2. Howard, G (Coldwater, Ontario) $111,661.00
3. Ferbey (Edmonton, Alberta) $105,563.00
4. Burtnyk (Winnipeg, Manitoba) $75,924.00
5. Koe, K (Edmonton, Alberta) $71,000.00
6. Simmons (Davidson, Saskatchewan) $51,400.00
7. Gushue (St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador) $38,000.00
8. Johnson, M (Edmonton, Alberta) $37,600.00
9. Stoughton (Winnipeg, Manitoba) $33,650.00
10. Walchuk (Edmonton, Alberta) $31,600.00
11. Jordison (Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan) $30,000.00
12. Middaugh, W (Toronto, Ontario) $28,500.00
13. Korte (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) $25,000.00
14. Desjardins (Chicoutimi, Quebec) $24,600.00
15. Base, J (Oakville, Ontario) $24,500.00
16. Charette (Boucherville, Quebec) $24,500.00
17. King (Edmonton, Alberta) $23,500.00
18. Peters (Winnipeg, Manitoba) $18,100.00
19. Cochrane (Ottawa, Ontario) $18,000.00
20. Adams, S (Halifax, Nova Scotia) $17,500.00

WOMEN
1. Jones, J (Winnipeg, Manitoba) $44,048.00
2. Anderson (Delisle, Saskatchewan) $39,200.00
3. Bernard (Calgary, Alberta) $29,800.00
4. Kleibrink (Calgary, Alberta) $29,500.00
5. King, C (Edmonton, Alberta) $24,001.00
6. Lawton (Regina, Saskatchewan) $22,800.00
7. Scott (Kelowna, British Columbia) $22,093.00
8. Norberg (Sweden) $20,312.00
9. Middaugh, S (Coldwater, Ontario) $18,500.00
10. Webster (Grande Prairie, Alberta) $17,500.00
11. Bryden (Calgary, Alberta) $15,800.00
12. Porritt (Winnipeg, Manitoba) $15,800.00
13. Santos (Edmonton, Alberta) $15,700.00
14. Law (New Westminster, British Columbia) $11,400.00
15. Wang (China) $10,600.00
16. Madonia (Mississauga, Ontario) $10,000.00
17. Lindner (St. Catharines, Ontario) $9,900.00
18. Rankin (Calgary, Alberta) $9,300.00
19. Mallett (New Westminster, British Columbia) $8,000.00
20. Sanders (Victoria, British Columbia) $8,000.00

Absolutely great find and post. Nothing funnier than catching DaveK talking like he knows everything!

 

[vagabond]

well said.Pool payers have difficulty accepting that reality.

 

[DaveK]

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveK
You just need a better imagination or more exposure to other second or third tier professional games / sports. There is no way a professional curler could earn enough to raise a family on curling earnings exclusively.

Dave




Absolutely great find and post. Nothing funnier than catching DaveK talking like he knows everything!

You did notice my comment that the posted winnings are for a team of 4 people,did you not ? And all of those curlers named have regular jobs. For sure the top players take short-term leaves from these jobs to curl, but the fact remains, they earn a living from a job outside the sport.

Dave

 

[DaveK]

That list only went to the end of March.

IIRC the top team ended up with about $180,000 for the season.

Of course, they probably spent that much on scotch

That sounds about right .... the top winnings and how it's spent, although I'm sure there were a few beer chasers in there as well. It was truely amazing how much beer was sold during the Briar held here in Saskatoon a few years back .... but I'm feeling better now

Dave

 

[Scaramouche]

That sounds about right .... the top winnings and how it's spent, although I'm sure there were a few beer chasers in there as well. It was truely amazing how much beer was sold during the Briar held here in Saskatoon a few years back .... but I'm feeling better now

Dave

Just think what the state of billiards would be in Canada if all the grain farmers in the prairie provinces had started to play table games instead of curling to occupy the winter months.