I was bored, this is LONG.
The biggest chance pool has atm comes from the BCAPL. I think the professional game needs to be 8-ball played on tight pocketed 9-foot and potentially even tight pocket (4 1/4) 10-foot tables once they are available. I think the game needs a proper amature system that is linked to the professional ranks and in time after a professional tour is worked out the BCAPL should slowly be altered to become a farm system for the pros such that people climb the ranks in BCAPL divisions and winners at the top ranks in the BCAPL tournament in Vegas earn tour cards onto the professional tour.
As the BCAPL would be the official entry into the pro ranks I think that the BCAPL league fees should in part go into the professional game. I would happily pay $2 a night of my league fees which go into professional pool IF I am playing in events that actually lead to that tour. The money earned by the league systems, by sponsership, ect... goes towards paying for the professional events, there are NO ENTRY FEES for the professional tournaments, the money comes from sponsers and the pool of money from the league system.
If the BCAPL has 100,000 (I am pretty sure I am lowballing this bigtime) players total playing league in their system and you tacked on $2 per a night on average to the league fees for each person, each person playing lets say a standardized 25 week schedual that is $50 a year from each player in the league system that would be going to the professional game. That is $5,000,000 that goes into the pro game. And it is in the words of Mark Griffin "Self Sustaining" because the amature ranks are going nowhere, and the attraction of playing in the league system that becomes the OFFICIAL league system of professional pool is not a small one. Amature players in all sports normally want to play in the same system that eventually leads to the professionals they watch on TV.
You enforce this point home by having one of the major pro events in Vegas during the nationals, showing the pro's playing the pro game of 8-ball which has the EXACT same rules as the amature game but is played on the larger tables with the smaller pockets. And those guys are NOT paying to play that event, it is a true professional event and required a tour card to get in and it has NO entry fee, and it has at the minimum of about $420,000 (1/12th of the $5,000,000 the league system puts in) as a prize pool assuming NO sponsership money was added.
You also really push the point home that many of the amature matches at the upper ranks are being played for TOUR CARDS, you announce "Jason Kirkwood and Jesse Bowman are about to play a semi-final match in the Grand Masters and the winner will be assured to earn their professional tour card for the 2013 season!", and people go "wow, I play in this same league system, all I gotta do is get better and climb the ranks and that might be me one day".
Now with that kind of money pro pool becomes ALOT more attractive to not only players, but fans, AND sponsors because money tends to go where the money is, if you can tell Souhtwest Airlines you want sponsership into a tour that has a pool of $5,000,000 already to spread around to 12 yearly events (one a month) you are alot more likely to get a decent chunk of change. The tournament they are thinking about sponsering already has ~$420,000 in the prize fund, the players who are going to play in the event are the touring professionals, and they get a couple sponser exemptions if they so desire. Standard sponsership might be $200,000 in order for the event to become the "Southwest Open", their official tourament with large banners, their company logo being incorperated into the tournament logo showing a plane and such.
This tournament would have a $620,000 prize pool just with a single sponser like that, and you know that Diamond is going to take part, Simonis, Aramith, possibly Kamui, and extra money will be coming in from things like that. In a 64 man professional tour, which is probably about the right size that $620,000 prize pool averages to almost $10,000/player. Of course you are not going to pay off everyone the same, but the guys who get last place can still get $2,000 and thus being on the pro tour has a minimum guarenteed income. If an amature wins his way to the professional tour, even if he is outmatched and cannot win their (and will thus lose his player card the subsequent year for not being in the top 48) just winning that tour card is going to guarentee him money for every event he gets to play.
So with JUST $2 a night from league players you could actually build a very decent pool of money to start a professional tour. You could link the amature game to the professional game through the BCAPL and make the BCAPL the most dominant amature league system out there due to that connection, making the BCAPL the farm system of pro pool, a PGAesque qualifying school, and likely in time this would help the BCAPL bleed players away from the VNEA and APA and strengthen their own league system with more players since the players of the amature game are going to want to be associated with what would become the true official professional tour of billiards in North America.
As the BCAPL grows like that, so does that influx of money that goes into the pro game, 200,000 players in the BCAPL would equate to $10,000,000 a year going towards the pro game. Once you start getting money like that pool starts to look more attractive to fans, to sponsers, and it starts to build upon itself.
