World Champ = $75,000

BeeMan

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Congrats to Alex...
But a World Champ of pool (side note: in my opinion 9-ball shouldn't be the world championship game)....is only worth $75,000????

THE GREATEST 9-BALL PLAYER IN THE WORRRRRLLLLDDD IS WORTH ONLY $75,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don't want to ramble on, so I won't...But you can't see my face and you know what my expression is...

What a joke...I don't blame Corey at all
 
75 Grand

Well Beeman,

I can somehow understand you but answer this question:

Where else is the pricemoney that high?

Does the US have a real pro Tour? NOPE

So don't laugh about it. It's the best the sport can achieve so far. !

Regards,
Markus
 
i210mfu said:
Well Beeman,

I can somehow understand you but answer this question:

Where else is the pricemoney that high?

Does the US have a real pro Tour? NOPE

So don't laugh about it. It's the best the sport can achieve so far. !

Regards,
Markus

...and it is $15K bigger than last years purse.
 
75K compared to 60K last year. That's increase of 25%. Not a bad start I would say. In a few years...who knows. Success doesn't happen over night.
 
BeeMan said:
Congrats to Alex...
But a World Champ of pool (side note: in my opinion 9-ball shouldn't be the world championship game)....is only worth $75,000????

THE GREATEST 9-BALL PLAYER IN THE WORRRRRLLLLDDD IS WORTH ONLY $75,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don't want to ramble on, so I won't...But you can't see my face and you know what my expression is...

What a joke...I don't blame Corey at all


And Todd Hamilton won 720,000 pounds or $1.346 million dollars for winning the British Open on Sunday. Corey can keep pounding those Titleists all day long, but he ain't gonna cash in on the PGA Tour. Poker Corey, Poker!
 
Ok yes, I may have come across in a bit of a wrong fashion..it just shocked me is all....

has that extra $15K come from sponsorship? Or where has it come from...

My intention to start this thread was not to compare World pool to US pool prizemoney...but to compare a World Championship of pool, to the prizemoney of other sports..... even non world championship events in other sports offer more...

But i would like to know where the extra money has come from..if it is from sponsorship then it is definately a step in the right direction...

If it is from the players..such as entry fees and the like....then obviously not so good
 
It's funny you mention Poker. I went by a card game last night to watch some high stakes OMAHA. One of the gentleman at the table said "Hey,I know you, You are the best pool player in town....Why are you here thinking of playing cards? " My only reply was that Nobody asks for an extra wild card playing poker.
 
Last edited:
Drake said:
It's funny you mention Poker. I went by a card game last night to watch some high stakes OMAHA. One of the gentleman at the table said "Hey,I know you, You are know as the best pool player in town....Why are you here thinking of playing cards? " My only reply was that Nobody ask for an extra wild card playing poker.
This touches on a good point for me. I always enjoy poker but I have more control over my fate (And thus my cash) playing pool. But I think that the World Series of Poker is currently a huge success and with the right marketing I would love to see pool played at that level for that much. People love to say pool will never make the mainstream because its viewed as a seedy back room game full of hustlers and sharks. But is that not what poker is too?
Dang Drake spot me a wild eight will ya..... LOL
 
BeeMan said:
Congrats to Alex...
But a World Champ of pool (side note: in my opinion 9-ball shouldn't be the world championship game)....is only worth $75,000????

THE GREATEST 9-BALL PLAYER IN THE WORRRRRLLLLDDD IS WORTH ONLY $75,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don't want to ramble on, so I won't...But you can't see my face and you know what my expression is...

What a joke...I don't blame Corey at all

Beeman, get it together. In 1997, Archer won 13,400 by winning the WPA World championship event. Thanks to Matchroom Sports, Pagulayan cashes a 75,000 check in 2004.

Long live Matchroom Sports.
 
BeeMan said:
Congrats to Alex...
But a World Champ of pool (side note: in my opinion 9-ball shouldn't be the world championship game)....is only worth $75,000????

THE GREATEST 9-BALL PLAYER IN THE WORRRRRLLLLDDD IS WORTH ONLY $75,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don't want to ramble on, so I won't...But you can't see my face and you know what my expression is...

What a joke...I don't blame Corey at all

Supply and demand, or lack thereof. Nobody except other pool players wants to watch pool. Matter of fact I'd say at most about 50% of the pool players I know are even interested in watching it. People talk about how great it's popularity is in other countries, but it couldn't be that great if 75 grand is all that they could come up with. And it has nothing to do with pool's seedy image or dress codes or anything else but a lack of interest on the part of the general public. Poker players are a pretty grungy lot and that doesn't stop poker.
IMHO.
 
catscradle said:
Poker players are a pretty grungy lot and that doesn't stop poker.
IMHO.

I'm fairly sure that the only reason poker has the big $ prizes is because they put up there own money and the high $ figure attracts the TV audience. Would poker be going over as big on TV if they were only playing for 50k at the final table. I don't think so.

JR
 
To add to my above post about poker.

For example - The world championship of poker, every player puts up 10 grand of his own money. How many pool players do you think you could get to put up 10 grand? So why are these poker players willing to put up 10 grand? Because there is that possiblilty that they could win. Almost every year there is that completely unknown person at the final table. It's because poker is at most 40 percent skill. Leaving 60 percent to who gets the best hands.

Pool on the other hand, am I going to put up 10 grand. Nope, to much skill involved, I stand no chance of getting to the semi-finals.

