What I think would finally grow pool. (BCAPL/Pro/8-ball connection)

[MitchAlsup]

But on the flip side I can also see where being a "pro" pool player atm is a joke. Putting in $2000 for a chance to win money in a tournament is not being a professional anything. Professionals in sports don't pay to play, they GET paid to play. The PGA does not make tour card holding professional golfers pay entry fees into events from what I am aware, nor from what I know would the ATP World tour of tennis. Once you actually spend the time and money and energy it takes to become a professional calibre player and prove yourself as such you are rewarded with the professional ranking and you get to enter and play in the exclusive events without an entry fee. Professional golfers and professional tennis players are not paying entry fees and building their own pots, it is the fans of the sport paying to watch the sport and sponsers that are putting up the funds.

The pro golfers and pro tennis players DO have to pay for their transportation, room, board, entertainment, supplies, and equiptment maintanence. Compared to the rest of that stuff, entrance fees are "a pittance."

Now, it is true that special pros have sponcers that cover a majority or entirety of fees and expences.....

I agree that leagues are not "there" to feed professional ranks either with warm bodies or money, even if a few league player are in league for the experience necessary to move forward.

A profession (basically) has to support itself, either through the spectacle of the play (golf, auto racing, football) and in front of enough people, or through event sponsers who end up using the outlays as if the event were pure advertizing (win on Sunday, sell on Monday).

 

[Scott Lee]

I agree with this post. In fact, aspiring PGA pros DO have to 'pay to play'. They have the expenses of traveling to, attending, and 'making the grade' at Q School. If they don't pass Q School they do not get their PGA credentials, and are relagated to smaller tours. The number of significantly 'sponsored' American players can be counted on one hand.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

The pro golfers and pro tennis players DO have to pay for their transportation, room, board, entertainment, supplies, and equiptment maintanence. Compared to the rest of that stuff, entrance fees are "a pittance."

Now, it is true that special pros have sponcers that cover a majority or entirety of fees and expences.....

I agree that leagues are not "there" to feed professional ranks either with warm bodies or money, even if a few league player are in league for the experience necessary to move forward.

A profession (basically) has to support itself, either through the spectacle of the play (golf, auto racing, football) and in front of enough people, or through event sponsers who end up using the outlays as if the event were pure advertizing (win on Sunday, sell on Monday).

 

[Celtic]

And that too is totally fine, but posters are talking about taking money out of MY pockets so THEY can go see "actual" pro pool. This is what I'm against and why I think it shoud be done on a voluntary basis.

It is completely voluntary, noone would ever force you to play the league and you would have free will to decide to play in another league system that was not connected to the professional ranks. This would be a league system aimed at competitive pool players.

I need to ask you, do you even "play" the singles in the BCAPL in Vegas?

The pro golfers and pro tennis players DO have to pay for their transportation, room, board, entertainment, supplies, and equiptment maintanence.

Where did I claim otherwise? I was talking about the entry fees, and I stated that really clearly. Why build a straw man arguement about travel and food and hotel, which the pros would not have covered just like any other sport? The professional tour would have minimum payouts in the tournaments for the pro players, so if you lose 2 and out you win a reasonable chuck of money, and that can help cover the costs of playing in the event, but it was NEVER stated that costs beyond the entry fee to the event would be covered outright, and even that is something of a misnomer because in truth there are no entry fees into the events at all, they are invite only.

 

[Banks]

But on the flip side I can also see where being a "pro" pool player atm is a joke. Putting in $2000 for a chance to win money in a tournament is not being a professional anything. Professionals in sports don't pay to play, they GET paid to play. The PGA does not make tour card holding professional golfers pay entry fees into events from what I am aware, nor from what I know would the ATP World tour of tennis.

If the fans of this sport are of the mind that they want to put $0, absolutely nothing into the professional game whatsoever this sport is in serious trouble because fans of sports that are successful DO spend money on those sports, they spend alot of money for tickets to watch them, they buy special channels on cable to watch the games of their favorite teams, they buy jerseys, they buy $10 beers at the game and $5 hotdogs. A single night out to watch a successful sports team play a regular season game after paying for the ticket, the parking, the beer and a hotdog will ding you for $100 easily.

