The DCC types of tournaments might be alot of fun to play in but those types of tournaments are not going to help this sport gain noteriety, which a grand slam type of thing might be used to accomplish.
Poker is ALOT like pool in that when they saw their chance to market their sport and get a huge number of people interested they chose one very specific and simple game that was relatively well known and they made that game the ONLY focus. Texas Hold Em IS poker to the masses. The people in charge knew that confusing the issue with Omaha, Stud, and other incarnations of poker would confuse the general public and cause people to shy away from the sport. Thus they told the general public that THIS is poker, they gave them Texas Hold Em, made the people understand that game and that game only, they showed celebrities playing that game and that game only, they showed the pro's competing in that game and that game only. And the public learned the game, they were not flooded with too much info with all sorts of poker, and they bought into the game and now poker is HUGE.
Pool has never figured this out. They went to a game (9-ball) that the general public does not play (the players play it, the actual masses that make up 99.4% of people who shoot the occasional game of pool play 8-ball). They basically isolated themselves from the people that they NEEDED to have the support and interest from. The DCC with banks, 1-pocket, and 9-ball miss the boat completely. As if 9-ball was not obscure enough they add in 2 games that the general public would not even attempt to understand or play.
If pool ever wants to succeed they need to cater to the general public with a simple game that is easy to understand and already has some recognition, 8-ball. And it needs to be the ONLY game played, you need to KISS (keep it simple stupid) for the public like poker did. Pool has been doing exactly what poker realized they could not, attempting to create new games and make things more complex for the general public. And for decades the general public has given a clear answer what they think of that and that answer has fallen on very deaf and stubborn ears.
This game is flat out too complex. When 95% of people who might notice a game of 9-ball being played have NO clue on the rules or the strategy of the game they are going to have NO interest in watching it. I was at the pool hall last night and 80%+ of the general public hacks who cannot shoot a lick but enjoy the game were playing, yep you guessed it, 8-ball. It is THOSE people that you need to get watching and the 99% of the people in the pubs who also play.... yep 8-ball.
The 50,000 people who actually give a crap about rotational pool, of which maybe 5,000 people might actually check websites and watch a free stream of an event are not going to support a professional sport. There are 5,000,000 people out there that have at least SOME interest in 8-ball, and if you can get 500,000 of them checking a website or watching the sport in a live stream NOW you are getting somewhere, it is not huge, but from there word of mouth starts to get out of the pool hall and to the water cooler at work, the sponsers start to notice, and the sport has a hope of starting a positive feedback loop of growth.
ATM the sport is so isolated due to rotational pool having such a small exclusive fanbase that there is no bloody hope of growth, and 1-pocket just magnify the problem by about 1000. Even on this website of pool aficionado's 1-pocket is seen as boring by a large percentage of posters, to people addicted to bloody pool enough to surf this forum!!! That HAS to set off alarms that maybe that avenue of making this sport something more is a dead end. I mean, if that does not tell the people in charge that another direction should be found get a bloody shovel and start digging.
Uhh, anyways yeah in conclusion the sport might need grand slams but the sport needs to make the grand slam be a combination of events that truly get the attention of the general public. Having a grand slam of obscure events that the general public does not care about just makes this sport even more excusive and closes the door even tighter to the sport actually changing directions and goiung where it needs to go.
