So many things have combined to hurt pool.
Video games definately did damage but you can go farther back and say the invention of the home television did not help either. Right at the time the golden era of straight pool ended was when TV's started to become common. People could suddenly entertain themselves at home and going out to watch the theater, a picture show, watch some pool, ect... was no longer needed. People used to have to "go out" to entertain themselves because their home was a bed, a kitchen, a washroom, and maybe a radio to listen to. People got bored and they went out and that helped pool get people watching.
The game changed from one that people knew and that was simple in straight pool to 9-ball. Pro's have been playing 9-ball for over 40 years now and as far as the general public goes it NEVER caught on. In that time 8-ball has become the most recognized and understood game by the public. We MUST go to 8-ball if we want to get some fans into the game because they don't understand the game, and they don't want to bother trying to.
In many ways the game is getting easier as well. Technology advances with pool equipment, chalk, cloth, it all helps to make ALL of the players play better pool. And with the current 4.5 inch cut diamond tables the game is simply not hard enough at the pro level. Amature players slip into the cracks, they upset the pros by getting a couple good breaks, a lucky safe, and poof they win. It wrecks one of the key requirements in sports, the top tier stars. Every sport needs their Tiger Woods, they need their Roger Federer, they need their Wayne Gretzky. Pool on 9 foot diamonds with 4.5 inch pockets is not, and will not create them in the races we are stuck playing (race to 11 at the peak for double KO events). We need the new 10-foot diamond tables with the same 4 1/8th inch pockets of the TAR table and we need to put the pros on those tables. The pro's need hard equipment that challenges them, but that will absolutely crush the top amature players that step in and think they can compete (this is assuming an actual and tour card exculsive pro tour).
It is also becomming exceedingly harder to find a decent pool hall to play at on this continent. A place where people want to go out and practice and play. We have some struggling family billiards places that the kids justifiably think are lame, and we get trendy and expensive sports bar/pool rooms kids cannot even enter. When I was younger we had pool halls that were classy, but kids could get into them before 8pm and play.
A kids program that introduced students to pool in school would also be hugely useful, someone could create a tournament system where 2 or 3 kids win the right to play for their school in the city championships against kids from other schools, the top three from each city/district get to play in the State Championships, and the winners of that play in the Nationals which would then be the qualifier to the World Juniors. Something like this done right could gain massive exposure for the game in not only building rising pool stars but also huge scores of fans and amature players who watch the pool when they are in school and get hooked on it. It would require table sponshership from a company like diamond, it would require people interested in each city in getting in touch with the school directors and explaining the game and the advantages of having their students take part, and it would benefit greatly from professional pool players who took some small amounts of time to visit a different school once each week to shoot with the kids, teach them some shots, give them some tips and some pointers and some drills to work on.
The benefits from it all? You get diamond firing off 2 tables to each school in a city of lets say 20 schools, that is 40 tables. Those 40 tables get some quick interest from the students with a little cheap poster marketing in the hallways, perhaps a exhibition between two professional pool players to set things off in a Gym assembly. You are going to get alot of kids interested in playing. Lets say 20 kids in the school who start to play really get into it, they become pool adicts like us. They start practicing like crazy, they start getting good, it spurs the other kids into wanting to get better, and diamond just might see a sale or 2 of tables coming from parents who see pool is something their kid is really interested in. My own parents bought a pool table for me when they saw how much the game helped me open up and become more of a social person as I found a niche I was good at and felt comfortable in.
Those pro's donating their time? They benefit from the fact that these kids who play, they are going to want to watch live pool, alot of them. You have those 20 schools near Cheasapeak and the US-Open, well now there are 400 kids who are playing the game in their school and they REALLY want to go watch the pro tournament and see some of the guys they even know because they teach them at their school. So student AND parents get drug out to the tournament, even if you get half of the kids and only one of the 2 parent chaparones that is still 400 people through the door, a huge boost for Barry. Now the booth people also has some kids, fairly new to the game, quite possibly don't own their own cue or case yet, and the booths do good business. They come back next year for sure, and a few more as well because they heard what happen and all those new people coming in that were prospective customers, now Barry is making more money and the prize fund goes up. This is starting to have far reaching economic benefits.
And guess what, with all these kids playing across the whole country expect to see ALOT more table sales, diamond is liable to see an initial cost in donating all of the tables but over the long run those kids graduation, many get jobs, and they will want their own table. At the very least they are going to want a good pool hall near buy with nice tables, and diamond will be selling those as well. It would push the pool table sales far higher then they are today and help rebuild the pool halls along with giving them a steady stream of new players coming out of high school.
The next step after all that was sorted would be to work on a university model of the same type of thing, but instead of the World Juniors the top players from each university as decided by tournaments in their home university would compete against the best players at other universities in Bowl types of events where one school beats another school for a specific trophy for that year. This type of stuff could be built, it could happen, and it would world. But it will take some time, it would require a real commitment from a table manufaturer that was willing to donate alot of tables on the thought that it will innevitably pay them back many fold in the long run when the game gets 200 fold the interest and support it has right now.
Of course the final boon? Once you have stuff like that going on, that many people comming to tournaments, watching pool in state championships and televised national championships (the spelling bee is televised, we can get this televised), the sponsers are going to be ALOT more interested in getting involved in this and getting involved in a big way too.
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