What do you think could make a TAR-type venture work? Is it impossible?

CreeDo

CreeDo

Fargo Rating 597
Silver Member
Still pretty bummed that TAR is dead.
What do you guys think? Is there some way to do PPV pool streams between
2 champions, and quit your day job?

Hope this doesn't come off the wrong way like I'm second-guessing anyone at TAR.
I always thought TAR was an example of what it looks like when everything is done right.
I guess I just assumed they were profitable even though there were occasional
grim comments about barely breaking even on some matches.

So maybe even if you do everything right, you still go broke.
Does something fundamental in pool have to change to make it viable?
 
I think is advertisement and marketing. You need this to be able to compete now days. I can just imagine if Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonal's, etc... would back up TAR and start droping some serious ca$h as sponsor's to promote it everywhere.

It will take some time, but I think it would work with some heavy marketing. From what I know TAR marketing was basically through Youtube and AZBilliards for the most part. It takes a lot of money to seriously compete in marketing and advertisement against all that is out there.
 
From Justin's recent comments it did not sound to me they were profitable. At least not in the last year. He mentioned Mark had put a lot of money into tar; did not sound like Mark had gotten a return on that investment.


He mentioned last night that the reason for the studio was to avoid travel costs. But then there is rent of course.


Perhaps the only model that would work is the the Steinway model. They already have a poolhall. They already host pro events. The recent PPV with Earl and Efren might be the start of a new business for them.
 
TAR has matches that have been filmed, yet are not available to purchase on DVD, download, or stream. How does that compute? DVDs should ALWAYS be for sale. The other forms of distribution should be a no brainer.
 
One of the main problems is getting the right 2 players to compete against each other. There's a lot of great players but only a few that is worth paying to watch. And most of the year they're not in Vegas anyway. Too costly for the players to fly in to play. I wish we could find a fix though because I love the TAR matches !
 
pool

I think the toughest thing is to capture the audience that is available to watch. Most pool enthusiests are out playing pool or at local pool halls on nights off / weekends if they can. I know I work a lot of weekends and when I don't we travel to tournaments etc.. I personally would rather watch a tournament with action mixed in on the net than the same two guys for 30 hours over a weekend. Not that I would stay home and do that anyways with two kids and a wife at home.

I wish more pool halls would buy and show events. I know most people would rather have sports on though. Tough business.
 
jka said:
TAR has matches that have been filmed, yet are not available to purchase on DVD, download, or stream. How does that compute? DVDs should ALWAYS be for sale. The other forms of distribution should be a no brainer.
Click to expand...

JCIN answered this on a podcast a while back. (I remember the answer because I asked the question.)

To paraphrase his original answer: He doesn't make enough money selling DVDs to bother making DVDs.

I'm guessing that he's also testing the waters regarding VoD... there are overhead costs to hosting that stuff and if he doesn't see enough profit from it, there's no reason to host more of it.
 
One of the things I've learned in business is that in order to be successful, one must learn to hire SMEs and delegate to allow the business to grow.

Being chief cook and bottle washer, which is exactly what I am, the sky is only so high as far as growth.

Finding competent people is key. Being the receptionist, salesman, bookkeeper, courier, worker bee, webmaster, and boss is an extremely difficult juggling act, and to turn a profit, well, that's what the mission is. Getting there, jumping over all the hurdles, being confronted with stop signs along the way, it sure as heck ain't easy. :frown:
 
Maybe the location might have hurt them?
Being in Vegas means that they're flying-distance-only for like 2/3rds of the country.
Maybe a central location somewhere in the midwest might have made the travel costs
less painful for everyone.

Also I'm wondering if maybe some pool hall would host them, free of charge?
I think a room owner would need to be nuts (or greedy) to charge a TAR-type business to host an event.
Having two top pros in their room HAS to bring in more than it loses... or does it?
 
CreeDo said:
Still pretty bummed that TAR is dead.
What do you guys think? Is there some way to do PPV pool streams between
2 champions, and quit your day job?

