Chris,
I agree that pool leagues have caused some problems but I dont ever see anything happening on the level where one could compare them to the NFL, NBA or MLB.
My concern is the concern of the industry. There are really not many new players being generated. This is evident in home billiard product sales. Many of the companies really dont make money selling to pool rooms. Where they make a lot of there money is in home billiard room products.
So I think pools problem is much deeper than a lot of folks come into contact with on a day to day basis.
No new players means eventually no pool. If you figure out how to make new players, then youre really doing something.
Pool has two main problems everything else stems from.
1: exposure to young children
2: the immediate feedback received on a pool table. (i'll explain this more)
When it comes to exposure, most children do not see a pool table until they are between 18 and 21. Yes I know a lot of us started playing earlier, but remember that is the exception, not the norm. This is a website dedicated to pool players, thus the people here and their opinions generally are not a good sample for the general population.
Children start playing baseball, football, basketball, etc at a very young age. Most will not become anything of note within one of theses sports, but leagues make it possible for them to play the sport they love well into high school years. Even when they move on with their lives in some other way they still have a deep seeded love for whichever game/sport and continue to feed this love through spectatorship.
Pool on the other hand, most people are not exposed to until they become legal age to enter a bar/pool room. They have not developed a passion from childhood as they did with other sports/games. This also subconsciously associates pool with adult behavior such as drinking and bars.
"But what about games like poker, children are not exposed to poker until they are legal gambling age."
That brings me to point number 2. Immediate feedback from a pool table. When you play pool, its immediately show whether or not you are playing well. Its pretty simple, if the balls aren't going in the hole, you're not playing very well......and it shows.
This causes a very polarizing effect. Either someone decides this is a wonderful game they would love to get better at, and they start playing a lot of pool. Or, they decide pool is a hard, stupid game, only reserved for drunken nights out with their friends. I'll give you one guess which option is the most popular.
Conversely on a poker table, it is not readily visible to the untrained eye when someone is playing bad. "Luck" seems to be the reason someone is losing. Obviously this is not the case as poker has as much skill involved as anything else.....but the point is, the skill involved is not readily observable to the general population. This also convinces people they have a shot beating professional poker players, a thought that never crosses the amateur pool player's mind.
Unfortunately there is really no feasible way to change either of these facts.
When it comes to sports/games and getting money involved, one of two things must happen. Mainstream sponsorship, which comes from mainstream involvement from the general population(point 1), or tens of thousands of people putting up their own money to compete(such as poker) which they will only do if they feel they have some sort of legitimate chance.(point 2)
Hold tourneys at casinos........ wait they already do that.....
