Old Nine Baller
Banned
How about starting a thread about "building up pool from programs such as the Mosconi Cup" and see how popular it is. You may be on to something here.
ONB
What Does The Public Really Want?
- Thread starter Old Nine Baller
- Start date
How about starting a thread about "building up pool from programs such as the Mosconi Cup" and see how popular it is. You may be on to something here.
ONB
How about this. Get X amount of pros together have em do a blind draw and play scotch dbls. Have two of our best amateur gorgeous young pool shooting ladies break each game for each team, then let the pros go at it. Simple, fun and could get allot of laughs. Unknowns create entertainment, this outcome of play would be ''unknown'' but hey it's entertainment, not who wins and gets the most money.
Here's a couple dream teams. Blind draw em and start the show.
Alex P. and Darren Appleton
SVB and Busty
Justin Hall and Rafael Martinez
Paul Potier and Corey
and so on. Could be allot of FUN.:thumbup:
Here's a couple dream teams. Blind draw em and start the show.
Alex P. and Darren Appleton
SVB and Busty
Justin Hall and Rafael Martinez
Paul Potier and Corey
and so on. Could be allot of FUN.:thumbup:
You might get people to watch this, but will you get parents to let their kids go to the poolhall? Pools biggest problem as far as I can see both in Europe and the US is recruitment. It is a complete joke when your best so called "up and coming" players are in their thirties. This is a serious problem. Pool doesn't have such a bad rep in my country as in the US, but still when I was a kid and told my mother that I wanted to play pool, she looked at me rather funny. She said that pool was for bums and lowlives and refused to let me spend my money on things like that. I played soccer and table tennis instead and didn't start playing pool seriously until I had reached adulthood. I think she was less worried about me going abroad with the army than hanging around in pool halls all day!:grin:
I honestly belive what I wrote in the post above, that if pool could get respect as sport (and I think the national team concept might be the ticket) then the recruitment situation could improve. Improved image => improved recruitment=> better results/play=> tv time => profit :grin:
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The title of the thread was "What Does The Public Really Want? I gave my opinion on that question. Sorry
. Someones going to make a show like you describe in the future probably. It will likely be as good of an advertisement for pool as "Honey Boo Boo" is for childrens beauty pageants. That gave me an idea actually. Maybe you could do a crossover episode with Honey Boo Boo. One of the people in the Honey Boo Boo show could travel around hustling pool to earn money for pageants. Then you could script in some confrontations in the pool hall, they could get dumped and robbed etc. Maybe they could meet some drug addict loser in some skid row pool hall and he could hook up with one of the female characters. I'm loving this idea it will be so wonderful.
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The title of the thread was "What Does The Public Really Want? I gave my opinion on that question. Sorry
I think you might have missed the second sentence in his post, I think he was literally suggesting you do that to gauge the popularity of the idea and generate ideas. I don't think he was knocking you, though it comes off that way if only get the fist sentence.
If you want something to stimulate TV visit, having characters, antics, hustling, etc would likely sell. However, that's not necessarily something that would promote pool. That same Mother who enjoys the show may also see that as reason to never let her husband or children play. Interesting conundrum.
Clean cut, no, we are no longer a formal country wrt dress
Honest, yes
Church going, no
gambling, no
dumping, no
sharking, no
mechanical, no
robotic, no
But after all of the above; you still have to retain the property that you carry yourself in the game in such a manner as the average TV watcher would enjoy a beer with you.
SANDY LAUBE
Registered
Hi Everyone! I do returns for several people working on the CHicago productions and they all said the time is right for another pool or mini series. They all wanted me to sit down and write my story. But, I am still working and have no time. They loved the scary haunted incidents happening in my home that drove me to find an answer. Well you all know I finally found my Dad on ancestry and was a DNA match to one of my cousins. My Dad was born in 1912 and they thought a movie starting with the haunting and flash backs to my Dad's life in pool halls with all the people he met along the way. They loved the picture of my Mom that showed up in an AL Capone book. Unfortunately, people that could have helped me such as Freddie and George are no longer here to help me, so my story will probably never be told. Just wanted everyone to know that my clients working on productions feel the time is right for another pool movie.
People like to take a break from their everyday hum drum lives and live vicariously thru their favorite tv shows and actors.
Showing the under belly of pool, gambling, drinking, hustling, loud raucousness probably has its place along with the other reality shows these days.
But then, you butt heads with the purists that wish folks would see pool as a sport and leave it alone. It is a sport, was, maybe, hopefully some day.
You decide which you would prefer.
Showing the under belly of pool, gambling, drinking, hustling, loud raucousness probably has its place along with the other reality shows these days.
But then, you butt heads with the purists that wish folks would see pool as a sport and leave it alone. It is a sport, was, maybe, hopefully some day.
You decide which you would prefer.
... and roll dice every couple of shots to see if a women is to be the shooter instead of the man who's turn it would normally be to shoot; do this at random intervals, or maybe before every shot, or every other game or whatever, but in any event the ladies have to immediately take the shot or play safe anytime the dice roll is a double (double entendre, right there) and continue through the end of that inning,
and the guys have to let them complete the inning, but men coaching women is allowed but only if requested (MUST turn on the 'men explain things to me" revolving light.)
Are you saying that there aren't those kinds of people in the pool room? Come down south and I'll show you some.