I'm with Maniac on this one. While the $1 idea doesn't sound that bad.. why in the world would I listen to the business advice of somebody that chooses a profession that pays $20,000 a year with no insurance. Perhaps they'd be willing to fund, through grade-school art classes, my finger painting art, using jello pudding.

People go to pro basketball and baseball games because in those games you see things that you know you'll never, ever be able to do like they do. When a great pool player is in the game, it is made to look very easy, instead of the other way around. It simply does not have the draw for recreational folks.

Same with the gambling thing.. they can run around mouthing off, gambling $5-50K sets, but bleed out the end when asked to pony up for a weekend tournament with a $100+ entry fee?

I briefly worked at a place that hosted PGA events. One of the competitors, possibly in a lower-end/non-PGA event, was whining about the costs of accomodations(he was staying at the resort) and the high ($1,000 or more.. $2000?) entry fee. That event paid more than the typical pool event. If you had big names, big fees and a decent added, there would be some good payouts and more people would be involved. Instead, players walk in with their $3,000 cues and ***** about a $1 or $2 bottle of water.

Here's from the PGA's site in regards to the changes made in 2006.. it was one of the first things that came up in a search for PGA entry fees.
...
Three primary changes will be made to the 2006 Qualifying Tournament which include the addition of Pre-Qualifying, multiple entry deadlines and a new entry fee structure. Entry applications will be available by the first week of July.

Change 1:
Pre-Qualifying competitions are scheduled to be conducted September 19-22, 2006, and September 26-29, 2006. Applicants that are not eligible to begin play at First, Second, or Final Qualifying Stage are required to play in Pre-Qualifying. The entry fee for Pre-Qualifying is $2,500 with an additional fee of $2,500 for successful Pre-Qualifying contestants in order to play in First Qualifying Stage. The additional $2,500 fee for successful Pre-Qualifiers makes their total entry fee $5,000.
...
That's for PRE-qualifying.. here's the rest of the breakdown..
...
Change 3:
A new entry fee structure which allows applicants that enter early to pay a lower fee than those that wait until closer to the entry deadline. The entry fee amount is based on the date the application is received at PGA TOUR Headquarters and the fee structure is as follows:

Pre-Qualifying: Received on or before August 16, 2006
Received on or before August 30, 2006
$2,250
$2,500
First Stage: Received on or before September 6, 2006
Received on or before September 20, 2006
Received on or before October 4, 2006
$4,250
$4,500
$5,000
Second Stage: Received on or before September 6, 2006
Received on or before September 20, 2006
Received on or before October 4, 2006
$3,750
$4,000
$4,250
Final Stage: Received on or before September 6, 2006
Received on or before September 20, 2006
Received on or before October 4, 2006
$3,250
$3,500
$3,750
...

Maybe you'll admire the PGA players a little more the next time they're on, even if they're not on the leader's board. :thumbup:

It's all about demand..

Leagues are great, too. APA, BCA or whatever floats yer boat!

 

[Jodacus]

We have nothing left

As consumers and taxpayers we sponsor a huge number of things indirectly. If you bought Simonis cloth for your table some of your money went to pro players through their sponsorship. Golf club and tennis racket purchases sponsor events. How is a dollar or two in league fees any different? If these ideas were implemented a few players would leave the leagues but the vast majority would stay. Maybe a few more league players would feel as though they had a stake in the outcome of the pro matches and be more inclined to watch or even travel to the event. Maybe the other leagues would be willing to participate in some way if the BCAPL demonstrated some degree of success.

At this point our sport is slowly but inevitably dying.

What do we have left to loose?

Jo

 

[rcarson]

If we could build regional Tour's across America that would go a long way to promote the Sport. Currently we only have Tour's in the South and East Coast, and a few places in between. We are definitely missing Tour's on the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest. We could essentially build a "North American Tour" and bring in sponsors and players from Canada. Have Qualifying Tours in each Region that covered 3-4 states/1-2 provinces. That would keep travel expenses down for most players. If we had open, amateur, and junior tours spread out in North America we would then have leverage to pull in big sponsors. In the end it comes down to leverage and visibility, we don't have either at the moment.

