Impossible ?

tonygreen

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In 1988 or 89 Pool and Billiard or Billiard's Digest (sorry I dont remember which) reported that the #1 money earner in Men's Professional Billiards and or Pool earned just over $80,000 in tournament winnings. Forgive me i do not have the documentation at my disposal (mostly because when I gave up pool in 2002 my wife at the time threw away the 3 or 4 dozen magazines for that late 80's early 90's timeframe) that B.I.T.*.*. always could give me 10 to 5 and I never won!
Anyway I divorced her and 9 years later im playing pool again, but since May (when I started playing again, I have been catching up on the industry and sport on the whole) I have started to come to the conclusion that pool is in the same place that it was 20 years ago in terms of the top 5-10 percent of players still not being able to make a decent living playing the game. I find this so sad and much to my shegrin I have drawn a conclusion that pool will be in the same place 20 years from now unless it is included as an Olympic sport. The even more unfortunate news is that this CANNOT happen untill 2016 and more likely 2024, in regard to the IOC.

How can we get it to move forward so that the top 10 percent of the best players on the globe make 50 percent of what other sports counterparts earn? In other words if the top 300 tennis players in the world earn on average $150K per year how can we get to a point where the top 300 poolplayers earn $75K per year?

Camera phones and the internet threw a monkey wrench into hustlin.

Can anyone even dream of a way this could be possible without the aid of the Olympics including the game and awarding medals? Will we ever see a 10-ball champion grace the cover of ESPN magazine or a One-Pocket master stand side by side with a Golf champion in a Gillette commercial?

tired of dreaming I am ...
 

petie

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Oct 2, 2005
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Citrus Springs, FL
In 1988 or 89 Pool and Billiard or Billiard's Digest (sorry I dont remember which) reported that the #1 money earner in Men's Professional Billiards and or Pool earned just over $80,000 in tournament winnings. Forgive me i do not have the documentation at my disposal (mostly because when I gave up pool in 2002 my wife at the time threw away the 3 or 4 dozen magazines for that late 80's early 90's timeframe) that B.I.T.*.*. always could give me 10 to 5 and I never won!
Anyway I divorced her and 9 years later im playing pool again, but since May (when I started playing again, I have been catching up on the industry and sport on the whole) I have started to come to the conclusion that pool is in the same place that it was 20 years ago in terms of the top 5-10 percent of players still not being able to make a decent living playing the game. I find this so sad and much to my shegrin I have drawn a conclusion that pool will be in the same place 20 years from now unless it is included as an Olympic sport. The even more unfortunate news is that this CANNOT happen untill 2016 and more likely 2024, in regard to the IOC.

How can we get it to move forward so that the top 10 percent of the best players on the globe make 50 percent of what other sports counterparts earn? In other words if the top 300 tennis players in the world earn on average $150K per year how can we get to a point where the top 300 poolplayers earn $75K per year?

Camera phones and the internet threw a monkey wrench into hustlin.

Can anyone even dream of a way this could be possible without the aid of the Olympics including the game and awarding medals? Will we ever see a 10-ball champion grace the cover of ESPN magazine or a One-Pocket master stand side by side with a Golf champion in a Gillette commercial?

tired of dreaming I am ...

Tony,
Who the hell were you married to? I don't know how strong you play but 10-5? WTF?
To respond to your open question, I have concluded that a simple reality show on the discovery channel about pool will bring it out of the corner if it is done halfway right. Lots of details to sweat but its very doable. Just need that business angel to take an interest in it.
 

tonygreen

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Messages
391
Petie,
I like that idea, that's thinking outside the box !!! Poker had a reality tv show where they put 4 young guys in a house to live (but it was quickly cancelled).

The wife giving 10-5 was figurative not literal (big LOL) but the truth is all wives can spot all husbands.

"Poolhall Junkies" full length film (2002) had all the right elements for a movie but was a flop $4 million dollar budget and only grossed $564K . Danny Diliberto spoke of the film in his interview with 1pocket.org when referencing his book.
"The Color of Money" (1986) budget of $13 million took in $52 million 16 years prior, so big media can make a huge difference sometimes.

Pool was hugely popular on TV in Great Britain, and we know about it's popularity phenomenon in the Phillipines. What else can we do?
 

SJDinPHX

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Petie,
I like that idea, that's thinking outside the box !!! Poker had a reality tv show where they put 4 young guys in a house to live (but it was quickly cancelled).

The wife giving 10-5 was figurative not literal (big LOL) but the truth is all wives can spot all husbands.