If I had the BCAPL and I really wanted to do something to attempt to grow pool that is what I would do. I would start charging $2 more per a night for league starting in the 2012 new season, that money would go into a pro pool fund aimed at building a tour, I would explain to the players about the price increase, the upcomming professional tour being built around the game they play, 8-ball, I would tell them the first tournament ever on the tour will be in Vegas during their nationals and it will be free to watch for all members, I would have a FREE stream that would be viewable for any members not able to make it to Vegas.
I would tell the players that the upcomming BCAPL Nationals will also be the first ones where the division structure would be altered from it's current state to 1) Intermediate, 2) Advanced, 3) Masters, and 4) Grand Masters" and that current ranking as they stand in the BCAPL would be used to ascertain where people would be placed initially. The tournament in Vegas would award 16 tour cards each year out of the Grand Masters tournament to replace the lowest 16 players from the tour who lose their cards the previous year from the total of 64 players.
Qualification to play in the Grand Masters would require a finish in the top 25% of the Masters tournament, playing in the Masters would require a finish in the top 25% of the Advanced, playing in the Advanced requires a finish in the top 25% of the Intermediate. Getting in the bottom 25% of the Grandmasters in 2 consecutive years would require you to play in the Masters, getting in the bottom 25% of the Masters for two consecutive years would require you to drop into the Advanced, and getting into the bottom 25% of the Advanced for 2 consecutive years would drop you to the lowest division, the Intermediate.
Finalists of each division (both 1st and second place) skip a division. Thus the guy who wins or gets 2nd the Intermediate plays in the Masters the following year, the guy who wins or gets 2nd in the Advanced plays in the Grand Masters the following year.
So the amature level of the BCAPL would become ALOT more structured to actually being the "minor leagues" leading to professional pool.
That is IMO one of the few things that I actually think COULD be done that would have a chance to change the game for the better over the course of the next decade considerably. And I think that the BCAPL could actually, conceivably do it, it is actually possible and it could actually work.
The biggest chance pool has atm comes from the BCAPL. I think the professional game needs to be 8-ball played on tight pocketed 9-foot and potentially even tight pocket (4 1/4) 10-foot tables once they are available. I think the game needs a proper amature system that is linked to the professional ranks and in time after a professional tour is worked out the BCAPL should slowly be altered to become a farm system for the pros such that people climb the ranks in BCAPL divisions and winners at the top ranks in the BCAPL tournament in Vegas earn tour cards onto the professional tour.
As the BCAPL would be the official entry into the pro ranks I think that the BCAPL league fees should in part go into the professional game. I would happily pay $2 a night of my league fees which go into professional pool IF I am playing in events that actually lead to that tour. The money earned by the league systems, by sponsership, ect... goes towards paying for the professional events, there are NO ENTRY FEES for the professional tournaments, the money comes from sponsers and the pool of money from the league system.
If the BCAPL has 100,000 (I am pretty sure I am lowballing this bigtime) players total playing league in their system and you tacked on $2 per a night on average to the league fees for each person, each person playing lets say a standardized 25 week schedual that is $50 a year from each player in the league system that would be going to the professional game. That is $5,000,000 that goes into the pro game. And it is in the words of Mark Griffin "Self Sustaining" because the amature ranks are going nowhere, and the attraction of playing in the league system that becomes the OFFICIAL league system of professional pool is not a small one. Amature players in all sports normally want to play in the same system that eventually leads to the professionals they watch on TV.
You enforce this point home by having one of the major pro events in Vegas during the nationals, showing the pro's playing the pro game of 8-ball which has the EXACT same rules as the amature game but is played on the larger tables with the smaller pockets. And those guys are NOT paying to play that event, it is a true professional event and required a tour card to get in and it has NO entry fee, and it has at the minimum of about $420,000 (1/12th of the $5,000,000 the league system puts in) as a prize pool assuming NO sponsership money was added.