 

[DogsPlayingPool]

Why don't we just hold a telethon every year?

 

[jdxprs]

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.

no offense, but if you are into politics, you must be a democrat. expecting the masses to support a lifestyle for a few sucks in my opinion.

last weekend oscar domingez (sp? sorry) and Raj Hundle played a challenge match for THOUSANDS of dollars right? If they can put together that much money for a 3 day event involving players that NO mainstream league players have ever heard of, imagine what they could do if the big name players put their egos aside and worked together to do something year round.

The real answer is, has been, and always will be corporate sponsorships. These companies that make billions of dollars and can write off a few million in sponsorship fees as an advertising expense could put pool right on the map.

 

[Drew]

no offense, but if you are into politics, you must be a democrat. expecting the masses to support a lifestyle for a few sucks in my opinion.

last weekend oscar domingez (sp? sorry) and Raj Hundle played a challenge match for THOUSANDS of dollars right? If they can put together that much money for a 3 day event involving players that NO mainstream league players have ever heard of, imagine what they could do if the big name players put their egos aside and worked together to do something year round.

The real answer is, has been, and always will be corporate sponsorships. These companies that make billions of dollars and can write off a few million in sponsorship fees as an advertising expense could put pool right on the map.

LMAO...who's the democrat??

"Eh...no problem. Just let the rich guys handle it."

Those companies don't make billions of dollars by throwing money away. Seems a little backwards. You actually have to sell them something. That's what the OP was about.

 

[jdxprs]

LMAO...who's the democrat??

"Eh...no problem. Just let the rich guys handle it."

Those companies don't make billions of dollars by throwing money away. Seems a little backwards. You actually have to sell them something. That's what the OP was about.

take a look at what companies pay to put their name on football stadiums.

when companies advertise, they are putting their name out there to achieve "branding".

the key is to find companies that have a target market with things in common with the type of people who play and watch pool.

If pool was on espn, the viewership would increase, and so would the companies that would want to buy advertising time during the events.

 

[Celtic]

The real answer is, has been, and always will be corporate sponsorships. These companies that make billions of dollars and can write off a few million in sponsorship fees as an advertising expense could put pool right on the map.

Yes, you are right it is, and has always been that simple answer "well we just need Coke to give us $10,000,000 a year, and poof we have pro pool!"

Only in the entire existence of pool guess what, Coke ain't biting because they are not going to put money into a sport that is atm nowhere with no actual tour, with no actual professional status, and with no actual fan base or even a connection between the fans (amature ranks) and the professional game.

In the post that you quoted I clearly stated that IF something like this were to take place, if we actually did create a tour and had some starting capital from the league system being changed into a type of Q school, if we did have 100,000 players in an amature league system that were suddenly connected to the professional game and who were potential spectators of that sport, then the sponsership might actually become more of a reality.

But Coke, Southwest, Caesars, these companies are not going to put huge influxes of money into a sport that does not even have a professional tour. You are putting the chicken before the egg and guess what, this planet had eggs long before it had chickens. We need to actually set something up, get something working, prove to the sponsers that the sport is viable by getting an actual professional tour with an actual professional qualification process and potentially getting alot of league players more invested in pro pool by putting them into the same system that leads to the pro's.

We need to be able to say "look, on this last free stream we ran we had 46,000 different people watching the professional tournament" so that the sponsers go, "hmm, 46,000 people, that is a decent number of people that would be watching our ads, if only 1% move to our brand that is 460 people and that means some decent return on our investment. Until you can offer them some numbers that make sense from an advertisement point of view they are not going to put anything into this sport. Sponsership is not a gift, it is a form of advertisement and companies are not doing it as a form of charity, they want a return on that investment.

With sponsership it is a "if we build it they will come" thing. It is not a "if we don't build it and just sit on our asses then eventually they will come and build it for us" thing, although most of the people in this industry seem to have that notion and thus in the last 20 years this game has gone absolutely nowhere. We certainly don't have to do this, we can say "nah I don't want to give money to the pro ranks" and that is fine, but in 2031 we will be in the same boat we are in today just like we are in the same boat today that we were in 1991. Me? I have about ~40 years left on this planet if I hit the average life expectancy, I would rather not see pool sit on it's ass for the next 20 thinking things will just fix themselves, because they won't, and if pool tries to fix itself "then" I will be lucky to see much of the positive changes and relization of potential before I die...

