OK, so let's go through some stats. According to the annual Sporting Goods Association Player Participation poll the number of pool players in America is decreasing by an annual rate of about 10%. Their survey says that in 2005 about 39 million Americans classed themselves as pool players. In 2012 that number dropped all the way down to 21 million.
Are there any corollaries? Oh, yes. That 10% drop is about what we lose in poolrooms each year. People who do not have a place to play pool cannot be pool players.
Many pool players are middle aged or above. Some of us remember paying 10 cents a rack to play pool and 25 cents for each beer. So $6 per stick per hour and $4 per beer seems a bit steep. But it is in line with inflation and the fact is that those 10 cent poolrooms were profitable and the ones today are struggling. (At the same time a golf green fee back then was $2 and nobody complains today when they pay $80 or more.)
So the basic problem is keeping poolrooms alive. If they all die the game dies with them.
Room owners I talk to say they need to generate a little bit of profit from many different areas to stay open. A bit from the pool tables, a bit from the jukebox, a bit from the kitchen, a bit from the video games, a bit from the bar and a bit from the leagues.
But some rooms have hit on ways to do much better than the average. Reed Pierce set his room apart with a great lunch menu. It is so good that he had to hire folks to do delivery of all the take-out orders he began getting.
Phil Wyndham (I think I butchered that spelling) of the Chattanooga Billiard Club opened a cigar and brandy section.
So those who think creatively are doing pretty well with their rooms.
If you know of other formulas that work for rooms, tell us about them. We really do need to breathe some life into the foundation of pool, the poolroom.
(Another problem is that action no longer brings spectators to poolrooms in large numbers. Now that the average American lives 2 hours or less away from a casino the casinos have captured the action that was once the property of the corner poolroom.)
The problem with pool is simply "Technology" & "Casino's" and everything along those lines.
There is to much for the younger generation to do with their time these days besides playing pool, playing video games or texting on the phone seems to be the thing for them now, and the older generation spend alot of their spare time in casino's , so the poolroom's suffer.
I know when the casino's came in at Shreveport, LA. the pool action, bars, nightclubs in Texarkana,AR. just 70 miles away droped by 50% overnight!
Pool will never be like it was back in the day, say just as far back as the 40's 50's 60's & 70's pool halls were the gathering place for all the local gossip and maybe pick up a few bucks on the tables.
I wonder what the per capita would have been for people playing pool back then was? real high I would guess.
Back in the hay days of pool, hundreds if not thousands of people would gather to watch a high profile match between two champions.
Just as far back as the mid 70's in my locale home town a $5.00 a game of 9-Ball would get 20 to 30 sweaters real quick, not that way anymore, I doubt a hundred a rack would get 10-15 sweaters now., thats a crying shame, just no interest from the younger generation anymore.
Like you say, you have to have a setup like Reed Pierce now days to have a go at it and make any money in the pool world.
Oh well , pool will never completly die, it will just never thrive as it once did.
David Harcrow
