Share the game.

[mnorwood]

Numerours threads are written on the lack of progress that professional pool is making in the sports market. Everyone has criticism and everyone has someone to blame. My solution to solve this problem is by simply sharing the game. In my hometown I am one of the better players (not saying much.) When a novice player sees me do something and asks for advise- I give it. Other more experienced players are often annoyed by my eagerness to help a beginning to novice player. These are the same players that complain that not enough people compete in local tournaments. My beleif is if they were more open to fueling peoples interest in the game rather than hoarding knowledge they would stand to benefit. I also feel that if you are serious about promoting pool pass it on to young people. Volenteer at the local YMCA or boys club. People who are affiliated with local school districts could start pool and billiards clubs in schools. Pool should also be organized on college campuses and made a sanctioned sport by the NCAA. As long as we stay cloistered in pool halls fighting for prize money and gambling money that amounts to crumbs the sport will remain on the fringe of the sports world.

 

[Masayoshi]

i helped start a billiards club at UCD this year . Hopefully there are a lot of interested freshmen next year *makes plans to hunt the dorm rec rooms for possible players during move-in week next year*

 

[JAM]

Numerours threads are written on the lack of progress that professional pool is making in the sports market. Everyone has criticism and everyone has someone to blame. My solution to solve this problem is by simply sharing the game. In my hometown I am one of the better players (not saying much.) When a novice player sees me do something and asks for advise- I give it. Other more experienced players are often annoyed by my eagerness to help a beginning to novice player. These are the same players that complain that not enough people compete in local tournaments. My beleif is if they were more open to fueling peoples interest in the game rather than hoarding knowledge they would stand to benefit. I also feel that if you are serious about promoting pool pass it on to young people. Volenteer at the local YMCA or boys club. People who are affiliated with local school districts could start pool and billiards clubs in schools. Pool should also be organized on college campuses and made a sanctioned sport by the NCAA. As long as we stay cloistered in pool halls fighting for prize money and gambling money that amounts to crumbs the sport will remain on the fringe of the sports world.

That is a great idea, MNorwood!

Don't forget our senior citizens, some of whom know the game and enjoy getting a little R&R as well as physical activity while they are in assisted living environments.

At Christmas time each year, we go to a local nursing home and hang out for the day. There is only one table on site. The residents have a wonderful time, and those who are not mobile and restricted to chairs on the rail have a blast, barking and chatting it up with others. It is one of my favorite things to do during the holiday season. Seeing those old-timers laughing and having a good time gives me a whole lot of Christmas cheer.

JAM

 

[Celtic]

No offense but you are on a pool message board that "shares" information with complete abandon and other then amusing ourselves we dont do fuck all in regards to getting this sport into the primetime. Your solution is a great feel good love your brother type of plea but it wont do shit when it comes to suddenly getting the game to be accepted by the general public en masse and getting the purses from $20,000 to $200,000 and beyond. The answer to this sport making it big is not as simple as "all we need is love!" ala the Beatles.

 

[JAM]

...The answer to this sport making it big is not as simple as "all we need is love!" ala the Beatles.

Pool suffers from a poor image to date. Whether it stems from the lack of promotion or the days of the road hustlers congregating in gender-restricted billiard parlors, it is on the bottom rung of the sports ladder in the States.

Any positive event, no matter how big or small, in which pool is shown in a bright light is a good thing. It brings awareness to the many attributes of the game/sport that some of us do enjoy, and most importantly, it may capture a few more interested parties down the road.

To date as it pertains to pool, history repeats itself as far as I can tell. Same pool politics with new faces and names. There are some dedicated pioneers and other capable promoters continuing to keep this unique culture alive and well, a culture which does receive the harshest criticism from those within.

IMHO, a more suitable Beatles song would be "Nowhere Man." Hopefully, somebody new will enter the pool arena and take it to greener pastures. To date, the sport/game still has one tire in the sand.

