What went so wrong that we get no press?

[SmoothStroke]

Pool Player Mentality

It's disturbing, forget TV even leading online sports pages leave out Pocket Billiards. On ESPN's page it lists Pro Rodeo, Bass Fishing, Lacrosse, figure skating, Surfing etc....but no Billiards.

If you do a site search on ESPN, basically the only thing that shows up is an article on Jennifer Barretta with a sexy FHM photo. Don't get me wrong it's a nice photo but man, I could not believe thats it, you would think ESPN would have some coverage or news since they show some matches on TV.

You get nothing about players, tours or tournaments, no articles, no pictures, and in the local section the search comes up with a calender from Billings Montana which mentions billiards. So I think hey maybe a tournament, but it's only the name of a place Bullwackers Billiards which was holding a Foosball tournament

Not even a blurb peep or mention of the US Open, but hey they have news about the new Mascot hall of fame, yup, we are the Rodney Dangerfield of sports No Respect.

It's getting tougher

 

[vagabond]

Movies have a huge impact,, after the Color of Money rooms opened all over the place and it was still a very bad movi

Hello,
Poll hadbad reputation even before those movies.
Puritanic values have shunned pool.
Untill it is approved by the church pool will not enjoy any more status than it has now.

vagabond

 

[chefjeff]

Hello,
Poll hadbad reputation even before those movies.
Puritanic values have shunned pool.
Untill it is approved by the church pool will not enjoy any more status than it has now.

vagabond

Hi Vagabond...hope all is well with you and your stuff.

OK, if what you say is true, then every church goer here could simply ask and help finance his/her church to put a table in their basement and then organize an church league and help teach youngsters to appreciate the beauty of the game, responsible behavior, etc.

Any volunteers?

Jeff Livingston

 

[macguy]

It's disturbing, forget TV even leading online sports pages leave out Pocket Billiards. On ESPN's page it lists Pro Rodeo, Bass Fishing, Lacrosse, figure skating, Surfing etc....but no Billiards.

If you do a site search on ESPN, basically the only thing that shows up is an article on Jennifer Barretta with a sexy FHM photo. Don't get me wrong it's a nice photo but man, I could not believe thats it, you would think ESPN would have some coverage or news since they show some matches on TV.

You get nothing about players, tours or tournaments, no articles, no pictures, and in the local section the search comes up with a calender from Billings Montana which mentions billiards. So I think hey maybe a tournament, but it's only the name of a place Bullwackers Billiards which was holding a Foosball tournament

Not even a blurb peep or mention of the US Open, but hey they have news about the new Mascot hall of fame, yup, we are the Rodney Dangerfield of sports No Respect.

What do we have to do to get some press?

Nothing ever gets on the wire services, it is the fault of the promoters. I asked a friend who worked for the news paper and he said if it came in it would most likely get printed but didn't ever remember a wire story on pool. Pool needs PR firm that makes sure the news gets out even if they have to grease a few palms. It is no accident that some sports that get the press. Pool tournaments have always been run by dud heads and still are.

 

[Snapshot9]

Pool and the media ...

I feel that we, as participators, have to push for more
coverage of our sport every chance we have. Chess
get more coverage than Pool does here because of the
Russian that started a chess school about 80 miles from
Wichita in Lindsberg, Ks.. They don't really show the sport
(if you can call it that), just the people involved in it, and
background about them and some of the chess tournaments.
Seems like Pool could get some of that coverage for our sport.
There are a lot of interesting stories behind some of the players
(I enjoyed learning about Tony Robles, and his family).

Pool is almost like a red-headed stepchild with the media ...
It's beyond me how some of these so called sports got
into the Olympics they have, but not billiards, which takes
much more skill, and the competition level is so much higher.

Regardless of what you think of the IPT, it will help get some
recognition for our sport simply because of the high payouts,
and Kevin's approach to it. At this point, we really can't afford
to be choosy, and anything would help.