 

[MitchAlsup]

If pool was on espn, the viewership would increase, and so would the companies that would want to buy advertising time during the events.

Note 1: Back when NASCAR was being sponsered by auto-parts suppliers, it went nowhere but did have a nice following. But when Pespi, Tide, <non automotive corporations> entered the game (circa 1983-ish), things changed it now has a huge (but somewhat diminushing) following.

Note 2: All of the biliards I see on TV comes in over ESPN2 (streaming is on the PC).

Note 3: I (as a pool player) get a lot more excitement out of matches where winner breaks than our of matches where alternating breaks is played.

 

[Drew]

take a look at what companies pay to put their name on football stadiums.

when companies advertise, they are putting their name out there to achieve "branding".

the key is to find companies that have a target market with things in common with the type of people who play and watch pool.

If pool was on espn, the viewership would increase, and so would the companies that would want to buy advertising time during the events.

Pool was on espn...it didn't work. It was disorganized, there was no tour so there were no stakes for the people at home. Nobody even knew the rules of the game. So nobody watched. If nobody watches, then nobody buys advertising.

 

[Celtic]

Pool sponsorship discussion today

Pool Promoter: "Hello there, my name is John Smith, I was hoping to discuss the possibility of Coke sponsoring pool"

Coke Marketing Employee: "hmm, sounds interesting, so what exactly would we be sponsoring?"

Pool Promoter: "well pool is a really huge sport with huge amounts of people participating in it, we were hoping Coke could sponsor professional pool to help it grow in popularity"

Coke Marketing Employee: "Ahh, so you would want us sponsoring a tour? Or possibly an event on the pro tour?"

Pool Promoter: "Well not exactly, pool atm does not have an actual professional tour, it consists of a large number of independently run events, we were hoping you could sponsor the Super Cool 8-ball Open"

Coke Marketing Employee: "Ahh, I see, so it would be professional rank players playing in this tournament?"

Pool Promoter: "There will be pros and amateur players both playing in the event"

Coke Marketing Employee: "So it is a pro-am tournament?"

Pool Promoter: "Heh, not exactly, pool does not really have an official "pro" status, anyone who wants to enter the tournament can play in it. There will be some really great players in it though, ever hear of Shane Van Boening?"

Coke Marketing Employee: "No"

Pool Promoter: "Oh, heh... well he is really good, probably the best pool player in North America"

Coke Marketing Employee: "Ahh, very impressive. So what is the current prize purse? How many players are you expecting in this tournament? How many days will it run, how many spectators are expected to watch? Is it televised?

Pool Promoter: "Well we are charging a $200 entry fee and hoping to get 150 players so that would be $30,000 in total purse from the entry fees, any added money was hopefully going to come from you... We have seating for about 200 people in the audience, last year we had up to 140 people watching at one time. We are not televised but it is going to be streamed on the internet and last years event got 120 people watching it live on the stream at one time. It is a 3 day tournament running Friday to Sunday."

Coke Marketing Employee:" So including players, spectators, and people watching this live stream we are looking at less then 500 people total that are liable to see our sponsorship or advertising associated with the event?"

Pool Promoter: "umm, well, we are hoping to get more people watching the stream this year... if you give us $50,000 I imagine we could double the amount of people watching! That is nothing to a company as big as you guys, and lots of us pool players drink Coke!"

Coke Marketing Employee: "You want $50,000 and we "might" get 1000 people watching, that would mean we were spending $50 for each person who plays in or watches the event either in person or via the stream over a 3 day interval... that is not going to happen."

Pool Promoter: "Gah, that sucks, you guys give like $20,000,000 each year to major league baseball, we are asking for way less"

Coke Marketing Employee: "Do you have any comprehension on how much brand recognition and advertising that MLB deal brings to Coke each year? How many millions of people see our banners in each of the stadiums each year? How many millions more see those banners on TV? Do you have any comprehension how many people at those games drink our product at those games due to the exclusive deal we have with MLB?"

Pool Promoter: "... umm... no..."

