TAR, King of the hill, rankings, payouts.

[JCIN]

This is as far as my reach extends. Hopefully JCIN reads it and likes it.

Some great ideas there. Thank you for sharing them. Over the years most of them have come up at one time or another and what you are proposing is very close to what we are finalizing now.

The devil, as always, is in the details and I just dont want to come out with this grandiose detailed ranking plan we have been working on only to figure out a week later their are giant holes in it.

The biggest issues at the moment are player scheduling, the logistics of including international players and simple things like what do you call the divisions ? I like the Tier 1 and Tier 2 designations a lot.

I like the idea of points but am concerned about getting too in depth with a ranking system and being married to an order dictated by points. As an example the UFC doesnt use points. They have a somewhat loose list of top contenders....this allows them the flexibility to make the best matches at the time. I like that option a lot.

One major concern is how many events will the audience support? I think one every three to four weeks is the sweet spot. Much more than that and it will burn out the audience and make it ard to promote properly. Perfect example is TAR 27 this week. Its the worst job of promoting a match I have ever done. I have no doubt when its over lots of people will say "I didnt even know about that." Its due to several reasons but mainly trying to do too much in a limited time.

This is a great thread and I have gotten some good ideas from it. Thank you to everyone for sharing your knowledge and opinions.

 

[fathomblue]

Justin, how much open table time does the TAR room have on a weekend......I'm thinking on Saturdays......for a opening match between 2 "lower ranked" players?

As in something that might last 2-3 hours or whatever, before the main event kicks off that evening.

That way you might be able to ease an extra match into the total weekend package. That way the rankings are more fluid, but there are less weekends that people are ponyin' up cash. Obviously you have to cover your nut, but maybe you understand what I mean. I just worry that if there's 1 match a month, there won't be a lot of jostling for position among players. Does that make sense?

Ideally it wouldn't cost the customer anything extra and would pay out lesser amounts to the lower ranked players, since they were on the "undercard". But it gives them some TAR experience and the drive to make the main event in the near future for a bigger payday.

Something else I've wondered......is the future of TAR going to be STRICTLY 10-ball, at least PRIMARILY 10-ball or just whatever the 2 competitors decide they want to do?

If it's the latter, will ratings just reflect all of pool's games as a whole or would there be separate rankings for 10-ball, 9-ball, 14.1, etc. etc.?

 

[Perk]

However, what would prevent a pool hall from buying a stream, just like an individual, and then wiring it up to multiple TV's for the whole place to see?

So, how could you force a business to spend a bigger sum than an individual?

Nothing prevents it now. Same boat as ESPN or any television shows that fall under entertainment categories for distribution.

The higher cost allows them to promote the stream and legally distribute it throughout their establishment. It could also get them possible marketing merchandise for any patrons supporting it. For TAR is would provide up front equity to continue providing the quality streams. How sweet would it be for someone in a bar/poolroom watch some on the tv and then go home and purchase it so they can watch the end of it?

 

[Celtic]

Justin, how much open table time does the TAR room have on a weekend......I'm thinking on Saturdays......for a opening match between 2 "lower ranked" players?

As in something that might last 2-3 hours or whatever, before the main event kicks off that evening.

That way you might be able to ease an extra match into the total weekend package. That way the rankings are more fluid, but there are less weekends that people are ponyin' up cash.

I was kind of thinking about it and if you made a lower ranked "Tier 2" match a single race to 25 then maybe doing them on a weekday like a Wednesday might be popular and succesful. A single race to 25 takes about 4-5 hours so you could swing it without people staying up too late on a weekday.

Doing this would allow you to run a lower rank match on the Wednesday kind of like the warmup to the main event which then takes place over the weekend.

In order to deal with people who might not have the right schedule to watch the weeknight match you could loop it up until a couple hours before the main event match starts on Friday.

You could sell the Wednesday match for $15, the weekend main event for the usual $35, or a package deal of $45 as a example. The numbers themselves would need to be crunched to see where the economics lie and will largely depend on how much interest you can drum up to buy the things and the increased sponsership dollars if things really caught on.

 

[iba7467]

Awesome idea!

I got two words for ya'll:

Championship belt

or

Trophy cue

Some of those antique trophy cues were awesome and I think a modern cuemaker would be honored to put his name and design on one.

Eric

Awesome!!! That would be great and the cue would probably only appreciate in value.

 

[Celtic]

Awesome!!! That would be great and the cue would probably only appreciate in value.

That is actually a pretty sick idea for a trophy. Imagine a cue built by a custom cue maker with many many silver inlaid windows onto which each player who becomes the king of the table has their name engraved upon. That would be seriously amazing and that cue would be worth about what the Stanley Cup is worth, aka priceless.