I hope the US Open gets covered by the media. It is a big event
with all the best players in it.

 

[Barbara]

Pool needs to show a more exciting side to it than just the regular tournaments the WPBA shows on tv. And not a Ballbreakers-type showing, either.

I'm thinking a Skins format like golf shows from time to time.

Barbara

 

[Sargo]

As far as image and kids starting to play - I think parents are concerned more about the alcohol and cigarettes associated with pool that's why they won't encourage their kids to learn the game. Gambling is done in all other sports but you don't really picture football players having cigarretes in their mouths or holding beer bottles in the field. If you do drink and smoke while playing pool, are you willing to give that up to enhance pool's image? Each one could help promote the game by doing this simple thing.

 

[ceebee]

Maybe us Pool Players ought to band together.

From this day forward, no one that plays pool, drinks Budweiser. That will stack up to be a lot of Bud on the shelf. That boycott might get your local Pool Room's attention, but I don't think the 1000 players on the forum will make any difference to Budweiser... but it would if we become a nation of Non-BUD drinkers

If we all start sending Budweiser, Miller Beer, the others too, Frito-Lay, the Candy companies, our local TV, Radio & Newspaper companies a letter, wanting to see coverage of our sport, that might get someone's attention. Go to your respective Pool Rooms, gather petitions with real signatures & send them to the above listed companies.

Talk to your Off-Line friends, get their names on a petition, send it to someone, asking for local & regional coverage of our sport. There are schools across the land, that now offer Billiards in their curriculum, ask your school or College for the sport to be offered in your area. Send your petitions to ESPN too, a couple hundred thousand names might get somone's attention. BCA now estimates 52 million Pool Players, of one degree or the other, that is a large number of folks. Those kind of numbers need some attention.

If people would just think, they would realize that TV is geared to numb a person into an easy chair & watch some shit. In any major city, the big Football Stadiums are built to accompany 80,000 fans. If there are 2 million people in the city, that means that 1,920,000 people weren't interested enough to go to the game. In my local area, the college football stadium only holds 20,000 people, yet the entire city has to watch the friggin' game on TV. That is horseshit being fed to a bunch of numbnuts. There are more Pool Players in Tulsa than the football fans who attend those ten-cent football games.

Let me hear it folks, whaddaya say????

 

[Colin Colenso]

Nothing ever gets on the wire services, it is the fault of the promoters. I asked a friend who worked for the news paper and he said if it came in it would most likely get printed but didn't ever remember a wire story on pool. Pool needs PR firm that makes sure the news gets out even if they have to grease a few palms. It is no accident that some sports that get the press. Pool tournaments have always been run by dud heads and still are.

I suspect that you are right that dud heads are running most events in the US.

I ran the first commercially sponsored snooker event in China and, with little PR experience, but a lot of hard work got 30 TV news reports 59 print media reports and over 200 internet media reports.

The method was making a lot of calls, sending out press releases, running two press conferences, paying media to attend and signing contracts with stronger media partners.

This is stuff the WPA, BCA and most organizers are too lazy to do. They expect media to come floating in. This stuff takes hard work, or if funding is good enough a professional PR agency.

 

[Jack Flanagan]

???,,,,,,I just noticed that Dish network now has a channel devoted to hurricane Katrina ,,,,whoever started this specific channel (it's free to all subscribers) should be contacted by somebody in charge and get an all pool channel, show the next big tourney from start to finish,,,I might be in the minority, BUT I would watch,,,if somebody can afford to have an all 'Katrina" channel; WHY not an all pool channel ?

 

[JLW]

I dont buy that excuse. They dont have a problem with Golf.

In all fairness, I think golf has had one major advantage over pool in terms of marketing. Golf has been on television steadily since the 60's. People grew up seeing Palmer, Nicklaus, and others play every weekend on major networks. IMHO, this constant exposure over many decades made them celebrities and made golf a part of American life. This never happened with pool. Golf has always been viewed as a wholesome, All American pastime. Pool is still seen by many as a game you play in a bar.

