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Pool is Boring
There, I said it. And I love pool. I have skipped school, skipped work, left sick girlfriends to go play, chose pool over sex, gone to tournaments on my last $20 and on and on. All that to PLAY pool.
This month's topic for Pool Synergy is focused on how the loss of TV coverage will impact pool. Quite simply it will further erode the idea of playing pool in anything but a casual manner from the general public's consciousness.
Not that it matters much anyway as currently pool on TV is flat out boring to anyone but a diehard pool fanatic and even then it has a hard time holding their attention. Most pool content on broadcast television in the USA is actually ridiculous on top of being boring.
One reason is that the pros are so good that they make it look easy to the novices.
I honestly have a hard time staying awake when watching a match on TV or when it's streaming on the internet. It's taken me the better part of a year to get through the One Pocket matches from Galveston 2009. (yes I know One Pocket itself is boring to most)
Why am I bored by watching pool on TV? It's way too slow for one reason. Pool is so slow that most of the time they can replay all the shots in the previous game between the time the last ball fell and when the balls are racked for the next game. Pool is so slow that announcers have to fill space with all sorts of stories and personal chatter and as a result often miss commentating on what's going on in the match. Pool is so slow that I have to dust my screen between games. 
All right, just kidding on the last one.
But as if it's not slow enough now we are being asked to pay for days of it in race to 100 matches. Don't get me wrong I think races to 100 really do determine the better of two players over a 3 day period. I mean we have had some epic matches like when Alex was getting hammered by Shane and Alex comes back on the last day to snatch victory in the home stretch. Or when Shane was getting hammered by the pattern racking runout machine Donnie Mills but then pulls through and brings it home with his thunder break.
And who can forget Efren's come from behind victory over Earl Strickland in their epic race-to-120???
Well, the real question should be who even knows about these things in the first place? All we get for pool on ESPN and like channels in the USA is spoon-fed over-edited matches and made-up silly games. In the rest of the world they show the whole match, every ball and the commentators stay in the game. But even there the majority of the people have no clue about these matches and moreover no emotional investment. And asking people in today's culture to sit still for three days and about 24 hours of watching 2 guys play pool is not exactly a recipe for success. Most people don't even have that time to give up even if they want to. So then the guilt trip starts by telling people that they are miserly and nits if they don't pretty much donate to the cause even if they can't possibly consume the content.
The impact of media on pool's future will be insignificant if the pool media doesn't figure out how to better package pool. And when I say media I should clarify that I am speaking of broadcasting media which puts out content like TAR, Accu-Stats, Big Truck Show etc… People like MatchRoom have already figured out how to package pool in such a way as to be able to sell it to networks around the world and thus get more eyeballs watching pool.
Just the other night I had a conversation with my colleague Matt Carter who was attending the Atlanta Billards Show and WPBA event. At the same place they are having a big APA event. It's some sort of convention/event center. Matt steps outside to smoke and strikes up a conversation with an employee of the center who works in another part. The employee asks Matt what the event is about. Matt tells him it's a pool convention and professional tournament with a big league tournament. The guy asks which league and Matt says APA. The guy says, 'really? I wish I'd known about that and I would have made time for it, I play APA in Marietta.' Folks, Marietta is 30 minutes away, you know where the Marietta Billard Club owned by Johnny Archer is? How is it possible that every pool player in Marietta who owns their own cue didn't know about this event happening just down the road?
Ok so am I only going to complain or offer some solutions? Can I get away with just complaining and end it here?
Well I wouldn't do that to you. I do have a reputation to live up to as an idea guy after all.
So here are some suggestions as to how the pool world and the "media" can work together to present a better package to the world, generate more fans and bring more people to the game.
1. Work together. - We are all in this together sharing a small pie. Everybody constantly grabbing for slices of the same small pie insures that no one gets enough. Let's bake a bigger pie. So even though you have competitors in the same sector try to find the ways you can work together, even if it's no more than trying your best not to schedule events on top of each other.
Another example would be a mega-streaming an event like Derby City. For example if TAR, Accu-Stats, Big Truck, OTR etc were all there and covering the event on one Event-Specific portal where a visitor could tune in and have a buffet of billiards surrounding the event as has never been seen before that would be amazing. Imagine at any given moment the action is being covered on one feed, the tournament on another, viewer's choice match on another, on another vendors are being showcased with a fast-paced live chatroom only auction happening at each vendor's booth, in another one player's are being interviewed in an audience participation format…… woo hoo, I'd spend $50 and all my free time eating that up. IF you are going to ask people to tune in to your show for days on end then give them some variety to choose from.
