WPA Bans 245 Players

[Vahmurka]

1) What gets youngsters involved is not organization by a governing body (local, national, international). It's seeing something they want to become. They see the "stars" (whether local in the club, or national/international on broadcast) and want to become a star one day. Then they will seek out how to do that. If MR never had a Jr event (which they of course do), they would still be growing pool for the next generation, by creating interest for the next generation.

Just an example outside of pool. PDC is Professional Darts Corporation, Matchroom-operated. There is an aspiring darts player who plays many pro events, sometimes beating the very top players. He is a plumber. Last week he arrived at one of the biggest events of the year right from his morning shift, after doing his plumbing duties.
A 2018 world champion worked as an electrician. Out of the blue he made it to the finals and defeated Phil Taylor, who is easily "Efren Reyes of darts" in his prime, a legendary figure. That electrician decided to turn full-time pro then.

This is how the world of pro pool will look like. We are going to have plumbers and electricians competing at the pool table. Probably one or two of several hundred will turn full-time pool pros...

 

[Bob Jewett]

... 1) What gets youngsters involved is not organization by a governing body (local, national, international). It's seeing something they want to become. They see the "stars" (whether local in the club, or national/international on broadcast) and want to become a star one day. Then they will seek out how to do that. If MR never had a Jr event (which they of course do), they would still be growing pool for the next generation, by creating interest for the next generation.
....

That's only true for some cases. If you look at the cases of Poland for pool and of the recent development of English Billiards in England, you will see that there is another path. If kids are presented with the chance to play an interesting game, and given help with learning it, some will become world class players.

In my case, it was not a matter of wanting to be like Willie Mosconi or Ronnie Allen. I had the opportunity to play the game and found it fascinating. It had nothing to do with seeing champions. The first run of 50 I ever saw was my own.

 

[zetetikos]

Eurotour is now all Predator tables. I wonder if Predator will tell the EPBF to go pound sand.

Only the championships will be played on predator tables, the rest of the seasons events will be played on what the host facility has.

European Pocket Billiard Federation – The governing body of European pool

The European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) is the European governing body for pocket billiards.

www.epbf.com

 

[Vahmurka]

Only the championships will be played on predator tables, the rest of the seasons events will be played on what the host facility has.

In the past it used to be the EPBF president and the head of IBP (promotion runner) driving the tables around the continent in a big truck.

 

[garczar]

That's only true for some cases. If you look at the cases of Poland for pool and of the recent development of English Billiards in England, you will see that there is another path. If kids are presented with the chance to play an interesting game, and given help with learning it, some will become world class players.

In my case, it was not a matter of wanting to be like Willie Mosconi or Ronnie Allen. I had the opportunity to play the game and found it fascinating. It had nothing to do with seeing champions. The first run of 50 I ever saw was my own.

If you could get 50 15yr olds off their fkng fone for an hour would be a start. The grassroot pool deal in the US is a joke.

 

[briclops]

It loooks like the WPA has no intention now of trying to get some disciplines in the Olympics. They ban a lot of the best players in the world and they expect the IOC to take them seriously.

 

[Scrunge19]

I still have very little clarity on what exact issues are at the root of the beef between Matchroom and the WPA. I hope it’s more than just disputes over ranking systems as neither the WPA or Matchroom rankings are very good.

I’d also be wary to root for the complete disappearance of the WPA. I’m in agreement that they’ve been lacking in their responsibilities over the years, but I think we should be pushing for reform over outright destruction.

Regardless of what the broader “WPA” organization has accomplished, there still is a lot of value in what the individual federations do for their jurisdictions/pool in general. I think it’s easy to look past this as a primarily American audience since we don’t have anywhere near the same level of impact here. We need a well-run, global governing body to oversee and act as a steward of the sport. Not just 9ball, not just 10ball, but the sport in general.

We also need good promoters, of which Matchroom is one. They have certainly done some good things for the game these past few years but they’re just a promoter, and of one only one specific variation of cue sports. Going all in one one single promoter without any governing body in place is awfully risky. What happens if they can’t make the financials work in a few years or Barry Hearn dies and the next boss of Matchroom doesn’t have the same affinity for this latest product line? Then you’ll really see professional pool suffer.