Coke Marketing Employee: "Look, I am sorry but I am going to have to pass on this. There is no financial sense in Coke doing this, you have no tour, no real fanbase, it is hardly a "professional" sport when you do not even have professional recognition and this just seems to be some amateur regional pool tournament. If I were to give you $50,000 MY boss is going to wonder WTF I was thinking, I have to actually justify the sponsorship deals and explain how they benefit our company, our association with your tournament would not benefit our product in any meaningful and lasting fashion."

Pool Promoter: "irk... ok... thanks for your time..."

 

[Celtic]

Now going for sponsorship AFTER setting up what I propose

Pool Promoter: "Hello there, I was hoping to discuss with you the possibility of Coke becoming involved in professional pool"

Coke Marketing Employee: "hmm, sounds interesting, so what exactly would we be sponsoring?"

Pool Promoter: "Well it is a rather exciting time for the sport of pool. Recently a new professional tour has been formed in conjunction with an amateur pool league with over 100,000 active competitive players. We are now looking for sponsors to help fund the professional events."

Coke Marketing Employee: "Ahh, when you say 100,000 people how are they associated with this "tour" we would be sponsoring?"

Pool Promoter: "The Nameofleaguehere is a North American wide league system with active participation in every major city center in both the USA and Canada. It is in effect the official amateur system that leads to the professional pool tour. For those 100,000 people they are playing in the system where the top ranking is the pro tour you would be sponsoring."

Coke Marketing Employee: "Ahh, so you would want us sponsoring the tour or an event on that tour?

Pool Promoter: "The tour is in it's infancy and the opportunity for either is an option that Coke could consider."

Coke Marketing Employee: " So what is the current prize purse on the tour? How many players are you expecting in these tournaments? How many days will they run, how many spectators are expected to watch? Is it televised?

Pool Promoter: "The league system helps to fund the professional level of the tournaments so we currently have approximately $5,000,000 per a year in sustainable money going towards the tour, which is about $420,000 prize purse for each event before sponsorship additions. The pro events are capped at 64 professionally ranked players. One of the professional events takes place during the amateur national event in Las Vegas which attracts approximately 10,000 people each year, the event is free for any of those people to view and takes place in an arena with seating for about 1,000 people, it is usually packed due to the number of people there for the amateur event as a captive audience. We also have a live stream which is linked from the official league website, the streams tend to get over 5,000 viewers due to the fact that the players of the league system visit the website to find their stats, rankings, and the like and also have free access to watch the professional tour events. That website gets approximately 70,000 hits per a week from the league players and would have the professional events listed along with sponsor logos. The events will run 3 days, but the video of the events remain on the website and is free for all league members to access so eventual view numbers go into the 10's of thousands. The event is not televised."

Coke Marketing Employee: "Hmm, $420,000 is already assured in each event? That is more money than I thought was in the game of pool. So we would be looking at a sponsors logo on the opening page of that main website that gets 70,000 hits a week?"

Pool Promoter: "yep, the league system being associated with the professional game brings a large potential audience to the game to help kickstart it's growth. Your sponsorship benefits not just from the professional events, but the entire league system and all of its ranking levels."

Coke Marketing Employee: "Hmm, and you say this whole thing is just in its infancy, this has a chance to grow over time if the prize pools grow, the game catches on and more people get interested in taking part."

Pool Promoter: "Yes, we agree, this has the potential to become much larger over time.

Coke Marketing Employee: "OK, well since you have $5,000,000 per a year in prize pool and $420.000 per an event I can see you are not asking for a small amount of money. The number of people who would see our brand due to our association with you seems to be on the order of ~70,000 per a week and this would be sustained advertising over the course of the entire year due to constant hits on the website from the ongoing league system. I think I could be talked into sponsoring a single event, which we would want the name changed to the "Coke 8-Ball Classic", we want our Coca Cola logo on the main page next to the event link, and we would like banners up in the stadium where the tournament is played in full view of both the live and stream audience. We also want Coke products to be exclusive and the only non-alcoholic beverages sold at the event. We will offer $200,000 to become the single official sponsor of that event. If things go well we might look in the future at becoming the official sponsor of the tour and league system, for which we would want large banners on the league/tour website, advertising at each event, exclusivity as the official soft drink company, aka Pepsi will never be able to sponsor an event, ect..."

