Stu, it is always a pleasure to read your fine observations of any pool event. Thanks for sharing your insights. As to the equipment being too easy, I believe Matchroom is trying to bring excitement to the sport for larger audiences. Who wants to watch 9 ball being played like one pocket? Could the equipment be slightly more difficult without dampening the excitement of run-out 9 ball? Possibly. Equipment seems to be a slippery slope and I feel certain Matchroom Sport will do what's right for the sport.
As to commentator biases, for decades, in all Matchroom Multi Sport Ltd events, it has been common for both American and European commentators to be severely biases toward the European players. That bias may not be something that is controlled by Matchroom Pool but is something that the commentators somehow feel "obligated" to portray for a variety of reasons.
As to your comments about commentators lacking intimate knowledge of each player including each player's history, it would take an awful lot of intel to cover all of those players. Many years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed working for Inside Pool Magazine doing commentary because the person they hired to do the live-streaming was familiar with television and was constantly feeding me lots of pool information through my headset and it allowed me to sound like I was more knowledgeable than I really was. For the most part, no live streamer that I know of, puts much investment in providing commentators with live information through their headsets. A full-time person feeding player information to the commentators through the headsets (where the listening audience could not hear the interaction of the live-streamer and the commentator) would be an excellent investment for any live-streamer, including Matchroom. Since I have never worked for Matchroom, I don't know if they provide valuable live-feed to the commentators or not. Regardless, commentators could improve their profession by investing in acquiring all of the items you mentioned in Negative #2. However, the facts are that most professional pool players do not want to have commentators, distracting them from the task they are about to undertake. So a lot of that information would have to be obtained days, weeks or months in advance.
The missing Filipino players were a travesty imho.
In summary, I think Matchroom Multi-Sport Ltd, should hire you as a consultant, paid or un-paid because your perspectives are always insightful.
JoeyA
Joey! How have you been? I don't think our paths have crossed since 2010 Super Billiards Expo.
As for unprepared commentators, I beg to differ. During the days of the Camel Tour, players had to complete a form prior to the events that ensured that both the emcee (Scott Smith at that time) and the commentators were always in a position to offer some valuable information about the players.
The questions I asked are all very simple, and the consultant that could provide all this info is Mike Page, the founder of Fargo ratings. That said, questions such as these were rarely asked in pre-match interviews: 1) do you have any history with this opponent? 2) when did you last meet this opponent and who won? 3) what will be your best approach to beating this opponent?
If Matchroom and its commentators can't be bothered to gather much information about the players, let them tweak the pre-match interviews:
Here's an example of how a pre-match interview might proceed:
Question 1:
Interviewer to Player A: do you have any history with this opponent?
Player A: Yes, we've faced each other at the Mosconi Cup, the US Open and at the World Pool Masters
Question 2:
Interviewer: to Player A: When did you last meet this opponent and who won?
Player A: Yes, we met recently in the Zanzibar Open. He beat me 9-7, so I've got a score to settle.
Question 3:
Interviewer to Player A: What will be your best approach to beating this opponent?
Player A: He's good at long pocketing so I'll have to be stingy in both my pushouts and my safety play. He's a better grinder than I am, so I'd like to force a wide-open type of match if I possibly can rather than a more deliberate, tactically oriented match. Breaking well will help me to dictate what kind of match this will be.
Fan Reaction to this Interview
Wow! Thanks for all the information. Now I know something about the player's history against this opponent and I have a sense of what kind of match he hopes for in this spot. As they've met several times before, there should be no major surprises in style of play. Let's see if he gets the kind of match he wants.
Unfortunately, pre-match interviews tend to go more like this:
Question 1:
Interviewer to Player A: How do you feel going in to this match?
Player A: I feel confident. I like how I'm playing, but I'm not overconfident.
Question 2:
Interviewer: What can you tell me about this opponent?
Player A: He's a fine player and I know he won't hand it to me so I better bring my best.
Question 3:
Interviewer: What would this title mean to you?
Player A: It would be a dream come true. It would make my family very happy and would be great for pool in my country.
Fan Reaction to this Interview
Big deal. These questions and answers fail to distinguish this player from almost any other. These are generic questions that drew generic answers. That is fine as long as supplementary information is going to be provided by the commentators. Unfortunately, as this tends not to happen, a lot of competitive information about the players will remain shrouded in secrecy, outside the grasp of an interested viewer like me.