JR
 
CaptainJR said:
To add to my above post about poker.

For example - The world championship of poker, every player puts up 10 grand of his own money. How many pool players do you think you could get to put up 10 grand? So why are these poker players willing to put up 10 grand? Because there is that possiblilty that they could win. Almost every year there is that completely unknown person at the final table. It's because poker is at most 40 percent skill. Leaving 60 percent to who gets the best hands.

Pool on the other hand, am I going to put up 10 grand. Nope, to much skill involved, I stand no chance of getting to the semi-finals.

JR

You got it right, CaptainJR: poker is as popular as it is because everybody who knows that a flush beats a straight thinks they have a chance of winning, so lots of players are willing to ante up the big entry fees for a shot at the pot of gold (plus the sponsors/casinos are willing to chip in more because of the game's appeal), whereas the vast majority of people in the U.S. hardly know how to even make a bridge. The skill level required to be competitive at pool is just too great. I think pro golfers need even more skills, but the average joe still enjoys golf (and is willing to buy products from the sponsors that put up the big purses) even if they're a duffer. I don't think pool's historically poor image is that much of a hindrance any more. It's just not popular enough with the public because of its difficulty, and the billiards industry, by itself, just can't afford to pony up the prize money.

Just my .02.
 
Beeman, the extra money in this years WPC came from sponsorship, I think it came from the Taiwanese gov't.


sjm said:
In 1997, Archer won 13,400 by winning the WPA World championship event. Thanks to Matchroom Sports, Pagulayan cashes a 75,000 check in 2004.

Long live Matchroom Sports.

Matchroom sport has done everything to get more prize money in pool and to get better TV coverage for the sport. WPC is their only tourny that doesn't pay ALL participants, I think the WPL is the only one that doesn't have TV coverage.
 
Most people will put more money into a tournament based
on some luck and some skill. Heads up most people want it to be more about skill before they will throw higher figures into it.

Another thing that helps poker players put up the 10K is that
local and regional size tournaments pay more in comparision to pool.

If I were to play a pro pool event I would go 2 and out and have a good chance of embarrassing myself. In Poker at least everyone gets to play and
it not as quick an painful as loss as in pool. Theres always the luck factor in poker as well. You just cant get THAT lucky playing a skilled game like
pool.


CaptainJR said:
To add to my above post about poker.

For example - The world championship of poker, every player puts up 10 grand of his own money. How many pool players do you think you could get to put up 10 grand? So why are these poker players willing to put up 10 grand? Because there is that possiblilty that they could win. Almost every year there is that completely unknown person at the final table. It's because poker is at most 40 percent skill. Leaving 60 percent to who gets the best hands.

Pool on the other hand, am I going to put up 10 grand. Nope, to much skill involved, I stand no chance of getting to the semi-finals.

JR
 
Yes I was erratic in my first post, but this was from the left side of my body not functioning after I had a stroke from the shock of seeing such small prizemoney for a World Champ.

But after reading other posts, and seeing that the prizemoney has increased over the years..and it is because of sponsorship and not entry fees (like that million dollar thing that never happened)...I have to say well done to Matchroom and all others involved in doing their darndest to gain public interest in our sport.
 
Tournament purses

sjm said:
Beeman, get it together. In 1997, Archer won 13,400 by winning the WPA World championship event. Thanks to Matchroom Sports, Pagulayan cashes a 75,000 check in 2004.

Long live Matchroom Sports.

And Michael Phelan won $15,000 in a national billiards competition in 1859, and Greenleaf made $2,000 a week in the 1920's doing trick shots (more than Babe Ruth was making). Progress?
 
PoolBum said:
And Michael Phelan won $15,000 in a national billiards competition in 1859, and Greenleaf made $2,000 a week in the 1920's doing trick shots (more than Babe Ruth was making). Progress?

In terms of the last 20 years (esp. in the USA where the prize-money is still ludicrously small), huge progress has been made.

The big thing is the lack of a proper top-tier mens tour. I don't count the UPA as 5 events do not a tour make.

It would be nice to see the organisers of the BCA, US Open, WPC, and the Tokyo Open get together and start running a series of smaller tournaments leading up to these 4 big ones. Then the corporates would start runnin'.
 
Raistlin said:
In terms of the last 20 years (esp. in the USA where the prize-money is still ludicrously small), huge progress has been made.

The big thing is the lack of a proper top-tier mens tour. I don't count the UPA as 5 events do not a tour make.

It would be nice to see the organisers of the BCA, US Open, WPC, and the Tokyo Open get together and start running a series of smaller tournaments leading up to these 4 big ones. Then the corporates would start runnin'.

Personally, I think it has more to do with the lack of diversions for people in the the 19th and early 20th centuries. There was no TV, no movies, no radio, no video games, etc. People leapt for anything even mildly entertaining or they stayed home and read or made babies. The only entertainment was probably going to be something you could walk to or take a trolley. Now all somebody has to do is flick on the tv and they've go extreme skiing, baseball, basketball, summer football, movies, soap operas, game shows, talk shows, etc. There is no end to the competition for a viewers attention, and let's face if you're not into pool/billiards it really can be pretty boring.
You know it isn't like pool is the only formerly big thing that has died or is struggling. Remember roller rinks, drive-in theaters, large theaters, record hops, churches; times change and people's options and tastes change too.
 
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