 

[vagabond]

President G.w.Bush is a pool player.If he puts one good word about pool whole notion about pool will change.But he is not going to do that and it is because the church has not approved. pool and pool players.It is that simple.If church approves it, then pool will be like any other sport.Be nice to church people and start lobying with them.

 

[Colin Colenso]

In all fairness, I think golf has had one major advantage over pool in terms of marketing. Golf has been on television steadily since the 60's. People grew up seeing Palmer, Nicklaus, and others play every weekend on major networks. IMHO, this constant exposure over many decades made them celebrities and made golf a part of American life. This never happened with pool. Golf has always been viewed as a wholesome, All American pastime. Pool is still seen by many as a game you play in a bar.

A big advantage of golf was that the rules of the game were standardised early, allowing regular international competition. This gave the winners high credibility.

 

[macguy]

It's disturbing, forget TV even leading online sports pages leave out Pocket Billiards. On ESPN's page it lists Pro Rodeo, Bass Fishing, Lacrosse, figure skating, Surfing etc....but no Billiards.

If you do a site search on ESPN, basically the only thing that shows up is an article on Jennifer Barretta with a sexy FHM photo. Don't get me wrong it's a nice photo but man, I could not believe thats it, you would think ESPN would have some coverage or news since they show some matches on TV.

You get nothing about players, tours or tournaments, no articles, no pictures, and in the local section the search comes up with a calender from Billings Montana which mentions billiards. So I think hey maybe a tournament, but it's only the name of a place Bullwackers Billiards which was holding a Foosball tournament

Not even a blurb peep or mention of the US Open, but hey they have news about the new Mascot hall of fame, yup, we are the Rodney Dangerfield of sports No Respect.

What do we have to do to get some press?

None of the answers have anything to do with the original question of why pool tournament results are not found in main stream media. THEY HAVE NO IDEA THE TOURNAMENT TOOK PLACE. Whose fault is that, the promoters and sponsors. There is no insidious conspiracy, send it over the wire and it may get picked up. Invite the local media and make sure they come and their stories may get picked. The press release can't be some thinly disguised attempt at getting some free advertising like the thing IPT sent out, that will end up in the trash, it has to news worthy. The pool industry as a whole needs to have a PR firm working for them full time to get pool in front of the public as much as they can, and they can expect to pay most of the time. If on the old Cosby show they had a pool table in the house and Bill and the kids were often shown playing it would have given pool a tremendous boost. Every kid would want t pool table like the Cosby kids on the show. How about Color of Money Keith M. doing a GEICO commercial. I just saw that guy who sell guitars on late night TV informercials Esteban in a GEICO commercial, (He can't play a lick by the way in real life). The sport and players have never known how to promote themselves. Maybe Miz and J.L, but the rest haven't got a clue. It seems like the sport and players have always perceived itself and themselves as small time and it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[SlimShafty]

Maybe us Pool Players ought to band together.

From this day forward, no one that plays pool, drinks Budweiser. That will stack up to be a lot of Bud on the shelf. That boycott might get your local Pool Room's attention, but I don't think the 1000 players on the forum will make any difference to Budweiser... but it would if we become a nation of Non-BUD drinkers

If we all start sending Budweiser, Miller Beer, the others too, Frito-Lay, the Candy companies, our local TV, Radio & Newspaper companies a letter, wanting to see coverage of our sport, that might get someone's attention. Go to your respective Pool Rooms, gather petitions with real signatures & send them to the above listed companies.

Talk to your Off-Line friends, get their names on a petition, send it to someone, asking for local & regional coverage of our sport. There are schools across the land, that now offer Billiards in their curriculum, ask your school or College for the sport to be offered in your area. Send your petitions to ESPN too, a couple hundred thousand names might get somone's attention. BCA now estimates 52 million Pool Players, of one degree or the other, that is a large number of folks. Those kind of numbers need some attention.

