How about building up pool from programs such as the Mosconi cup. Pool as an international team sport, with national or even regional teams competing, with boistrous crowds and cheering. Its fun and exciting! There is always the library atmosphere of the poolroom for the enthusiasts, but for the viewing public (non poolplayers) lets make pool as exciting as it deserves to be! Lets get it on the tv, and on the public radar. Even darts get more tv coverage than pool, and they have boistrous crowds. I realize that snooker doesn't but the snooker model is a product of history and culture, and is not necessarily possible to copy. I believe that for pool the dart way is the way forward.
For this to work there needs to be a national ranking system in the US. How hard would it be to unify the various pool tournaments under a common banner? It wouldn't necessarily cost much to do IMHO, just the willingnes to cooperate on in the easiest, low cost way. Without a ranking system and a tour the US pooplayers are doomed to fight bs politcs and poverty forever.
Make a national team you can be proud of, that have risen to the top through merit. May the best man win, etc. Imagine how it would be with a Mosconi cup atmosphere in the Phillipines, China, Taiwan, Germany, England, Poland, The Netherlands, Canada etc when your team came to visit. Nation vs. Nation competing in a sportsmanlike manner. Nobody will be an instant millionaire from this, but there is a chance to make a decent living I think and some respect from the viewing audience and maybe even the Olympic commitee one day. Sponsorship should be possible to get as well. Maybe in the future when you tell someone you are a poolplayer they will think athlete/competitor instead of huster....
Great post... (site would not let me give you green rep again...., I guess I must have liked one of your other posts as well, LOL)
To the previous comment made by someone else, that "we've tried it all before..." We have not tried a national LEAGUE based on billiard club participation, playing no-handicap pool, and a sanctioning body who genuinely cares about the long term viability of the sport...
It works in Germany and other European countries who's governments care about "sport" and people join clubs based on specific common interest. Pool thrives there in a scene that is not dominated by gambling.
The biggest challenges we have in the USA are plentiful... For starters, nobody at the highest levels really gives a crap. And the long geographic distances between would-be clubs and team sites makes a regional or national masters league type scenario extremely expensive and time consuming for the players. Granted, the distance can be overcome with money, but overcoming the lack of leadership from the BCA, APA, or whatever other organizations exist out there who might be able to pull something like this together is insurmountable with the present mindset. Also, there's the attitude of players to consider. Many American top level players wouldn't be caught dead being part of a league.
And then there's the whole snarky mindset... "sure, that guy can win the world championship racing sets to 7, but could he beat ________ in a race to 100 for $10,000?"
Having seen and lived both sides (20 years living in Germany) I think pool culture is too far gone in the USA to make any kind of dramatic shift to cultural respectability... Let's just face it, pool here at the global level is doomed. With what I'm reading about possible hustler/gambler shows about to hit the airwaves, I've pretty much lost all hope that pool will ever find it's way out of the American cultural sewer. It seems to me that most people playing the game nowadays are perfectly comfortable leaving it that way, too.
Local and regional tournaments is about all that is available for up and coming players to try to "break into"... We just need to get used to it and accept it for what it is. At the end of the day, I'm just thankful that I live in an area where I still have access to a few decent pool halls that don't look to be in fear of closing anytime soon.
but i'll post this here, too - "Earl got >1000 tweets from fans begging him to come back that the Cup was horrible and lacked passion".
