What is the best league system?

ForumGhost516

ForumGhost516

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hey guys I am helping in the revamping of a pool room in NY and I am wondering what the best league system to offer would be.

USAPL, APA, CSI, VNEA, In House League etc.

Please let me know what the best is from the league operator perspective and the player perspective.


Thanks so much in advance for the answers.
 
Start of a drama thread right here.

IMHO the best league is BCA.

The most popular is APA.

Good Luck.
 
I'd say it depends on who you want to cater to. BCA or VNEA would be geared toward the better shooters, whereas APA favors the bangers.
 
Richardson said:
Start of a drama thread right here.

IMHO the best league is BCA.

The most popular is APA.

Good Luck.
Click to expand...

Im not trying to start any drama but I can see what you mean lol. We are just trying to figure out what is going to be the best thing to run here.

Thanks.
 
I would agree that APA is the most popular, and depending on how the people play it, not a bad league really. I'm a BCA player and I prefer it due to the nature of not being penalized for safety play. The BCA night that I play is a no handicap run-out fest or hook-fest. I think something like this works well with good players or players that are trying to improve. It all depends really on the kind of players that you have in the room.
 
Ghost,

It all depends on your intentions. If you just want to play pool and have fun, there is nothing wrong with the in-house leagues. The only drawback is no sanctioning equals no "free" trip to Vegas or where ever the National event is held. If its not a team thing, then sending a sanctioning body a fee to play the singles will cure that problem. The other posters are correct as far as quality of play. BCAPL, VNEA and ACS are better for better players. The other groups tend to glorify the handicap formula too much which causes people to "sandbag" either individually or team wise.

Which one would I want to be the LO of. APA far and away. Every LO I've spoken with uses their franchise as their only source of income. Must be some serious money in it for them!

Lyn
 
Perhaps I'm just being naive, but is there a reason why you couldn't have more than one league operating outof one hall? Other than lack of participants to support more than one league, I'm meaning....

If there demand were there, why not offer APA for the beginners/less serious players, and one of the others, say BCA, for the more advanced?

Unless of course there is some sort of exclusivity agreements one must committ too.
 
At first I'm sure you could get a few teams started in the local leagues with your hall as their home location.

Then you could grow into being a LO for whichever is most popular.
 
Lyn...That doesn't happen overnight. It has taken some league operators YEARS of hard work, to make a decent living (and they deserve every dollar). FYI, there are MANY smaller APA LO's that can't make a living off of their leagues, and so work other jobs, and do the league as a part-time income. If you purchase a league in an established area, you make $$$ right away, but you're gonna pay a LOT up front. Just wanted to set the record straight, before all the APA haters start chiming in.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

cardiac kid said:
Which one would I want to be the LO of. APA far and away. Every LO I've spoken with uses their franchise as their only source of income. Must be some serious money in it for them!

Lyn
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TAP is a great choice. with the 25 rule, and the fact that it's harder to be raised to higher skill, you will keep the interest of higher skill level players, as well as keeping beginners interested.

TAP is easily the best league out there that supports a wide range of tallent.
 
Play heads up singles. No teams. In house.

This keeps all of the money in the league. I don't too many are really concerned about going to Vegas.

If someone keeps winning it should be motivation for the others to learn more about the game and improve. If they don't then they shouldn't complain about losing all the time.
 
ForumGhost516...Why not offer several options? In-house is easy to set up and run; BCAPL costs nothing to get started; instead of CSI, you mean USAPL (which, iirc, is also no cost to the LO), as CSI is the next step up from USAPL; for VNEA, you have to go through the local Valley table distributor/vendor, as they control the strings for that league; APA you have to purchase a franchise, which is a set fee, and then purchase areas by county; TAP, I believe, is also a kind of franchise, and there is a fee involved. I think offering different leagues is the best option, myself. Hope this helps.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

ForumGhost516 said:
Hey guys I am helping in the revamping of a pool room in NY and I am wondering what the best league system to offer would be.

USAPL, APA, CSI, VNEA, In House League etc.

Please let me know what the best is from the league operator perspective and the player perspective.


Thanks so much in advance for the answers.
Click to expand...
 
justadub...There are covenants for APA LO's that prevent them from having other leagues. AFAIK, the other leagues don't have those restrictions.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

justadub said:
If there demand were there, why not offer APA for the beginners/less serious players, and one of the others, say BCA, for the more advanced?

Unless of course there is some sort of exclusivity agreements one must committ too.
Click to expand...
 
Think the one reason I tried LEAGUE Recently, and said forget it after ONE NIGHT, as total disorganization.

Strike #1. It started with a Captains Meeting that the Operator never show for 45 MINUTES PAST the Appointed Time. How about being on TIME L/O?

Strike #2. Was when the L/O had to be chased down to find out if I was or was not on a team. How about some communication?

Strike # 3. Was the First night after being told to go to Bar X to play, being told we were move to Bar Y to play. How about being organized?