If people would just think, they would realize that TV is geared to numb a person into an easy chair & watch some shit. In any major city, the big Football Stadiums are built to accompany 80,000 fans. If there are 2 million people in the city, that means that 1,920,000 people weren't interested enough to go to the game. In my local area, the college football stadium only holds 20,000 people, yet the entire city has to watch the friggin' game on TV. That is horseshit being fed to a bunch of numbnuts. There are more Pool Players in Tulsa than the football fans who attend those ten-cent football games.

Let me hear it folks, whaddaya say????

Well I think it's the right idea, and I did, I sent emails to ESPN, and a few others telling them about the US open this week and all the international players that are attending. Also mentioned the IPT and that I think pool is on the rise and they need to look into it as far as some news coverage.

If they have full coverage of Pro Rodeo, they certainly should have some coverage of pool, but I know they are not going to seek it out, it's totally up to the promoters and players to shake the tree, the fruit isn't just going to fall on it's own.

The only thing that gets these other sports any press is real good PR, most companies don't look for opportunities they wade through all the PR that they get and I bet pool has no PR at all.

That being said, I wonder if any of the promoters themselves send ESPN or even local news any notification of upcoming events or even a nice write up on the event with player lists. I think they all just forget it thinking they will not pay any attention, but if thats the worst that can happen then go for it, if you keep doing it, after a while something might happen.

 

[barrett9ball]

The fact is, pool is a beautiful game, and the truth is, some of the best practitioners and most exciting examples of its beauty in action is in the after hours action, ie the gambling -- not to mention of course that often these are the most colorful and entertaining characters of the sport as well (ie Fats)

So what is your thinking??

I agree completely. I don't think gambling is the problem. I see guys gamble on the golf course all time. I've seen gambling at basketball, baseball (Pete Rose) and virtually any other sport. The general populus percieves pool players gambling as "hustlers" (those who aren't gambling but rather decieving). Anybody around the game long enough knows that for the most part that is far from the truth in most instances. I think gambling and the characters are the best marketing tools that our beautiful game has to offer (just like poker). It has been my feeling all along that if pool could be marketed like poker it might work. The movies while bringing a lot of awareness to the game have just never quite hit it on the nose.

The thing I see on TV that I don't like is that all the TV productions seem to want these players to act like Sunday school teachers. I love to see Keith McCready talking to the crowd and Earl Strickland doing his thing. I'm not saying the players should be rude on TV for the sake of drama or ratings. I'm just saying let them be themselves. Talk some trash, make a comment from time to time. We all know that one of the main things that we all love about pool is the personalities. The funny guys, The lion heart, Mr. Laid back puffing on a cig, The born loser, The Earthquake, Kid Delicious etc... etc... They all play Jam-up. We know that already.. they just need to make it more fun...The same kind of fun we all have at the poolrooms

 

[landshark77]

???,,,,,,I just noticed that Dish network now has a channel devoted to hurricane Katrina ,,,,whoever started this specific channel (it's free to all subscribers) should be contacted by somebody in charge and get an all pool channel, show the next big tourney from start to finish,,,I might be in the minority, BUT I would watch,,,if somebody can afford to have an all 'Katrina" channel; WHY not an all pool channel ?

Hey Jack, I believe they do...it is called the Billiard Channel Network..or something like that. I believe a poster here, BCn, has something to do with it. Do a search on BCn's post and you should get more info about it.

 

[DaveK]

added the question about tennis

In all fairness, I think golf has had one major advantage over pool in terms of marketing. Golf has been on television steadily since the 60's. People grew up seeing Palmer, Nicklaus, and others play every weekend on major networks. IMHO, this constant exposure over many decades made them celebrities and made golf a part of American life. This never happened with pool. Golf has always been viewed as a wholesome, All American pastime. Pool is still seen by many as a game you play in a bar.

