What can help the BCA?

[carter1984]

This thread refers to Billiard Congress of America (trade organization)...not the BCA Pool League.

Our trade organization, the Billiard Congress of America, is seeing declines in membership, and in attendance at the BCA Expo. I figure it is time to take this to the masses and reach out for suggestions and comments.

Stated on the BCA's website - "Our vision is to achieve a united, growing, prosperous and highly regarded billiard industry through BCA leadership, and our mission is to enhance the success of our members and promote the game of billiards."

So the real question is...what do potential members need (or can use) to "enhance their success" and how can the BCA "promote the game of billiards".

I'm not on the board, so I have no power to make anything happen in regards to the comments that may come from this post, however it can serve as a reference to the powers that be (BCA Board) regarding ideas that may make the organization stronger.

Their current slogan is "Better together than apart" so I am reaching out to the core fans of this game that frequent this forum in an effort to find fresh ideas for what the BCA can do to enhance the value for its members. I figure we are all in this together...the fans, players, retailers, room owners, distributors, and manufacturers.


Thanks in advance for your thoughts, and if you need more information about the BCA you can check out their website - www.bca-pool.com

 

[NewStroke]

This is a super tough question and I have thought often about it. Not just BCA but pool in general. Pool needs another Minnesota Fats, someone who can play and is entertaining. Today, the only person I see interacting with the crowd is Earl.

 

[Tom In Cincy]

I've witnessed the BCA's actions over the last 30 years. I can say truthfully that I haven't ever seen the BCA do anything for the players except provide a pool league that they eventually sold.

The BCA is an industry trade organization that isn't making enough money to provide the level of performance it did in the last few years.

Why? IMO, it isn't because the pool players weren't there.

The BCA is suppose to have a product to sell, can anyone describe the product? IMO it is the yearly Convention for the Billiard industry (aka the consumers)

Pool players don't consume anything the BCA has to sell (except the World Standard Rule book)

As a pool player, I'm not sure there is anything the BCA offers me to want to help them prosper.

Its not "what have you done for me lately?", its more like, "what have you done for me ever?"

Allen Hopkins has a great Expo, I suggest you support that, at least he has provided his efforts to make it grow and be more player friendly. And cue maker vendor spots keep growing. Maybe Allen can support the Billiard industry as a Convention organizer as well.

Who needs the BCA?

 

[Tom In Cincy]

Their current slogan is "Better together than apart" so I am reaching out to the core fans of this game that frequent this forum in an effort to find fresh ideas for what the BCA can do to enhance the value for its members. I figure we are all in this together...the fans, players, retailers, room owners, distributors, and manufacturers.

Retailers, distributors and Manufacturers, rely on the fans and players to purchase their products.

What does the BCA have to do with this? '

I would think that the biggest concern for the BCA is what they can do to increase attendance for their conventions. That is where they make their money.

 

[pooltchr]

Matt,
The problem with the BCA is they are focused on the wrong things. They say they want to promote pool and the industry, but in reality, all they do is promote their trade show.

In order to help all their business members, they need to focus on things that will increase participation in the game. Supporting leagues is a great way of promoting the game to new players, but they got out of that business when they sold their league.

Promoting tournaments would be another way. The Generation Pool tournament could have been a huge event, but nobody even promoted it. We had the best players in the world competing in Charlotte last summer, and there wasn't a single billboard, or ad in the local newspaper, or local news coverage to let anyone know it was here.

Their entire focus is on selling booth space at their trade show, which is closed to the public. Wouldn't it make sense to open the show up to the public for the last two days (Saturday and Sunday) and letting the public come and learn about our industry?

Pool won't grow unless someone is doing something to get new people involved in the game. The BCA has the opportunity to do that. They don't seem to have the motivation.

Steve

 

[Celtic]

how can the BCA "promote the game of billiards".

I honestly think this comes back to a discussion that has taken place many, many times on this forum.

Billiards needs a new game that increases the skill requirements of the players, brings in tougher elements to the game more often so that the spectators are not seeing one cool tough shot every 2 or 3 racks between otherwise routine position play and simple pots.

I have mentioned before on this forum that I think a great game to play would be a 15 ball rotation game where each ball is worth 1 point.