Hope this doesn't come off the wrong way like I'm second-guessing anyone at TAR.
I always thought TAR was an example of what it looks like when everything is done right.
I guess I just assumed they were profitable even though there were occasional
grim comments about barely breaking even on some matches.

So maybe even if you do everything right, you still go broke.
Does something fundamental in pool have to change to make it viable?
Click to expand...

My two thoughts (and I have no idea how feasible they are):

Commercials and/or sponsorships. Pool in general does not seem to have much (if any) money coming from outside the industry and that needs to change. Personally, I would have no problem seeing ads while watching the PPV stream if they put them up between racks. The ads that accu-stats show between racks are non-intrusive and I understand that that advertising helps pay the bills. You could even have the players wait between racks while the ads are being shown. They do this in baseball all the time.

Shorter matches. I understand why TAR did the long races that they did but I think that long races can make some people shy away. I knew when I paid for the matches that I wasn't going to watch the whole thing. Most people, however, are probably saying, "why pay for that when I'm not going to sit and watch it all?"
 
icucybe said:
I think is advertisement and marketing. You need this to be able to compete now days. I can just imagine if Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonal's, etc... would back up TAR and start droping some serious ca$h as sponsor's to promote it everywhere.

It will take some time, but I think it would work with some heavy marketing. From what I know TAR marketing was basically through Youtube and AZBilliards for the most part. It takes a lot of money to seriously compete in marketing and advertisement against all that is out there.
Click to expand...

There is no advertising in pool. It does not have that commercial appeal. For something like TAR to work, you need support from people on AZ and other pool communities. But people rather yap on AZ all day long than shell out 40 bucks once every few months for a pay per view.
 
The obvious answers are that you need more eyeballs on screens - both for advertising to be profitable and for PPV to be profitable.

I think there might be potential in a 'freemium' type of bundle.

Check out the website creativelive.com. It's geared towards creatives. They are making a lot of money (albeit with a larger audience than pool) by offering the first run content free live and then if you like what you're watching you can purchase the 'extras' and access to the video to download, watch streaming, etc... This works well for seminar type content.

It could be that having some of the pool hucksters on there talking about their method like TOO (or whatever the heck it is :) ) for free. And then people can upgrade to get the course materials (like diagrams and hypnotic tapes etc...) and then be able to download and re-watch whenever they like. Maybe even another upgrade with a 1 -hour Skype lesson or something.

Then split with the promoter. So for example, if CJ came on and talking about 'the web is the teacher' people could watch his entire seminar for free. While it's going on. Then if they were willing to pay $59.99 they get all of his PDF diagrams, audio tapes and can rematch the course as much as they want. If they pay $99.99 they get all the above plus a hardcopy of his book. If they pay $199.99 they get all the above, plus an ugly sweater and a 1-hour Skype lesson with him.

All the revenue is split between CJ and the streamer.

For competition it's tougher because people don't want anything but to see the action. That's why a PPV is probably the best way to go so far. If TAR had free matches and tried to rely on add-ons they would probably have less revenue than they did. Maybe things like watch for cheaper and then upgrade and get the VOD + bonus footage interview with the players + autographed TAR t-shirt. If you can bundle things then people are usually willing to try and justify the expense. Maybe they wouldn't spend $22 on a signed t-shirt, but they would spend $79 on a signed t-shirt + VOD + Bonus material + annotated analysis of key shots and games by the players themselves. (A pdf with key shots diagrammed and notes about what they player was thinking or why they took X shot over Y Shot. Possibly even analysis by other pool experts with suggestions for tips or drills on how to get proficient at that particular maneuver.)

Even with ALL that pool still doesn't get enough eyeballs on the screen to really make it worthwhile.

IMO Justin has an enormous amount of talent and reputation and a good persona - he will be able to find a way to leverage that into something big that will reward him very well financially. I think what he and Chad did with TAR is nothing short of amazing. I remember when they first started talking about it on AZB and I was so impressed that they talked...and then they did it. And they did it in a big way.

