SUPPORT the Game & your Pool hall

ceebee

ceebee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
well.... we all enjoy Playing POOL or we probably wouldn't be on this Forum. If you want something to grow, you have to participate. BC TV may not be perfect, but it's sure nuff a start. Get yourself a membership & ask your local Pool Hall owner to get a membership too. Not being able to see Billiards on TV is not good. Limited to viewing "ball" games is DUMBING us down. There are lots of things to see on TV, Billiards is one of them. It provides a lot of viewing enjoyment in lots of places, but not here in America.

Folks that look upon Pool Halls as seedy & bad, because of gambling, are absolutely nuts. The Stock Market is the biggest & costliest gamble on the planet & those folks are heralded as the elite. There are more drunks & gamblers at your local Country Club, than has ever been in a Pool Hall, why??? they've got more money & time.

While we wait to have our sport recognized by the TV producers, become a member in a Pool League. Get your friends together & maintain a team for a few years, play hard, go to Las Vegas for the BCA Extravaganza... you'll be glad you did. Get your friends to put their names on a petition to Budweiser or Frito-Lay to sponsor a local Pool Tournament (Hershey & Snickers might help too).

Support your local Professional & Pool hall owner by purchasing merchandise from him. Being a patron of eBay doesn't do anyone any good, you might save $75 on a Stick, but your local Professional might be more interested in you as a person, if you cared about him too. A couple of good tips on your Pool Game, from you local pro, might be worth a lot more than $75. Taking lessons, while becoming a better player too, helps support your Local professional.

Ask the Pool Hall Owner to have Instructional Videos or World Class matches on TV, instead on the usual baseball, football or basketball shit... SELL Pool, visit about Pool, think Pool, Play Pool, participate in what you like to do....

People are making inroads with our game, they are just slow. There are several schools that already have Billiards as a part of the curriculum, BCA is seeking to get Billiards as a OLYMPIC Sport.

Dress nice when you go to your Pool Hall or Sports Bar, talk nice & act nice. Enjoy yourself & enjoy your friends. Touch the cloth, feel the nap, Chalk that tip & Look at the sparking gleam on the great colored balls, stroke that Mac, Meucci, Palmer, Bushka or house cue... it's great to be alive & playing Pool.
 
Jack It Up

And don't forget to play for $$ so that you will make an effort to improve.

Set limits- stay in your comfort zone- then jack it up!

-pigy
 
Pardon me for being in the minority but I
love the atmosphere of the old pool rooms.
Spittoons on the side, all kinds of characters.
These carpetd rooms with classical music,
no beer, no powder for your stick, no hustling,
watch your language. Bull. Pool rooms dried
up because of the economy, not because of
image.
 
I started playing Pool in the late fities. There were spitoons, a thick wisp of smoke, the smell of liquor, action on the tables & Dominoes being played. Man, I loved it. I really didn't care for the nasty walls, floors & bathrooms, but it was sure nuff a place where I could be a heathen & it wouldn't bother anyone.

I can still see the same scene, without some of filth on the surface of the place & on the people. It would be a nicer place to hang out. I like CLASSY things, CJ Wylies new sports bar (Carson's) in Dallas, is 1st Class. It's nice to be in there, the tables are in good shape, there's money around you, & maybe in your pocket. The place is full of women, money, smoke & liquor, but folks are requested (required) to conduct themselves in a civil manner. That place is doing something right, because you cannot get in the joint after 9:00 pm. on any night. Look at JOB's in Nashville, it's a great place to go & play Pool. JOB's has an in-house professional that gives lessons, sells equipment & repairs the equipment. Joe Blackburn is his name

Look at the BCA Tournaments, they are clean, participated in & enjoyed by thousands of people. They come with their team shirts on, they play, win & lose. They exhibit good spotamanship & they control their temper for fear of being ejected from the place. They have fun, they gamble, drink & smoke in the halls... they enjoy playing the game in a nice environment.

I can enjoy myself in a seedy dim lit Pool Hall of yesterday or a brightly lighted architectural masterpiece like Boston Billiards, but I am already hooked on the game. Places like CJ's & Boston billiards makes me want to remodel the place where I play.... CJ's, JOB & Boston's are places that will welcome lots of newcomers to our sport... then us old stalwarts can re-inroduce them to places with some character.....

