I think Matchroom outta just throw shit on the wall and see what happens. find a decent ESPN time slot and just try it. they can damn sure afford it.
Will WNT World Championship in Jeddah Put Pool on the Map in Mainstream Media?
- Thread starter JAM
- Start date
buzzpaff73
New member
Pool has been dead since the mid 1950s Resurrected by Pall Newman for a brief interval. if you have to pay to for airtime that just proves it is dead and buried now
What do you suggest?
Pool will never make it to mainstream ever.
The high prize money is because a prince decided it to be so; this has nothing to make pool big.
People need to understand how money works, it’s simple. The Snapchat silly girl who dances and has 5Mill views will become millionaires: it’s all about viewership. And pool is boring to watch I’m sorry but this is the truth. I dare you to make your whole family (non pool players) to sit and watch plus be excited. Can you?
Look at the chairs at Jeddah. It’s mostly empty and do not tell me that it’s because of the location and if it’s in America it will be crowded blah blah blah.
Plus the people who are responsible for pool are dumb I’m sorry: they don’t know how to make viewership exciting or interesting. Example look at this director who’s now responsible for the world championship in Jeddah. The director has no grasp of how to place cameras or what to show!! It’s mind boggling. The guy show reply’s of every break which is pointless he’s like a robot keeps repeating everything the same. Sometimes I can tv see the layout because he’s replying the friggin break shot which is a luck shot. Then during the timeouts he shows this! Look
Like what am I exactly seeing here? A security camera? Nothing is showing. Can’t see people’s can’t see tables. Can’t see balls. What exactly is this nubwit footage of nothing that is very far at a ceiling?!
Look when tennis have breaks the director knows how to catch funny or interesting things. They show the people they show faces they show audience doing something funny. But our pool minds who are responsible for these things they know nothing. That’s the truth!
The high prize money is because a prince decided it to be so; this has nothing to make pool big.
People need to understand how money works, it’s simple. The Snapchat silly girl who dances and has 5Mill views will become millionaires: it’s all about viewership. And pool is boring to watch I’m sorry but this is the truth. I dare you to make your whole family (non pool players) to sit and watch plus be excited. Can you?
Look at the chairs at Jeddah. It’s mostly empty and do not tell me that it’s because of the location and if it’s in America it will be crowded blah blah blah.
Plus the people who are responsible for pool are dumb I’m sorry: they don’t know how to make viewership exciting or interesting. Example look at this director who’s now responsible for the world championship in Jeddah. The director has no grasp of how to place cameras or what to show!! It’s mind boggling. The guy show reply’s of every break which is pointless he’s like a robot keeps repeating everything the same. Sometimes I can tv see the layout because he’s replying the friggin break shot which is a luck shot. Then during the timeouts he shows this! Look
Like what am I exactly seeing here? A security camera? Nothing is showing. Can’t see people’s can’t see tables. Can’t see balls. What exactly is this nubwit footage of nothing that is very far at a ceiling?!
Look when tennis have breaks the director knows how to catch funny or interesting things. They show the people they show faces they show audience doing something funny. But our pool minds who are responsible for these things they know nothing. That’s the truth!
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Adopt the metric system...?
It was the same at the USopen last year. Some die hards wandering around but for the most part only players and their plus 1's.
Based solely on my experience at the fore mentioned event last year. I highly doubt I'd ever pony up for the last couple of days to partake in person again. Spent the bulk of my time watching the streaming content on the monitors positioned above the action then the action itself. Like everything else, the televised content is more comprehensive and easily provides the best viewing angle for was going on at the moment. I wouldn't call watching the finals live a bad experience. However for the cost of tickets and stay..., there's better ways to watch.
Way back in my youth, I used to play 3 on 3 basketball. Did a tourney held in what was called the "skydome" at the time. The producers of that event gave away tickets to bring viewers in and condensed those into areas so when they panned the cameras it appeared as though there was heavy interest and an exciting environment. I can't imagine MR cares too much about the gate in the earlier stages. Surprised they don't employ the same tactics to give the illusion of interest in their product.
That's a venue shot. The point is to highlight the stage MR has put together for the event. It is quite impressive, even though you're not a fan of seeing it for a few moments.
I actually thought the production/direction had been better than what I've seen in the past.
You're assuming there's content that more interesting to place on the screens. Doubt MR wants to catch SVB digging something out of his nose while waiting for his opponent to come back from the washroom
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they did give away tickets in cardiff. but here they have a ticket price of 90$ i think, which probably is too high for the pinoy expats in saudi. i can understand having a gate and entry fee, but keep it low.
yea the venue shot we see is an ad break for other broadcasters. i don't mind it, and definitely prefer it to ads..
They gotta paper those houses. Put out calls for extras, pay double scale. Get 'em looking alive and enthused.
LightsOutChris
New member
Apologies in advance, this turned into more of a thoughtful rant than I was expecting ...
You know, it certainly should have "made the map" if you will, but there seems to be this implicit bias against pool and billiards in the US these days unless it is private streamed or PPV.
Pool championships on television used to be the norm back in the 70's (really the late 60's to early 80's). I remember watching it on ABC's WWoS as a kid. I'm not really sure why it fell out of favor so badly other than (potentially) an ever increasingly dumb public that would rather watch WWE or over-paid criminals posing as professional athletes than those that specialize in the art of the various billiard sports.
To me, very much like tennis, pool is the ultimate 1-on-1 sport, all other things (equipment, table, experience, etc.) being equal, it really boils down to Player A vs Player B and the ultimate match-up of skill on skill. It is also one of the few sports where physicality is a less-prominent factor so women can actually compete on a fairly even level (and often do - at least to the 2nd tier of male "pro" players that sit in the 650 - 750 Fargo range)
I mean, damn, if people can spend 6 hours per day watching golf over 2 - 4 days, I don't know why they couldn't pony up the same time to watch a some really good 9 or 10 ball matches. To me, billiards is 10x more exciting than any other sport - plus, outside of the CF shaft. there are very little equipment differences that would produce any significant imbalance towards the outcome.
I've never really sat down to try and figure out why things changed. Maybe, there are just less "camera-ready" personalities in pool to create that excitement. Even SVB and his 60 Minutes interview couldn't generate excitement outside of our own little insular pool communities. Maybe because there are so many streaming avenues available, major networks don't feel that the return justifies the investment. Truthfully, the advertising $$$ for pool & billiards is probably 1/1000th of the money available for major sports. Plus, the cost of entry for pool is prohibitive and the sport isn't readily kid-friendly, AAAAND, there is still this stupid misconception around gambling and organized crime influence. Seriously, what's the difference between wife-beater football player getting $1M a year for attaching his name to a sneaker brand and the pool player that plays high-stakes cash games to supplement the paltry tournament income. To me, the pool player wins the character award hands-down. Finally, there are literally millions of amateur pool-players in the country. Yeah, they're not buying new stuff every week and they don't necessarily chase the latest fads but certainly, there's markets available outside of pool-specific items (shoes, athletic wear, eyewear, general income-based demographic targeting, etc.,) that would attract an advertising base ... I would even think that some of the amateur national championships would generate enough interest for some level of coverage on an ESPN2 or FS1 or NBCSN ...
Alas, as I finally decide to bring this rant to a close, I realize that maybe those of you who have been around the game longer than I have, may have a more well-informed opinion. I would love to hear it but figured I'd at least weigh-in with my .02.
Have a great day folks and shoot well!