Heck, he may want to approach creativeLive to do a seminar on how to handle streaming live events and the ins and outs of lining up talent. Could put a little $$ in his pocket for the next thing.
 
jka said:
TAR has matches that have been filmed, yet are not available to purchase on DVD, download, or stream. How does that compute? DVDs should ALWAYS be for sale. The other forms of distribution should be a no brainer.
Click to expand...

One thing when people discuss TAR I wish they would keep in mind is that for the last five or so years everything you see comes from one person. Every graphic, every video file, any technical creation of any sort comes from one guy. That guy had to figure out to do all of that stuff on his own. He didn't already know how to do it.

It always kind of surprises me when people act like TAR is some operation with a lot of time, skill and resources that just doesnt get shit done because it's too dumb or lazy to think of it.

The devil is always in the details. I did DVD's for years. It didnt make any money after taking into account the time to make them, ship them, deal with returns/lost shipments/people who don't know their own address.

After years I finally found a VOD solution that makes financial sense. One provider I looked at thought it would be an awesome idea for me to pay them hundreds of dollars a month and split the revenue of any sales 60/40 with them. They get the 60. I'm not going to make a deal just to do something.

I am good at making shit happen. I suck at selling it. Mark is the same way. There are a lot things that could have been done better on my end. But at the end of the day when you have limited resources and are selling a product most people are not interested in it makes for a tough road.

All I needed to make TAR a success is 1000 people on earth to pay to watch the best players on earth. On two or three occasions out of thirty nine we got to half that number. AZ Forums has 47,000 registered members. If you can not get 2 percent of people who know enough about pool to sign up to AZ to buy something then that tells me people just are not interested in what you are selling.

The streamers that are out there now giving things away or trying to do cheap PPV's for mediocre matches are living off of other events they don't have to finance. They just show up and stream and if they can make a few hundred to get them to the next place they are happy. Thats fine if thats what they want to do. I was trying to do something different.
 
Here is an idea! Move tar to a casino. They could convert a small unused ballroom into the arena. Don't need a lot of space and the casino could use tickets as comps and run the event on their TV's for overnight guest.

Eliminate the transportation cost and eliminate the rent.

Mark Griffin and bca/CSI already work with the Rio.

Give something to get something!

Kd

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
 
Kid Dynomite said:
Here is an idea! Move tar to a casino. They could convert a small unused ballroom into the arena. Don't need a lot of space and the casino could use tickets as comps and run the event on their TV's for overnight guest.

Eliminate the transportation cost and eliminate the rent.

Mark Griffin and bca/CSI already work with the Rio.

Give something to get something!

Kd

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

We spent months talking to one strip casino we had an in with about doing that very thing. We just wanted space in a ballroom for a weekend at a time when we could put a match together. After the second change in hotel personnel and having to start all over again we bailed and decided to do the studio.

Casinos care about two things: bodies in hotel rooms and people gambling. We couldnt promise them enough or either to move the needle. So it kept getting shuffled to the bottom of the pile then everyone in the staff would turn over and we would start all over again.
 
The Rio has an entertainment budget. Could right off h
The venture as part of their entertainment budget. It could work out! Never know till you ask and you got equipment to move and store or liquidate. Still have storage cost. Just need to set up a schedule and mix things up with trick shots snooker 3 cushion and add some diversity to the shows.

Kd

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
 
Steinway has the closest model that would make sense for having one on one matches. They have the facility that makes money as a pool room, they have the pros there often enough not to have to pay travel expenses so all they have to do is put a little money together for the guys to play for and find a streamer to do it cheap. No shortage of those.
 
Kid Dynomite said:
The Rio has an entertainment budget. Could right off h
The venture as part of their entertainment budget. It could work out! Never know till you ask and you got equipment to move and store or liquidate. Still have storage cost. Just need to set up a schedule and mix things up with trick shots snooker 3 cushion and add some diversity to the shows.

Kd

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Have you ever dealt with casinos?

It really is not as simple as you make it sound. It would be sweet if it was.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top