Jim,
Maybe Bonus Ball should have you as a consultant!
There have been many thoughts on saving pool over the years.
I have always thought the Team concept had a lot of value.
If anyone remembers the NACPBA (an atttempt a few years ago to put together a series of event). I proposed them to do a team concept in their 5 different cities.
They never even got one event going since their funding went away.
I have talked to Murnak and he has had this concept going way before Bonus Ball. I would love to have some serious talks with hima nd maybe see if we can put something together because I also have a couple of ideas that might work for teams.
Pretty soon we will have as many team events as we have leagues and everyone will still be broke! LOL
All I am saying is that Murnak has given this some thought - but I think his math might be flawed a little bit. haha
Mark Griffin
I couldn't get to Mark today to talk this out so I'll start here. I really feel that one of the reasons that things don't happen in pool is because everyone is depending on one person to put all their money into something that has historically failed. So, no one wants to do it.
When I put up that thread and asked for a conversations about city teams and fans, and no one answered, I learned something. If players are not fans, and it will be very hard to get regular people to follow the game, then where are you. Nowhere, EXCEPT. What if you just trash the notion that this has to be a gigantic success to make it work. Just forget about the producers and owners of the teams making tons of money and you make it a very close family. The players make their own futures.
I was actually surprised when I started to crunch the numbers, that it really didn't take too many viewers to make it a success. And when you think of it, all you really have to do is require all 20 players on 8 teams to watch every week and every player would get around $100 for playing. So to make it viable, it can be built from the ground up instead of top down.
We all know that many players put hundreds of dollars into certain tournaments when they don't have a rat's ass chance of winning anything. So, if some of those players looked ahead instead of fending for themselves and got into a system of supporting each other, I think the idea could catch on and expand. The more it expands, the more valuable the journey. Being a pool player would be worth something. Trying to get on one of these teams could be worth something. But that's why I said that the players would have to understand what they are trying to do, and not just throw a 10 at it once and walk away. Nothing is free. Security is definitely not free, but this would be really cheap, considering what the outcome could be.
Also, the interesting thing about this idea is that it is self sustaining. You really wouldn't have to get regular people to support it. You wouldn't have to get it on television and you wouldn't have to kiss someone's ass to have them help you. You would be doing it yourself. There are enough people who love pool to make hundreds of pro players millionaires spending only $10 at a time.
I think that Mark had a problem with the ability to pay out so much of the money that was brought in from the matches. Well, he's right, if you do it the regular way. That is pay videographers and editors and crews to make this work. But, that is where I come in. I produced 19 Shark episodes for about $800, and I am sure that I could have a centrally located system that takes in the video from the games and produce it to be something worth watching for a small amount of money. Believe me as the money gets bigger, the same percentage will bring a lot more money for me and the crew. Also there will be room for advertising and other avenues of income for the people around the players. You will have to let me produce the sample game that we are going to shoot on the 17th at Amsterdam Billiards, so you can see what I'm talking about. It will be ready to watch a few weeks later if the game goes off as planned.
All I'm saying is that people pay into social security so they can retire. Social security isn't on television. You just know what it is and how it works. The good thing about this is that the player's money will be a direct result of how many people watch. The better teams, with more interesting players, will make more money and a 60/40 win loss split will also make the competition grow.
I want this to work. I am willing to try it and see it through. Are you willing to support it if it looks like it can work?
There is one more thing that I must say right now. Everyone out there would like to have a lucrative system for pool players. And you probably want to be one of the players. If that is true and you look at this and say ahh, it won't work, and spend your money on a boxing match or something totally unrelated to your life, you are the reason that you can't be a pool player and make a living at it. Because no matter how you look at it, the theory will work. You just have to make it work.
Thanks,
Jim
