Ok, so my title of this post isn't necessarily true. There are some pool players who I would consider, by my salary anyway, rich. They are doing pretty well for themselves. But why aren't professional pool players making millions of dollars like pro football or baseball players?
I read an interesting article not long ago where the author was explaining why professional pool players don't make the kind of money that other athletes make and it made a lot of sense. I wish I could find the article again, but I'll try to remember what it said.
According to the article, the reason that professional pool players now don't make lots of money was that back at the start of mainstream sports on television, TV deals were made with sports like baseball, football, basketball, etc. to broadcast them to a huge audience. Then, of course, because of the viewership, commercial slots became huge because of the massive amount of people watching them.
Ok, you are probably thinking, but sitting in front of a TV watching pool would be boring to probably the majority of people. You may be right, but how exciting is it to watch a pro baseball game when both pitchers are striking out batters and it's the bottom of the 6th inning and neither team has scored yet? I guess you could argue that it's exciting waiting for that crack of the bat to send the ball over the outfield wall, but baseball, at least to me, is fairly boring to watch on tv, but yet, those players (some of them) are making MILLIONS of dollars. Advertising, merchandise, those are the keys.
So what does professional pool need? It needs a miracle at this point. Professional pool got left behind years ago. Imagine if pool were marketed like pro football or basketball. Pool needs a revival.
In my opinion, what needs to happen to professional pool is almost a complete overhaul, at least in terms of broadcasting, marketing, and excitement. Is pool exciting to watch for fans of the sport? Absolutely. Two top players playing for a big payday in a tournament or challenge match hill-hill, give me some of that! Could it be tweaked to be more exciting? I believe it can.
Here's a final thought. I don't know how to fix pool so that the players can get paid, but here's an idea. What if there were a dedicated outlet for pool. What I mean by this is what if there were an all billiards channel on satellite or Netflix. I'd pay to watch quality billiard broadcasts. I'd pay to watch some of the greatest pool and billiard players in the world battle for a tournament title. Make this happen!