THREE STRIKES, and total disorganization was a total turn off. I like Duck in a Row, thing in Black & White, and organized.

We have I think 7 or 8 Different League here in the Phoenix Metro, APA,ACS, BAC TAP, and 3 or 4 more.
 
Scott Lee said:
If you purchase a league in an established area, you make $$$ right away, but you're gonna pay a LOT up front. Just wanted to set the record straight, before all the APA haters start chiming in.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...

True, it is big $$$ for a large, established division.
I know ours sold recently and I want to say it cost in the neighborhood of $600K. Prior to the economy crapping out and pool halls closing, this same division was fetching over $1M, close to 1.2.
 
Personally, I would offer a BCA league. You can run the league as an in-house league so you will be operating the league and will be able to tailor it to your customers/players wishes. If you have players that want to go play in Vegas they can do that by either "winning a trip" or they can take a cash payout from the league and pay for their entry. For your less skilled teams BCA also has a trophy division at nationals that is not as competitive as the open and is a lot of fun to play in.

VNEA is a good league also . However, I believe in order to operate a league you need to be a Valley distributer or in the coin op business.

As far as APA goes, it is a fun league - lot of positives but a LOT of negatives. You can do a search on this forum and make a descision whether or not you want to entertain going that route. The arguments and discussions and drama over handicaps and sandbagging are brutal.
 
ForumGhost516 said:
Hey guys I am helping in the revamping of a pool room in NY and I am wondering what the best league system to offer would be.

USAPL, APA, CSI, VNEA, In House League etc.

Please let me know what the best is from the league operator perspective and the player perspective.


Thanks so much in advance for the answers.
Click to expand...

You've got to determine your priorities based on what you want out of your league. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses. One thing a national (or regiional) league has over In-house is the opportunity to play people from different areas every so often. It can get real boring playing the same people week after week, year after year.

Also, are you looking for a money payback or just a fun night out and maybe a trip to Vegas?

What type of support will you need to run the league? A website with everyone's stats posted every week or a hand done spreadsheet?

I personally play TAP to play a pretty solid level of competition weekly and the opportunity to test myself a few times a year against the best from our region. And most importantly, the TAP "Rally in the Valley" where we make up 144 "Dream Teams" and compete in Valley Forge every year for four days. That alone makes TAP my favorite.

Mike
 
The best 2 formats I've played in are
1. A no handicap in-house league. 5 players per team, when 2 teams play the player with the best percentage on team A plays the best on team B, 2nd best plays 2nd best, and so on. Each match is 5 games per player, the team that wins 13 games overall wins (all 25 are played even if the winner is determined early). Pretty simple. No reason to ever sandbag since there are no handicaps. By the same token, weaker teams are doomed to lose, but they probably will become better players in the process.
2. Another in-house league 2 players on each team. Play 8-ball and 9-ball. Though it is handicapped with only 2 players on a team it isn't practical to sandbag because the only way to sand bag is to lose the match for the night. Not a lot to be gained.
As far as the franchise leagues go... 6 to one, a half-dozen to the other. I don't begrudge them the money they make, they provide a service running the league, anybody who doesn't like their profit margin can take their business elsewhere.
 
Scott Lee said:
justadub...There are covenants for APA LO's that prevent them from having other leagues. AFAIK, the other leagues don't have those restrictions.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...

I went back and re-read the original post, and from what I read, the OP was asking about what to have his friend offer for leagues in his pool room. I didn't see the thread as a question of an opportunity to become an LO. I could be wrong, I often am. :o

So again, with that thought in mind, why not offer a couple of different league formats in this new room, if there are enough players to support them? OK, if the local APA LO won't allow his teams to play in a room where there are other leagues (and I still wonder about the legality of that), talk to the LO's of the other league organizations in that area, and see if they want to help organize teams from the new room. And of course that can be supplemented with in-house leagues and tournaments.

I do know that where I play APA, there is also an in-house league. I know that happens in another room near us as well. None of the other established League systems are available here, so there is no precedent to that happening in my part of the world. I just think having options can make it better for everyone.
 
From a business perspective, you are best served by having multiple leagues going on in your pool room if you can handle the capacity. Keep in mind, in order to attract teams, you are likely going to have to offer free table time. You can run an in-house league and cater the rules and format as well as payouts to the higher caliber players (from my experience, these players do not drink as much and thus, you do not make that revenue). Personally, I would try to bring in both BCA and APA leagues to cater to the lesser caliber player, again assuming that you will be offering free table time, with the idea in mind that a team of 8 APA players and the opposing team of 8 APA players will likely drink more than the competitive players you will likely have in your in house league. I have witnessed room owners who initially refuse to allow these leagues in their rooms struggle mightily from lack of drink sales.

Also, a good idea to run tournaments either before or after league play if you can as well as nights with no leagues playing. Tournaments after league play may cause more players to stay around to play and again increasing drink sales.
 
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