 

[jax_joe]

I still have very little clarity on what exact issues are at the root of the beef between Matchroom and the WPA. I hope it’s more than just disputes over ranking systems as neither the WPA or Matchroom rankings are very good.

I’d also be wary to root for the complete disappearance of the WPA. I’m in agreement that they’ve been lacking in their responsibilities over the years, but I think we should be pushing for reform over outright destruction.

Regardless of what the broader “WPA” organization has accomplished, there still is a lot of value in what the individual federations do for their jurisdictions/pool in general. I think it’s easy to look past this as a primarily American audience since we don’t have anywhere near the same level of impact here. We need a well-run, global governing body to oversee and act as a steward of the sport. Not just 9ball, not just 10ball, but the sport in general.

We also need good promoters, of which Matchroom is one. They have certainly done some good things for the game these past few years but they’re just a promoter, and of one only one specific variation of cue sports. Going all in one one single promoter without any governing body in place is awfully risky. What happens if they can’t make the financials work in a few years or Barry Hearn dies and the next boss of Matchroom doesn’t have the same affinity for this latest product line? Then you’ll really see professional pool suffer.

In large part it is because the Matchroom a-hats act like no one else is of any importance and schedule whatever they want whenever they want. Everybody must fall in line. That's just basic business strategy for them.

WPA release statement on Hanoi Open, Reyes Cup and World 8-Ball Championship dates clash

The WPA have released a statement in the midst of schedule clashes between the World 8-Ball Championship, Hanoi Open and Reyes Cup (Photo: PBS)

absolute-pool.com

That being said, scheduling the World 8 in Venezuela was a poor choice.

 

[benjaminwah]

Has anyone seen reactions today from any of the banned players?

 

[JusticeNJ]

That's only true for some cases. If you look at the cases of Poland for pool and of the recent development of English Billiards in England, you will see that there is another path. If kids are presented with the chance to play an interesting game, and given help with learning it, some will become world class players.

In my case, it was not a matter of wanting to be like Willie Mosconi or Ronnie Allen. I had the opportunity to play the game and found it fascinating. It had nothing to do with seeing champions. The first run of 50 I ever saw was my own.

Same. I fell in love with the game first and foremost. And that’s still what holds my interest, not the “scene.”

 

[Flakeandrun]

There isn't a Chinese or English 8 Ball table within 1000 miles of me. Where do you propose I practice? What would the point be? Should I practice Curling while I'm at it?

How many 4" Rassons are in your vicinity?
English 8ball is... not much fun (better than any game on a barbox though!) - I'd rather see 8ball on a 9ft American table with 4" pockets or Chinese 8ball.
My nearest American table is more than 4hours away back home. Where I am now there are 20+ 4" Rassons in my local, 20 4.25" Rassons, 6 Chinese 8ball tables and a snooker table. Lucky boy that I am (If lucky is living 8000km from 'home')

My point being, yes, take up curling when you find the appropriate material. It could be fun. Chinese 8ball is

I can't help but agree, WPA is knocking on deaths door by actually following through with this... They are going to lean heavily into Chinese 8ball, and potentially try and push that into other lucrative markets like the Middle East. WPA and MR share one common similarity... They couldn't give AF about the US market as far as I can see...

Slowly working my way through this thread with morning coffee.

 

[jax_joe]

Has anyone seen reactions today from any of the banned players?

They're checking with Matchroom first.....

 

[Flakeandrun]

Good point. I think pool will grow each yr but to expect those kinds of payouts is a TAD premature. You gotta remember snooker was the no.1 show on BritTV with massive 'sin $$' as sponsors. But without MR it would be nowhere, still stuck in the post CamelTour-collapse days.

But they did employ very similar strategy to now. Approaching the biggest market and shoving product into it's open mouth, revenue from TV (now streaming) with ads, creating drama with a WWE-esque scripted nonsense, hand selecting and promoting 'select' players with nonsensical nicknames and fabricated grudges (when the real grudges in world snooker were still very apparent an interesting).

I have no doubt MR would win in a bare knuckle fight, just wish they would really have at it and get it done already. I am concerned for the games of 8 and 10 ball, and it's sad to see them going the same way as 14.1, and one-pocket (outside of the US).