One other tid-bit of knowledge. During the worst economical crisis of this land was when Pool & Billiards had the biggest number of players & fans. It was an era of class, mixed with a little shit. The Pool Halls were huge, the tables were huge, but there was plenty of money, gambling, women & whiskey. There were dozens of joints in every metroplois, McGoorty says there were 12 big layouts on the Chicago loop alone, each place had 40 or more tables. They had Billiards, Snooker & Pool... what a place to go to.

Back then, people DID SOMETHING to entertain themselves, nowadays they sit while being entertained. THAT'S a PROBLEM for Pool, Golf, Bowling. There are jillions of folks that are gathered around a central speaker, every night of the week, waiting to holler BINGO. They are gambling their last dollar away in hopes they'll get some good numbers. Those places are filled with smoke, not any in my State have liquor. The Sports Bars are setup for their patrions to sit, eat & drink, while watching Monday Nite Football... Tuesday Nite Football & so on.... Pool didn't have as many rivals back then, as it does now.

The Pool Hall owners & the Sports Bar Owners are interested in their Beer & Dorito sales, not how well you or I play Pool. So, the new generation is interested in Bowling, Golf, Computers & Sports on TV. What would entice them to come back out & play some Pool? That is the question.

New equipment (Cues & Cases) for the casual to professional player are phenomenal. Go to an APA Tournament & look at the 3 speeds with a $1000 worth of gear... ain't it wonderful. If they all took lessons & became 6 or 7 Speeds in time, they would spend more time in the Pool Halls & bring more friends too.

The Pool Hall & Sports Barr owners need to have your support & your input to make this game of ours greater. Tell them to ask Budwesier & Frito-Lay to throw a tournament. The concession vendor has been feeding off Pool Hall & Sports Bars for years. Their rebate has been some chicken-shit lights & cardboard posters. It's time for a change..
 
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Thanks for the plug CeeBee.

Actually, the cheapest and most effective way to support the growth of Pool on TV is to purchase the PPV. We don't plan on profiting from this initial venture. In fact, if we break even we'll be lucky and then the networks we're working with with carry more programming.

The nice thing about this type of TV platform is that it's commercial-free and you see every shot. In our cable broadcast on Empire Sports and Sunshine Network, most of each match will be edited from the broadcast to accomodate commercial spots, which are necessary to pay for the program porduction and placement.

So, starting October 12 on Dish Network you can get a package of 4 matches for only $29.95. Each program is 2 hours with highlights of other U S Open matches and bonus coverage of adjacent matches that were being played while the TV match was in progress. But you won't miss any of the feature match.

It's the best programming of any tournament yet. The only thing better is to be there in person.

Each individual match is also avaible for purchase for only $9.95.

And, starting October 26 on iNDemand pay-per-view as well as Dish, the semi-finals begin. iNDemand is availabale to all cable customers nationwide.

For more information, go to our Billiard Club network web site.

Thanks again for the support
 
no offense.

i would rather play then watch people play on tv.
personaly if i dont like the way a poolhall looks or feels then ill go somewhere else. running a poolhall is a bussiness.
 
When Bandido and I were talking about how we can help uplift pool here in Manila, he told me one thing that stuck to me. He said that the one thing that should never be taken out of the game is its historical appeal. Even if the game is now called a sport, there will always be that undercurrent that will hold the mainstream poolhall denizens within the picture frame.

True. I have to agree with that. I guess that character depends on what poolroom one goes to. If you want to bring a date, go to where there is loud music. The kitchens are busy, and the waitresses are tired. In the shelf for sale are cheap Taiwanese cues that sell like hotcakes.

And that makes the old poolhouse an endangered species (because of how the game is being upgraded). In the old poolrooms, nobody drinks excessively. Nobody eats. Coffee - that's it. Nobody buys equipment off the counter as there are many vendors within. Beautiful cuesticks remain in the rack as years of inventory.

So how do you support your poolhouse with that old character? How can you help the owner pay rent?

Eat. Wager of food. Bring paying guests in. Join tournaments. Respect the tables (no sitting, cigatettes on pockets, etc.) Many of these poolrooms are happy just to have their heads above water, and maybe only orders can help sustain their existence.

There is really little the clients can do with the rising operating costs and competition. Savour them now, because these palces are fast dying natural deaths.
 
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