Golf is now a main NCAA sport. It has a real ruling body in the US, the USGA. It has ranked players. Pool has none of this, and that is a MAJOR PROBLEM. I've said this many times here before, organize and promote, but first organize. The trouble is that pool has for many decades been a game where everyone is trying to 'get the cash', and their really is nobody looking out for the game in general, only themselves. It's going to be really difficult to organize pool in the US where this culture of greed and deceit prevails.

Golf has not always been a 'wholesome, All American' sport. Early in it's history golf was a pastime enjoyed by the Scottish people who had lots of rolling pastureland and free time. BTW, the chuch was not a big fan of golf, it seems that folks would rather play golf on sundays, so the church fought the game. In the US it was first a game for the rich. The only courses were set up by the upper class and membership costs and policies kept it in their control. Only over the last few decades has this class barrier in golf been breached. One legacy continues, golf is still a game of the rich and powerful. This is very different from pool.

Many years ago professional golf was in a very similar position to that of pool today. The 'tour' was a bunch of top players going from independant event to independant event. They were barely surviving. Then along came a top quality promoter who organized the tour into a singular entity and promoted it to the fans and media. This is what pool needs. History will repeat itself if only people would learn from history.

Dave

BTW, tennis is very similar to golf in it's social and economic development, funny how they too are enjoying tremendous success.

 

[JLW]

Golf is now a main NCAA sport. It has a real ruling body in the US, the USGA. It has ranked players. Pool has none of this, and that is a MAJOR PROBLEM. I've said this many times here before, organize and promote, but first organize. The trouble is that pool has for many decades been a game where everyone is trying to 'get the cash', and their really is nobody looking out for the game in general, only themselves. It's going to be really difficult to organize pool in the US where this culture of greed and deceit prevails.

Golf has not always been a 'wholesome, All American' sport. Early in it's history golf was a pastime enjoyed by the Scottish people who had lots of rolling pastureland and free time. BTW, the chuch was not a big fan of golf, it seems that folks would rather play golf on sundays, so the church fought the game. In the US it was first a game for the rich. The only courses were set up by the upper class and membership costs and policies kept it in their control. Only over the last few decades has this class barrier in golf been breached. One legacy continues, golf is still a game of the rich and powerful. This is very different from pool.

Many years ago professional golf was in a very similar position to that of pool today. The 'tour' was a bunch of top players going from independant event to independant event. They were barely surviving. Then along came a top quality promoter who organized the tour into a singular entity and promoted it to the fans and media. This is what pool needs. History will repeat itself if only people would learn from history.

Dave

BTW, tennis is very similar to golf in it's social and economic development, funny how they too are enjoying tremendous success.

I think we're probably largely in agreement. Obviously, pool needs better organization and promotion. And yes, I would absolutely agree that golf and tennis have historically been games of the wealthy and privileged. However, I would argue that this has not in any way prevented them from been viewed as wholesome activities (at least in the past 50 years or so). In fact, I would argue that this "elitist" element made them more alluring to many middle class Americans looking to move up the economic ladder. Golf, either through concious planning or luck, aligned itself with television many decades ago. And, it is my contention, that this partnership allowed golf to ingrain itself into the American consciousness. People got used to seeing Nelson, Sneed, Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson, etc. play every weekend on TV. They became familiar with the players and the game through constant exposure to them. Not so with pool.

Ever notice how much more you enjoy watching sports when you get to know a little about the athletes? When you know the team vs team and player vs player rivalries? When you get to know the playing styles and signature moves of the people in the sport? I would argue that golf, to a large extent, enjoys the immense popularity that it does largely because it has been in the public view for so long. People know its history and rivalries. The general public knows basically nothing about pool's various games, their rules, or its top players. So why will they watch a tournament? I would be interested in hearing from those in the UK. How long has snooker been on television? And has it been on major networks all of this time?

 

[Side Pocket Kid]

I say we sould all put some money together and
get powerade to make a pool commercial....
I think it would work..

The balls would to amazing twists and turns, like the sport commercials they do.