 

[Flakeandrun]

Shane even has got a C8 table (from JOY if memory serves me). But you are right that is not the point. I suggest we simply leave C8 aside, because it is totally irrelevant to the topic I think. Yet some continue beating that horse, for whatever puzzling reason.

because it has an enormous financial allure, thus being the only real challenge to what MR put on the plate. Not that it will ever seriously challenge them, because their directions are not on the same continent, let alone the same path.

The problem is, the real investors of that sport are not bothered about making it into a world sport, or they would hire someone who has the slightest clue about branding/advertising and make their events more visible and easy to stream (they have the cash, so begs the question why don't they do that already? - because they couldn't give af) the investors backing Chinese-8 are bothered about lining their pockets. The only real push I can see them making would be targeting the other wealthy markets - either the enormous populous areas of SE Asia, or Middle East money (much like MR are also attempting).

They would also love to keep it federation based, to ensure the domestic market for that game is big, and Chinese players win whatever they want to call a 'world championship' - they invite big players from across other cue sports who are happy to collect a paycheck just for entering, which draws domestic crowd, they invite a ton of dead money foreign players and let the top local players beat the hell out of them. They love to see it become an olympic sport. At least two extra, low-effort gold medals lol

 

[justadub]

Has anyone seen reactions today from any of the banned players?

Shaw was laughing on Facebook

 

[Badpenguin]

The WPA is the national federations. They are all members of the WPA. Any work done by the national federations is work done under/by the WPA.

The WPA itself is the Board and a maybe few staff. It has few resources to actually do anything.

I find it hard to believe that the national federations would be commonly acting at the behest of the WPA, other than maybe providing a shared calendar. Is someone from the WPA coming and running the Eurotour? Arranging training centers in Poland? Running regional tournaments? If the WPA went away tomorrow would most of the federations continue?

 

[sjm]

I am from Vietnam, and have been following this closely from last year.

The way I see it, WPA has been all about threats, they only target the Hanoi Open. Every other events are sooner or later "sanctioned" whether or not event organizers care to seek sanction or not. A series of Matchroom events have been sanctioned earlier this year, not Hanoi Open. Peri Open was sanctioned a few days before start but still not Hanoi Open. Even Carom promotors pointed out the discrimination towards carom and pool events in Hanoi.

WPA seem to be scared their events will miss a lot of players, especially many of them have voiced their support for WNT... that is why they only targeted Hanoi Open for banning, lots of European players had to withdrew a couple days leading to Hanoi Open

And now they will invent a new "unsanctioned" category of events which still appear on their WPA calendar, this will create another grey area for players and causing even more confusion... but their ranking will be weaker than ever and their influence will diminish

Let's just draw a line and let players choose... black and white and move on

The battle is for control of Asian pool, for that is where the game is growing faster than anywhere else. Vietnam appears to be the hotbed of that growth, so there is no surprise that it is where the battle is being fought between Matchroom and WPA/ACBS. Remember, the Hanoi Open is the only Matchroom major played in Asia. The Peri Open, although it carries Matchroom ranking points, is not a Matchroom produced event.

I hope there's a path forward where everybody comes out a winner, but I'm just a fan waiting for the outcome. My greatest loyalties lie with the players, who are all struggling with the politics of these times.

 

[Badpenguin]

Yes you do miss a tiny bit, just like many more AZBers who continue guessing over the same question "What WPA has done for the players". I think one should check the overall global structure for a major worldwide sport. Not necessarily pool, but take a quick look at soccer, basketball, volleyball, handball, powerlifting, etc.
Maybe then?...

So, you have no answer to the simple, direct question. What does the WPA actually do for upcoming players?

 

[justadub]

So, you have no answer to the simple, direct question. What does the WPA actually do for upcoming players?

And what have they done to grow professional pool, in the last 25-30 years? I've been following things for the last 15 years, and the only true growth, for the pro's, has been the Matchroom stuff.

Are they blameless, no. But if you were to take away the matchroom stuff that has happened in the last few years, where would the pro's be?

 

[iusedtoberich]

That's the fundamental problem with not-for-profit organizations. There is zero motive to grow or do anything. Money makes the world go round. Don't let anyone tell you differently.