Pool Cue News and Review

It ain’t good folks. I’m still gathering notes and such from the show, but I’ve gotta tell you, there isn’t much on the horizon to look forward to. I didn’t see much in the way of exciting new products other than the new Predator P3, which looked pretty cool, but I’ll be throwing some additional bones out from what I saw at the show. I’ve got a list though of why we’re pushing the Threat-o-Meter back into orange:
1. The show was pretty thin in the way of attendance. Not Houston bad, but bad nonetheless.
2. The men’s tour is completely in the toilet. The top stars donked early and we were left with utter garbage for the championship.
3. The young guns of the women’s tour are playing inconsistent and some don’t know how to behave in public.
4. For the most part, the new stuff was all “been there, done that”.
5. Retailers and manufacturers are apparently hurting in a very big way.
Not to be the prophet of doom and gloom, but something needs to happen to kick the industry’s ass back into gear. I know, its cyclical and we’re at the bottom of a down cycle, but if things don’t turn around, you might start seeing some fairly well known companies hittin’ the bricks.

When you spend some time talking to pool players, the conversation that seems to always come up is Chinese cues.  There are lots of Chinese cues on the market and the general feeling from pool players is that they don’t hold a candle to domestic cues.  From a looks perspective, I’d tend to agree, but from a playability perspective I’m not so sure, especially when you keep in mind that the #1 performance shaft comes with a nice little gold sticker that says “Made in China”.

So if tons of pros swear by the 314 shaft and amateurs everywhere put them on their Joss, Schon, Longoni, etc. butts, isn’t it a bit hypocritical to piss and moan about Chinese cues?  I’m not saying that all Chinese cues are good, some are complete garbage.  But to make a general statement that “all Chinese cues are bad” seems like nothing more than good old fashioned jingoism.  For all the people who complain about Chinese cues, I’d be willing to bet if you went into their house, you’d find all sorts of products made in China/Korea/Taiwan.

I’d love to ramble on more about this topic, but I need to go grab a heaping plate of General Tso’s chicken, drink some Green Tea and then head over to the Lotus Spa for a quick rub ‘n tug.

Is there anything in the billiards industry that’s stupider than Speed Pool? This bastardization of pool earns the distinction of being one of the top rated televised billiards events in the US. I’m not sure what’s sadder… watching a hyperkenetic Dave “Ginger Wizard” Pearson running around a pool table or the fact that the casual pool fan prefers this to watching players like rising star Shane van Boening. Never seen this crap? Take a look at the video below.

Instead of just bitching about it however, let’s take a look at it and see if we can figure out why events like this draw more viewers than traditional pool. The most obvious difference is the pace. The game moves fast and doesn’t afford viewers the ability to watch, switch channels and come back a few minutes later. Come back a few minutes later and someone else will be shooting.

What else can we learn? Listen to the commentary. Instead of having Mitch and Ewa talk about a shot then have 30 seconds of dead air, the commentator doesn’t have time to take a break. The commentary is as fast paced as the game and it keeps the viewer’s attention.

If we want pool to get more coverage and be more “mainstream” (which we all should), the producers of these events need to change their ways. Pool has been shot the same way for years and for years, the general public could care less. The commentators need to be more interesting, the event needs to be more watchable. Trust me, if there was a billiards event that could draw more than a 1.0 share in its first run, ESPN would notice.

Its been about a year since I last took a look at the search traffic for “pool cues” and “billiards” as a measure for interest in our happy little industry. According to Google, these are the two most searched terms in the industry, so we can assume that they are decent bellweathers to watch. As much as I’d like to say there was an upswing in 2007, it simply isn’t true.

As you can see from the above graph, search volume for “billiards” is once again down from its 2005 peak. Q4 traffic was down significantly from 2006, which was down from 2005. In order to confirm this trend, we also look at the traffic for the term “pool cues”.

As you can see from the above graph, “pool cues” is in far worse shape. Q4 2007 wasn’t anywhere close to where it was in 2006, which was lower than 2005, which was lower than 2004… you get the picture. So what should be done about this disturbing trend. As I’ve said before, the only way the industry will grow is to get new players and casual players playing. The BCA seems to be leaning in that direction, although the last time they tried this with Enjoypool.com, nothing really happened. We’ll see what Generation Pool ends up being like.

What else can we do? Here’s a thought… next time you see a group come into your local pool hall to knock some balls around and have a good time, instead of seeing them as marks, why not buy a pitcher of beer and show them that pool halls aren’t the smarmy, pit of vipers that they’ve been made out to be in the news and in movies?

For you pro players out there who bitch about the crappy prize money, think about ways to get fans excited about the game and to attract new fans to the game. You know why golf gets giant prize purses? Because they can draw 80,000 people to an event. Because golf ratings are 10-20 times higher than first run billiards programming on ESPN.

Here’s a thought… the Super Billiards Expo is coming up next month and it draws a pretty decent crowd from the east coast. So when you lose your matches, instead of running off and going home, hang out for a couple of days and mingle. Not because you’re getting paid to mingle, but because you want more people to be excited about the sport.

More People = More Ratings = More Money

That’s all I’ve got for my annual rant. Hopefully this time next year we’ll have more positive trends to review.

Yeah, I know I haven’t reviewed any products in a while, but I’ll get back to that later. For now, I want to address what I’m sure will be spun as a “big win” for the billiards industry: The 2007 SMGA Billiards Participation Study. The folks at the BCA were kind enough to share this data with everyone and at first it looks like good news. The total number of billiards participants grew from 42,596,000 in 2005 to 46,990,00 in 2006. Pretty healthy growth and participation for our little pseudo-sport. What you don’t see is the definition of “participant”. In the case of the SMGA, a participant is someone who has played once in the past year. There is a big difference between participant and pool player and if you don’t believe me, just take a look at the flat to declining numbers of league players. Still don’t believe me? Then ask yourself why less than 1% of the almost 47 million “participants” find themselves participating in an APA League.

That being said, it is nice to see that 17.1% of the US population picked up their pool cues at some point in 2006 and at least tried the game. Too bad, they probably won’t stick with it because:

a) The game is hard and has a steep learning curve

b) More often than not, going into a pool hall is extremely uncomfortable and intimidating for a new player

c) Because of “house rules” there are always arguments which often lead to the inevitable “Man Treated for Assault with Pool Cue” headline that seems to pop up about 4 times a week on my Google Billiards News feed.

So what does this have to do with you, the regular pool player who enjoys the game and doesn’t call the local pokey their home away from home? It means that you should be introducing your non-pool playing friends to the game and showing them that its not all about fighting, hustling and gambling. Its a fun game whether you’re a pro or you just like to knock some balls around, but if the game doesn’t start cleaning up its act, pool isn’t going to be “everyone’s game”, its going to be no one’s game.