JAM

 

[chefjeff]

No offense but you are on a pool message board that "shares" information with complete abandon and other then amusing ourselves we dont do fuck all in regards to getting this sport into the primetime. Your solution is a great feel good love your brother type of plea but it wont do shit when it comes to suddenly getting the game to be accepted by the general public en masse and getting the purses from $20,000 to $200,000 and beyond. The answer to this sport making it big is not as simple as "all we need is love!" ala the Beatles.

I hesitate bringing up another book with you, but this one's at the top of the NYT's best seller list and has been for several years. It's called The Tipping Point, by Gladwell, I believe. Good read for anyone interested in marketing anything.

Ideas and mass movements have tipping points where it seems that suddenly the whole world knows about and is involved in some new thing. But that isn't how it ever happens. It never happens overnight.

There's a lot of ground work before the idea can come to fruition. And not all ideas that have this ground work get to the tipping point where they become popular. But very few ideas ever get to the tp without this ground work.

One player at a time is the only way to go right now....unless you've got $30 million or so to do what bowling did. But wait!...even bowling had the necessary ground work before the money was added. So, maybe the one-on-one ground work is EXACTLY what is needed.

AND...what about the pleasure that the youngsters and retirees get from such efforts? Does this not add to the pool world's value?

The other night, I was sharing ideas with a fan. Yes, a fan who came to watch our league playoffs. Because she was there, I decided to pay her back, so to speak. She's a newbie and wants to learn, but as she said, "Everybody hides what they do and it's hard to learn from them...you, Jeff, are always helpful and I appreciate that." Here's a new fan, a new player, and by g-d I'm gonna make sure she gets the help she is looking for. I wondered as we talked how many others are like her but never get beyond the starting line.

Btw, there were four more fans watching us. Why? Because we asked them to come! Yup....that simple, we asked. (extreme power there, with little cost---hint hint)

I'm very sick of the "just give us money with no effort required and we'll be happy" mysticism. Marketing is hard, very, very hard and requires many people, each doing a bit, for it to be successful.

Jeff Livingston

 

[alstl]

I hesitate bringing up another book with you, but this one's at the top of the NYT's best seller list and has been for several years. It's called The Tipping Point, by Gladwell, I believe. Good read for anyone interested in marketing anything.

Ideas and mass movements have tipping points where it seems that suddenly the whole world knows about and is involved in some new thing. But that isn't how it ever happens. It never happens overnight.

There's a lot of ground work before the idea can come to fruition. And not all ideas that have this ground work get to the tipping point where they become popular. But very few ideas ever get to the tp without this ground work.

One player at a time is the only way to go right now....unless you've got $30 million or so to do what bowling did. But wait!...even bowling had the necessary ground work before the money was added. So, maybe the one-on-one ground work is EXACTLY what is needed.

AND...what about the pleasure that the youngsters and retirees get from such efforts? Does this not add to the pool world's value?

The other night, I was sharing ideas with a fan. Yes, a fan who came to watch our league playoffs. Because she was there, I decided to pay her back, so to speak. She's a newbie and wants to learn, but as she said, "Everybody hides what they do and it's hard to learn from them...you, Jeff, are always helpful and I appreciate that." Here's a new fan, a new player, and by g-d I'm gonna make sure she gets the help she is looking for. I wondered as we talked how many others are like her but never get beyond the starting line.

Btw, there were four more fans watching us. Why? Because we asked them to come! Yup....that simple, we asked. (extreme power there, with little cost---hint hint)

I'm very sick of the "just give us money with no effort required and we'll be happy" mysticism. Marketing is hard, very, very hard and requires many people, each doing a bit, for it to be successful.

Jeff Livingston

Television has done a lousy job of marketing pool. The local community center has a couple tables and when I go there to practice there are frequently kids playing. I hear them talking about watching pool on ESPN but the problem is the matches are old and they rerun the same matches several times. People would watch pool if it was treated like other sports on tv. It needs the same thing other sports have, a major sponsor, a tv contract, and a schedule of weekly events so the people watching are seeing something fresh, not a match they have seen before.