The game would be called ball and pocket, any extra balls you make count as long as you make the called shot.

Balls made on the break are wild. 1 is racked at the top and must be contacted first to be a legal shot, the 2 and 3 are racked in the 2 back corners while the 4 is placed in the back center of the rack, the rest are placed randomly.

You would race to a multiple of 15 points, so a set might be first player to 30, or 45, or 60, ect...

The rules to a large degree would be identical to Grady's 9-ball rules http://www.gradymathews.com/9ball.html , especially with the opponents options of passing the shot back to a player on a safe where a ball is pocketed or a miss on a called shot.

Fouls would result in ball in hand.

Additional rules would be IF a player makes a ball on a called "safe" or misses the called shot yet flukes a ball the points go to his opponent. This is to assure that each rack always results in 15 points being scored by the players (thus after 4 total racks played the combined score of the two players would be 60 total points every time).

I would also probably outlaw jump cues were it up to me, but I am aware that strong opinions on both sides exist on that. Even if jump cues were outlawed though jump SHOTS would still be allowed with a full length cue ala Earl The Pearl.

The benefit of a game like this is it is "point" based. AKA people score points, not game wins. This allows for alot more "stats" and talk about "high runs" and the like which is a important asspect of spectator sports. People who run 15 or 30 points in a row in this game would be doing something very difficult and those types of feats would be discussed.

A score in this game at the end would be 60-38 or the like. People could discuss how many innings the winning player took to get to 60 points, the average points per an inning for different players in certain years or competitions they won.

The game would be played on the normal 9-foot tables 9 and 10-ball are played on at present with pockets cut to the same standards we see today.

Much of the difficulty of the game would result from the rotation aspect of the game and the full rack of balls. The break being wild would promote powerful breaks to make as many balls as possible off the break and keep long runs going and control of the table.

A game like this would bring "Billiards" alot closer to the difficulty level and thus respect of snooker and 3-cushion, which atm negatively affects billiards to a degree that is underestimated by most people.

The main difficulty with this game would be introducing it to the public and the players and creating a working knowledge of the rules in both the spectators and the competitors of the game.

 

[CreeDo]

Honestly I only vaguely have an idea of what the BCA is and what it offers. That's kind of a problem right there.

I thought of it as a league/"Governing body of pool" first, and not as a trade association. To the sorta-serious but also sorta-casual fan, the BCA is "those guys who run BCA leagues and put out the official rulebook". It looks like you sold the league and you have some competition when it comes to being the last word on pool rules and standards.

Basically it's a mystery what the BCA offers me, as a fan, because they don't really advertise where I spend most of my time (online), or it's not clear what they do when I stumble across an ad or a link to the BCA website.

Now that I've looked into it, I still don't see why I'd give the BCA money. If I get a membership, I get access to the expo but it's way across the country in vegas. If I got access to new products and good deals online, where I don't have to go 3000 miles for my goods, maybe that'd be worth it to me.

And if I'm reading it right, only room owners, pros, and owners of billiard businesses can do this expo anyway. Why not at least TRY to make a few bucks from the millions of fans who don't fall into those categories? Make this expo public and start selling something (preferably online) to the actual pool players. They're the ones who make their living in many different ways, and many have some money to burn. Whereas the guys who make a living mostly from pool don't have a ton of money to burn because pool doesn't pay great and it's a rough economy to boot.

I figure you want constructive critcism so here come all the other gripes - I looked for an instructor in my state through the website. That's a cool service you offer and I might even pay the BCA to be the 'broker' who sets me up with just the right instructor. But I got 0 results in my search. Maybe y'all could do something to at least get a 'recognized' instructor in every state, and see if you can get a cut for setting them up with potential students.

The new slogan is kind of weak, just mentioning that we're "apart" seems negative. Like "hey, you might think we're better apart, but we're not." I think the BCA would be better together with the BCA league >_<

The online store exists, but offers like... nothing. Some posters. One or two dvds. I'm no marketing genius but I think you could do something like partner up with the guys who make cues and cases and good instructional dvds and offer 10%-15% off for members (and you'd make some kind of open membership category for like 50 bucks).

The site itself couldn't be more dull :/ lots of small text and bland gray and dark blue.