"Poolhall Junkies" full length film (2002) had all the right elements for a movie but was a flop $4 million dollar budget and only grossed $564K . Danny Diliberto spoke of the film in his interview with 1pocket.org when referencing his book.
"The Color of Money" (1986) budget of $13 million took in $52 million 16 years prior, so big media can make a huge difference sometimes.

Pool was hugely popular on TV in Great Britain, and we know about it's popularity phenomenon in the Phillipines. What else can we do?

Guy's

All pool would need, to bring it out of the doldrums, would be a televised, high $$$$ match, between the Ghoat and the Beardmonster,
with SuperDuck shooting between them in a partner format...For comedy relief, this would far surpass "Seinfeld"...:p :p :p
 

Scrzbill

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Eagles Rest, Wa
Guy's

All pool would need, to bring it out of the doldrums, would be a televised, high $$$$ match, between the Ghoat and the Beardmonster,
with SuperDuck shooting between them in a partner format...For comedy relief, this would far surpass "Seinfeld"...:p :p

Do you see the gigantic trailer trailer RV parked in front of your house? That's the camera crew. :lol:heh:lol
 

petie

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Citrus Springs, FL
Guy's

All pool would need, to bring it out of the doldrums, would be a televised, high $$$$ match, between the Ghoat and the Beardmonster,
with SuperDuck shooting between them in a partner format...For comedy relief, this would far surpass "Seinfeld"...:p :p :p

You're on to something here.
 

SJDinPHX

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Will we ever see a 10-ball champion grace the cover of ESPN magazine or a One-Pocket master stand side by side with a Golf champion in a Gillette commercial?

tired of dreaming I am ...

We actually had one for quite a while, remember...The Miz made a bunch of Beer commercials..:p

I have made several really 'low budget' TV commercials myself. They were for "Friendly Fred's Storm Door and Airline Company" (got paid in leftover airline peanuts and pretzels)..:rolleyes:
 
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fred bentivegna

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chicago illinois
Busch commercial

Busch commercial

A friend of mine got me a job as a tech advisor for a Busch Beer commercial.
It was with a big name comm producer guy (forgot his name). The whole project was so ridiculous and implausible that I couldnt keep my mouth shut. I stepped in and stopped the shoot so often that they finally canceled the whole thing. I told the producer, who was a pretty good guy, that he had hired me to tech-advise the project and that is what I was doing. I told him that anyone in the whole pool community would giggle at the total absurdity of what it was they were trying to project. I talked myself out of two more days of work, but they did completely shit-can the commercial.

Beard

Pool's integrity is my life.
 

jrhendy

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Placerville, CA
Out of the corner.

Out of the corner.

Tony,
Who the hell were you married to? I don't know how strong you play but 10-5? WTF?
To respond to your open question, I have concluded that a simple reality show on the discovery channel about pool will bring it out of the corner if it is done halfway right. Lots of details to sweat but its very doable. Just need that business angel to take an interest in it.

Remember when they were trying to clean pool up for TV at tournaments?

Dress code, no drinking or smoking at the table and no cussing. Never worked. The poker comes along and guess what, people like to see the characters, warts and all, and the poker players come along and make all the $$ and get all the popularity instead of the pool players.

Now that everybody knows the top guys are all thieves it will get popular all over again.

H
 

tonygreen

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The non poker and non pool greater public see poker not as skill and pool not as a sport.
 

grimel

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The non poker and non pool greater public see poker not as skill and pool not as a sport.

And ESPN pretty well ruined live poker games. Now, every baboon thinks he's the next big gun playing "power poker" 4 betting and all in with 7-2 off and 3-6. One or two of these people at a table you can beat, but, seven or eight of them and it becomes borderline impossible to win.

I think pool's characters are much better than poker. If ESPN had left the players be themselves we'd have had Grady doing the interviews about the old times instead of Doyle.

Then I'd still have a pool hall less than 40 minutes away.
 

tonygreen

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grimel Welcome

grimel Welcome

Welcome Grimel ... ! Allow me to welcome you to the site it's full of a great bunch of people. Okay maybe a great bunch of interesting people but eager to voice theirs opinions (myself included) again welcome.
 

grimel

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Welcome Grimel ... ! Allow me to welcome you to the site it's full of a great bunch of people. Okay maybe a great bunch of interesting people but eager to voice theirs opinions (myself included) again welcome.

Thanks, I've found pool players to be a colorful bunch of characters.
 
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