Pool Promoter: "That all sounds pretty reasonable and hopefully this is the start of a long term and mutually beneficial relationship between our two products."

 

[RRfireblade]

.... nevermind.

 

[twopeicecue]

Guys are way to emotional when playing pool! That is what i believe is the biggest reason for a pathetic pro tour. The Wpba seems to be doing fine. So what do they do differently??? I was watching the mosconi cup over the weekend and it was great until there was a disagrement with 2 players and one of the players starts swearing at the other guy. Then askes if he wants to go outside? Maybe thats whats wrong with Guys pool. The Us open a guy snaps his cue in half on the TV table, and freaks out again in the tournament ( not sure if it was the same match) and has a little hissy fit and clears the balls off the table agressively with his cue! How many videos on youtube can you watch of guys breaking cues or freaking out compared to females. If I was Espn I'd love airing a show in prime veiwing hours where one player starts losing it on another than askes him to go outside. If pool became more of a gentelmans game it would do better. Nobody likes watching bad losers.

 

[Mark Griffin]

To grow pool

Celtic,

I always enjoy your posts - you are creative (almost to a fault) and obviously very passionate.

We have communicated a couple of times over the years.

Please call me if you are coming to the states - or to las Vegas in particular.

Although I will disagree with some of your assumptions, I do agree that there needs to be a connection between amateurs and pro players.
That is what the USAPL is all about.

Maybe this can be a topic on this weeks TAR podcast set for this Wednesday at 6 pm pacific.

Either way, I take ALL of you various comments on different topics in the best possible light.

Keep it up!!

Your friend in Billiards

Mark Griffin

 

[JB Cases]

The idea of taking a little from the amateurs to fund a pro tour has been around the forums for a long time.

Mark has explained why it doesn't work for the BCAPL but why it can work for the USAPL.

The sad fact is that pool could be funded this way if the leagues would act together. They could OWN pro pool in the USA and make it into the largest professional tour in the world. They could fund the video productions and have some leverage to get it on television.

But it won't happen. Pool is simply too fractured. Divided the actors are all too small to make an impact. None of them have the money to go it alone with the exception of the APA. The APA is content to cruise along as they are doing and maintain their leagues at the level they are at I guess.

The worst thing that could happen by having a viable tour on TV every couple weeks is that the participation goes up a lot across the country and more people join leagues. But it isn't going to happen.

The hallmark of pool in the USA is that competitors do not work together to bake a bigger pie. They fight viciously over the ever-shrinking pie.

The BCA failed miserably to promote pool even going so far as to allow non-pool activities to pitch their virtues to pool industry buyers at the billiard industry's annual expo.

Taking on Poker sites as sponsors for pool tournaments is a brilliant strategy as well. Nothing like watching pool on TV and seeing an ad for online poker saying to me, don't get off the couch and go play some pool, log in and play poker instead.

I have never seen an ad for Golf on a Tennis broadcast. But in pool we make the amazing choices to advertise other activities to the pool watching audience. Great strategy.

 

[JB Cases]

Guys are way to emotional when playing pool! That is what i believe is the biggest reason for a pathetic pro tour. The Wpba seems to be doing fine. So what do they do differently??? I was watching the mosconi cup over the weekend and it was great until there was a disagrement with 2 players and one of the players starts swearing at the other guy. Then askes if he wants to go outside? Maybe thats whats wrong with Guys pool. The Us open a guy snaps his cue in half on the TV table, and freaks out again in the tournament ( not sure if it was the same match) and has a little hissy fit and clears the balls off the table agressively with his cue! How many videos on youtube can you watch of guys breaking cues or freaking out compared to females. If I was Espn I'd love airing a show in prime veiwing hours where one player starts losing it on another than askes him to go outside. If pool became more of a gentelmans game it would do better. Nobody likes watching bad losers.

The WPBA hasn't been doing fine for three years. I don't think that they have four events in 2012 yet. And yes people do like watching and talking about bad losers. That's why any type of outbursts by pros in any sports get covered for days on end and analyzed to death.