 

[Celtic]

Television has done a lousy job of marketing pool. The local community center has a couple tables and when I go there to practice there are frequently kids playing. I hear them talking about watching pool on ESPN but the problem is the matches are old and they rerun the same matches several times. People would watch pool if it was treated like other sports on tv. It needs the same thing other sports have, a major sponsor, a tv contract, and a schedule of weekly events so the people watching are seeing something fresh, not a match they have seen before.

Exactly. This sport had a huge chance to make the bigtime with the success of the Color of Money and the attention it brought to this sport during the mid 80's. We had alot of people tune in and give this sport a chance at that time. Unfortunately the sport was marketed and presented by people who made the sport look extremely boring and did exactly as is quoted, they showed old tournaments and the same matches over and over. The NFL would be a vastly unpopular sport on TV if they never showed a live game and instead ran the same games over and over on TV played months or even years ago. It is no different in pool, live broadcasts on public television are the only way any sport is truly exciting because it brings in a factor of the unexpected.

For all the sharing of pool and the one person at a time marketing by the true fans of this sport we are not gaining ground, we are loosing it. This sport was way more accepted by the public 15 yeras ago, it was alot more able to draw the attention of the general public, it was given a chance, and it failed miserably due to poor presentation and marketing. That was not the fault of the true fans of this sport, the impetus is not on us to make this sport hugely successful. We should not have to go out and stick flyers on peoples windshields telling them to watch the rerun of the challenge of champions on ESPN at 8:00 PM. If we did so we would not be helping anyhow and instead make our sport look like some sort of a dying charity case only further hurting its image. Begging people to watch the game and marketing it in YMCA's of the world will only make our sport look bad and it will never hit the mainstream if we create the image of our sport that would paint.

Bowling can go ahead and have their 30 million dollars thrown at it. That sport is worse off then pool. At least pool does not give us the image of a sport that boomed in the 1950's with Elvis and T-Birds and is played by fat baby boomers in floral shirts. They try their damndest to lose that image but they are failing and that sport is largely dead to the public as a pasttime you may do once a year for a lark. Pool atm has a chance due to its much larger casual playerbase when compared to the empty bowling alleys around the world and an image that is not nearly so dated and instead has similarites to modern phenomena like poker that have taken off.

 

[lukeinva]

Exactly. This sport had a huge chance to make the bigtime with the success of the Color of Money and the attention it brought to this sport during the mid 80's. We had alot of people tune in and give this sport a chance at that time. Unfortunately the sport was marketed and presented by people who made the sport look extremely boring and did exactly as is quoted, they showed old tournaments and the same matches over and over. The NFL would be a vastly unpopular sport on TV if they never showed a live game and instead ran the same games over and over on TV played months or even years ago. It is no different in pool, live broadcasts on public television are the only way any sport is truly exciting because it brings in a factor of the unexpected.

For all the sharing of pool and the one person at a time marketing by the true fans of this sport we are not gaining ground, we are loosing it. This sport was way more accepted by the public 15 yeras ago, it was alot more able to draw the attention of the general public, it was given a chance, and it failed miserably due to poor presentation and marketing. That was not the fault of the true fans of this sport, the impetus is not on us to make this sport hugely successful. We should not have to go out and stick flyers on peoples windshields telling them to watch the rerun of the challenge of champions on ESPN at 8:00 PM. If we did so we would not be helping anyhow and instead make our sport look like some sort of a dying charity case only further hurting its image. Begging people to watch the game and marketing it in YMCA's of the world will only make our sport look bad and it will never hit the mainstream if we create the image of our sport that would paint.

Bowling can go ahead and have their 30 million dollars thrown at it. That sport is worse off then pool. At least pool does not give us the image of a sport that boomed in the 1950's with Elvis and T-Birds and is played by fat baby boomers in floral shirts. They try their damndest to lose that image but they are failing and that sport is largely dead to the public as a pasttime you may do once a year for a lark. Pool atm has a chance due to its much larger casual playerbase when compared to the empty bowling alleys around the world and an image that is not nearly so dated and instead has similarites to modern phenomena like poker that have taken off.

yeah the best thing for bowling was KINGPIN!!! man I love that movie it was freakin hilarious!!