The Jimmy Mataya thread prompted me to start this thread, something I have been thinking of since I arrived back from the DCC. As I stated in the Jimmy Mataya thread, the DCC is a great event for those who know pool, and have been around the game for a while. It is not an event that is going to elevate pool to the next level. I am going to list some observations I made while attending this year. View them as a potential sponsor and try to decide if pool is the sport you want to enter into a marketing partnership with.
1.I’ll just start off with the likes of Jimmy Mataya. These type of people were running around the tournament wolfing, cussing, and overall just being obnoxious and belligerent. They were disrupting matches and nothing was done to stop them.
2.Blatant gambling around every corner. Guys calling out like carnival barkers…who wants $100 action on this match, we have $10K action over here, etc. Players cussing and arguing with each other about the game, weight, rulings, etc. Even the tournament director would call out where there was a money match and everyone would flood to that match, leaving no spectators watching the actual tournament matches.
3.The rooms where the gambling action took place were like a pig pin. The hotel staff could not get into these rooms to clean them up because there were people there 24/7. Some of these rooms were on the main floor, just outside the hotel lobby.
4.The ring games were promoted as “action’ games, emphasizing the gambling aspect of the game. I believe in the first ring game (maybe one of the other ones also) the money came from sponsors, but it was not promoted as such IMO.
5.I heard a lot of talk about how pool is a better sport than golf. That the players should be earning the same kind of money as PGA golfers. In general, most of that talk was intended to “put down” professional golf while doing nothing to help elevate the game of pool.
These are just a few of my observations. Please do get me wrong; I’m not on some kind of “high horse” here. I stayed up the first 44 hours that I was there watching the action. But it occurred to me while I was there, and on the drive home, that there are a lot of us that love the game and want it to become a major sport. We want to see more pool on TV instead of the ‘Worlds Strongest Man competition”. We want the tournament earnings potential to be more lucrative for the pro players so they do not have to rely on gambling to make a living. If we want to elevate pool to professional golf status (not necessarily to PGA Tour level, but at least to a Nationwide Tour level), there is a lot that has to be done to shed the “dark poolroom” image of pool. Sponsorship is the only way it will ever happen. Pool does not currently have the image that corporate sponsorship is looking for.
1.I’ll just start off with the likes of Jimmy Mataya. These type of people were running around the tournament wolfing, cussing, and overall just being obnoxious and belligerent. They were disrupting matches and nothing was done to stop them.
2.Blatant gambling around every corner. Guys calling out like carnival barkers…who wants $100 action on this match, we have $10K action over here, etc. Players cussing and arguing with each other about the game, weight, rulings, etc. Even the tournament director would call out where there was a money match and everyone would flood to that match, leaving no spectators watching the actual tournament matches.
3.The rooms where the gambling action took place were like a pig pin. The hotel staff could not get into these rooms to clean them up because there were people there 24/7. Some of these rooms were on the main floor, just outside the hotel lobby.
4.The ring games were promoted as “action’ games, emphasizing the gambling aspect of the game. I believe in the first ring game (maybe one of the other ones also) the money came from sponsors, but it was not promoted as such IMO.
5.I heard a lot of talk about how pool is a better sport than golf. That the players should be earning the same kind of money as PGA golfers. In general, most of that talk was intended to “put down” professional golf while doing nothing to help elevate the game of pool.
These are just a few of my observations. Please do get me wrong; I’m not on some kind of “high horse” here. I stayed up the first 44 hours that I was there watching the action. But it occurred to me while I was there, and on the drive home, that there are a lot of us that love the game and want it to become a major sport. We want to see more pool on TV instead of the ‘Worlds Strongest Man competition”. We want the tournament earnings potential to be more lucrative for the pro players so they do not have to rely on gambling to make a living. If we want to elevate pool to professional golf status (not necessarily to PGA Tour level, but at least to a Nationwide Tour level), there is a lot that has to be done to shed the “dark poolroom” image of pool. Sponsorship is the only way it will ever happen. Pool does not currently have the image that corporate sponsorship is looking for.