I've got bad news for you slide...reality shows are scripted. They are very professionally produced by a directing crew that calls every shot, every line and every facial expression. You deliver the line that the writer wrote and you frown when the director says to frown. Reality shows are not The Amateur Hour.
"everybody tries to rob everyone else" is pretty boring. A show about pool (reality or drama) can't succeed without the two most popular ingredients in entertainment: sex and violence. Drugs and ruined lives are good draws but harder to work into the plot (sex and violence are so good you don't even have to work them into the plot; just put them in and they work). If the focus group audiences get bored we'll throw in a car chase.
Any successful "pool show" won't be about pool. It will be about drunken guys hooking their girlfriend to get enough money to bet on the next match. When the loser doesn't pay he gets beat within an inch of his life.
Be very careful what you wish for.
"not for nothin' ",
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".i'm just sayin'.... what yáll choose to do with it, is entirely up to you.
What Does The Public Really Want? Maybe they'd like to watch a champion that everyone has heard about. Like Mosconi and Hoppe did in their heyday. In the book "McGoorty", McGoorty had said that Brunswick didn't "groom" anyone to take Hoppe's place. In a similar light, nobody seems interested in marketing/promoting a current top player to where he/she becomes a household name thus promoting the game indirectly. I think more people have heard of the Black Widow than SVB. Something's terribly wrong here. Our game deserves more, lots more.
Yes, in China, due to the success of players like Ding Jun Hui and Pan Xiao Ting and to some degree in the UK and Europe due to the perception of successful snooker players.
US players are not making money these days, so you'll need to fabricate such a concept if you want to attract people who represent a demographic that advertisers are looking for.... as they do for golf.
How boring is Law? But the banter / hustle in the TV series Suits makes them seem like geniuses who can make millions. That kind of writing could make a couple of genius pool players / hustlers attractive to a wide audience.
Just one more thought.... Caddyshack is loved by nearly all golfers, despite it showing the worst sides of the game. Sport is culture, and it needs to have a laugh at itself sometimes.
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Very good observation, Colin.
Here on AZB, you and I have conversed about "The Hustler" vs "The Color of Money" at times over the years. I've often observed that "The Hustler" was about life with pool as its vehicle while "The Color of Money" was a movie largely about pool and its countless competitive and psychological aspects. In "The Color of Money," we were intrigued by the panoramic view of serious pool. I've always contended that "The Color of Money" is the best pool movie but that "The Hustler" is the better of the two movies.
Caddyshack is, on balance, a movie abut snobbery, and golf is its vehicle. It is not about serious golf and snobbery is something we all like to laugh at. When pool is the backdrop of a movie having more universal themes, a good movie can be the result, but most movies ABOUT pool or about golf (such as "Bobby Jones: Strokes of Genius) have a more selective appeal.
And then what? Let's assume this seedy reality show thing actually works. As a pool fan, what I really would like to see is a viable organized pro tour. If a reality show would help get us there, I would be in favor. But I don't see that happening.
If the message of the reality show is that the real pool action and money takes place in back rooms full of hustlers and drug dealers, I don't see how that would make people more interested in actual professional pool. It might be a successful show, but I don't see it helping out pro pool.
Beyond that, trying to do a reality show about pool hustling has inherent problems. One of them is that being followed around by a TV crew is probably going to knock someone's action. "Hi, I'm doing a show about beating suckers out of their money. Want to play me? If you do, sign this TV waiver."
The other thing is that the money in the "underground pool scene" is really really small. Two guys matching up for 20K is a huge game in the pool world, but in the TV world, 20K is nothing.
We just had one of the most exciting pool events I've ever seen in the Mosconi cup. 1000 screaming fans showed up four days in a row to watch professional, high quality pool playing. That's what we should be trying to replicate.
If the message of the reality show is that the real pool action and money takes place in back rooms full of hustlers and drug dealers, I don't see how that would make people more interested in actual professional pool. It might be a successful show, but I don't see it helping out pro pool.
Beyond that, trying to do a reality show about pool hustling has inherent problems. One of them is that being followed around by a TV crew is probably going to knock someone's action. "Hi, I'm doing a show about beating suckers out of their money. Want to play me? If you do, sign this TV waiver."
The other thing is that the money in the "underground pool scene" is really really small. Two guys matching up for 20K is a huge game in the pool world, but in the TV world, 20K is nothing.
We just had one of the most exciting pool events I've ever seen in the Mosconi cup. 1000 screaming fans showed up four days in a row to watch professional, high quality pool playing. That's what we should be trying to replicate.
I grew up playing at the legendary "Golden Q" poolroom in Elmhurst, Queens, NY in the late 70's and early 80's. One of the regulars was a cop who walked the beat in Brooklyn. He made the comment to me that "anytime pool players are betting $1,000 or more, there is a gun in the room." This was based on his experience both as a player and a cop. Perhaps it's $5,000 today, but the point is that where their is big action, criminals or would-be criminals are usually present.
It's best that parents remain unaware of the big action scene ---- then they might even encourage their kids to play pool. The wrong reality show could do some damage --- and the right one could help.
"not for nothin' ",
i'm just sayin'.... what yáll choose to do with it, is entirely up to you.
Perspective:
1000 people is about 1/50th of the registered users on this forum and 1/250th of the APA membership.