2. Use Social Media and Forums to spread your word far and wide. Blog. Tweet. Beg. Subscribe to and link to each other and friend everyone. Digg Up great stuff and try to make a concerted effort to promote pool in every corner of the net. Link to each other's stuff and make a net that's easy for Google's spiders and people to hop from place to place and follow pool all over it.
3. Be compelling – alright here is the secret ingredient that every broadcaster wishes they had. What is there that keeps people watching. It's not watching a guy make balls while you talk about yours. Sorry, that's crass but it's true. This is not your living room where it's ok to cut up and make fun of everyone if you are serious about being part of pool's growth. If not then continue on and make sure that all the commentary is full of inside jokes that the rest of the world doesn't get. The reason things work on network TV is that they pander to the lowest common denominator. Not to say that you broadcasters have to go that far. But engage with your viewers as if they aren't in on the joke or make some attempt to bring them in. Pool stories are great, stories about heart and courage in pool are great, hustling stories are great. Explaining just how freaking tough it is to shoot a ball down the rail when you're under the gun is compelling. Bring the audience in as if you are helping them to see how much the pro has to work to make it look easy. Tell them to go join a league and get on the table to understand the thrill of making balls obey you. And yes I get it that you think you are already doing this but take a little tip from the big boys and focus group your work. Show it to people who aren't fanatics and see how they react, tweak it for non-pool fanatics so they can become fans.
4. Celebrate the History of the Game. – Talk about the hustling, life on the road, the great players, the great challenge matches of years past, take people along for the ride from the back room to the center stage. Every business has it's "dark side" which is also described as the "colorful side" ironically. USE IT at every opportunity.
5. Do in depth interviews/bios on the players – put up content that people can view to get to know the players and become fans. – You don't think that the deaf kid from SD who dreamed of being a world champion is not a compelling tale? How about the cook at the pool room who never hit a ball in his life before getting the job becomes a professional player? Splice these things into your broadcasts. Let people watching really get to know the players.
Pool is one of the few places left where a guy can go from rags to riches without a team of coaches. Well ok it's still technically in the rags to rags stage in comparison to other sports but it is an EVERYMAN sport. Celebrate that.
And don't forget podcasting. Audio is HUGE right now. The number one podcast on Itunes is WTF with Marc Maron. What does Marc Maron do? He talks about himself and the dark side of comedy with comedians. It's not funny. It's REAL. At the beginning TAR put out some great podcasts, AZ Billiards puts out their RunOutRadio sporadically. We need more. I need more. I am a fan. I want to be inspired to go and spend money playing pool. Podcasting allows me to get that while walking, driving, sleeping, writing this post, etc… The human voice alone is a powerful medium when you get the chance to be beamed directly into someone's head.
6. Cover the leagues. - This one is BIG. – Don't just focus on the pros – cover the regional league events, cover the national league events, get the every man point of view, show the drama, show the teams get their stories, show the anguish, the heartbreak, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, worked for ABC's Wide World of Sports. Think about it, don't you think that people would live to know that they will be in "international TV". And all the railbirds can have a ball betting on the side on league teams they don't know, or do know. Not once have I ever seen the league finals broadcast professionally. NEVER – despite the technology being available for years to do it. This is one way to get people more invested into pool and want to be a part of it. Who wouldn't want to go to Vegas for a week and party with 5000 other players? I mean honestly there is so much content there to be presented that it's mind boggling. Partner with the APA, BCA, VNEA, ACS, TAP and do some road shows where you cover league night.
Europe – show us your leagues! I played in Germany. I loved it – show us how you compete. Show us a Bundesliga weekend. Show the Regional playoffs – someone resolve to follow a team's quest for a season – for example how many of you know that Germany has a league where the top level teams are all World Beaters who compete against each other on a monthly basis?
Asia – show us your poolrooms and tournaments or whatever you have – in other words everyone should be showing off pool from the everyman level through the pro game. It's possible – Do it!
So in conclusion the impact of media on pool's future can be great IF enough people work together to promote it in ever widening circles. It's not only the people producing content but also all the ways that they can disseminate it.
As we progress it is inevitable that all visual content will be on-demand or live. New content will be debuted and then it will be on demand. People already time-shift by recording what they want to watch so that they can consume it at their leisure when it's convenient for them. So with that in mind it's more important than ever to form tight social networks of fans who WANT to consume billiards content, fans who eagerly await the newest content and gobble it up.
All you content producers have to understand that you are not only competing against the new content but also against all the content ever created as everything is going to be archived and available. The one thing that will not change is that each person only has 24 hours a day available to them. So you can serve them boring content that sends them packing after a few minutes or compelling content that keeps them watching and sends them out to the pool room when they are done. Remember us rabid fans will still be there soaking up as much as we can but we can only spread out attention so thin.
So the only way to truly grow pool is to grow the pool of people who want to watch it and thereby grow the pool of people who want to play it.