You also really push the point home that many of the amature matches at the upper ranks are being played for TOUR CARDS, you announce "Jason Kirkwood and Jesse Bowman are about to play a semi-final match in the Grand Masters and the winner will be assured to earn their professional tour card for the 2013 season!", and people go "wow, I play in this same league system, all I gotta do is get better and climb the ranks and that might be me one day".
Now with that kind of money pro pool becomes ALOT more attractive to not only players, but fans, AND sponsors because money tends to go where the money is, if you can tell Souhtwest Airlines you want sponsership into a tour that has a pool of $5,000,000 already to spread around to 12 yearly events (one a month) you are alot more likely to get a decent chunk of change. The tournament they are thinking about sponsering already has ~$420,000 in the prize fund, the players who are going to play in the event are the touring professionals, and they get a couple sponser exemptions if they so desire. Standard sponsership might be $200,000 in order for the event to become the "Southwest Open", their official tourament with large banners, their company logo being incorperated into the tournament logo showing a plane and such.
This tournament would have a $620,000 prize pool just with a single sponser like that, and you know that Diamond is going to take part, Simonis, Aramith, possibly Kamui, and extra money will be coming in from things like that. In a 64 man professional tour, which is probably about the right size that $620,000 prize pool averages to almost $10,000/player. Of course you are not going to pay off everyone the same, but the guys who get last place can still get $2,000 and thus being on the pro tour has a minimum guarenteed income. If an amature wins his way to the professional tour, even if he is outmatched and cannot win their (and will thus lose his player card the subsequent year for not being in the top 48) just winning that tour card is going to guarentee him money for every event he gets to play.
So with JUST $2 a night from league players you could actually build a very decent pool of money to start a professional tour. You could link the amature game to the professional game through the BCAPL and make the BCAPL the most dominant amature league system out there due to that connection, making the BCAPL the farm system of pro pool, a PGAesque qualifying school, and likely in time this would help the BCAPL bleed players away from the VNEA and APA and strengthen their own league system with more players since the players of the amature game are going to want to be associated with what would become the true official professional tour of billiards in North America.
As the BCAPL grows like that, so does that influx of money that goes into the pro game, 200,000 players in the BCAPL would equate to $10,000,000 a year going towards the pro game. Once you start getting money like that pool starts to look more attractive to fans, to sponsers, and it starts to build upon itself.
If I had the BCAPL and I really wanted to do something to attempt to grow pool that is what I would do. I would start charging $2 more per a night for league starting in the 2012 new season, that money would go into a pro pool fund aimed at building a tour, I would explain to the players about the price increase, the upcomming professional tour being built around the game they play, 8-ball, I would tell them the first tournament ever on the tour will be in Vegas during their nationals and it will be free to watch for all members, I would have a FREE stream that would be viewable for any members not able to make it to Vegas.
I would tell the players that the upcomming BCAPL Nationals will also be the first ones where the division structure would be altered from it's current state to 1) Intermediate, 2) Advanced, 3) Masters, and 4) Grand Masters" and that current ranking as they stand in the BCAPL would be used to ascertain where people would be placed initially. The tournament in Vegas would award 16 tour cards each year out of the Grand Masters tournament to replace the lowest 16 players from the tour who lose their cards the previous year from the total of 64 players.
Qualification to play in the Grand Masters would require a finish in the top 25% of the Masters tournament, playing in the Masters would require a finish in the top 25% of the Advanced, playing in the Advanced requires a finish in the top 25% of the Intermediate. Getting in the bottom 25% of the Grandmasters in 2 consecutive years would require you to play in the Masters, getting in the bottom 25% of the Masters for two consecutive years would require you to drop into the Advanced, and getting into the bottom 25% of the Advanced for 2 consecutive years would drop you to the lowest division, the Intermediate.
Finalists of each division (both 1st and second place) skip a division. Thus the guy who wins or gets 2nd the Intermediate plays in the Masters the following year, the guy who wins or gets 2nd in the Advanced plays in the Grand Masters the following year.
So the amature level of the BCAPL would become ALOT more structured to actually being the "minor leagues" leading to professional pool.
That is IMO one of the few things that I actually think COULD be done that would have a chance to change the game for the better over the course of the next decade considerably. And I think that the BCAPL could actually, conceivably do it, it is actually possible and it could actually work.
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