I have recently decided to ‘hit the road’ and get some seasoning by competing in tournaments located in other cities. Last weekend I traveled to San Francisco with a couple pool buddies and competed in a 3 man team 8 ball tournament at Jillian’s Billiards Club. There were 16 teams in the tournament and the competition was pretty strong. The good news: We won the tournament! The bad news? After covering all of our mandatory expenses there was almost no money left. This experience really hammered home one of the biggest problems facing professional pool players today. There’s not a whole lot of money in the big tournaments, especially when compared to other professional sports. I know this will come as no surprise to many, but it’s tough out there!
We are certainly not professional players; we were just three decent amateurs trying to have fun. On the fun front, the event was a HUGE success. On the financial front…well, here’s how our financials worked out:
Income:
Tournament Prize Money = $300
Expenses:
Entry Fees = $50
Parking Fees = (2 cars) = $64
Gasoline (2 cars) = $31
Practice table time = $20
Food = $85
Total Expenses = $250
Net profit = $300 – $250 = $50
Net profit/player = $50/3 players = $16.67 per player
Tournament time: 10am – 11pm = 13 hours
Hourly wage rate per player: $1.28/hr for each of us
Huummmmmm….not quitting my day job anytime soon!
Angle of Reflection 
Ouch! those are some sobering numbers… especially considering you won!
On another note, I see you’ve converted to Kamui Black Soft… is that because you couldn’t get it out of your mind ever since trying mine? LOL
Or do you even remember trying it!!?? Never mind, I may not want to hear the answer on that one. :-O
All I remember is you breaking and running out. That planted the seed… 😀
I had another friend who also switched to Kamui Black Soft because he mostly plays 8 Ball and 14.1, so when my factory McDermott tip finally gave up the ghost, I made the switch, and I love the feel that I get with Kamui. I can really feel the tip and cue ball meet, the tip holds chalk well, and I have no fear of miscues. Nice.
Hate to burst your bubble, but it *is* still possible to miscue, trust me! LOL! Glad to hear it’s working well for you though! I’m very happy with them myself. Just for kicks, I might try SS next time. I’ll let you know.
I’ve miscued once with my new Kamui Black Soft. I don’t blame the tip though – I had been shooting for about 30 minutes when the miscue happened. After the miscue, I looked around the rails for the chalk and couldn’t find any. It was then that I realized that I had shot for 30 minutes without using any chalk at all. Pretty impressive tip performance! LOL!
Congrats on the win, I think the whole topic of making pool a more sustainable sport (from an income stand point) has a lot of potential. I think Pool needs some strong leadership and a serious face lift or whatever you want to call it. (Face lift doesn’t seem right) haha
Keep up the good work.
I agree with you John. There’s a lot of potential for the sport to make money, but for some reason there’s always been a serious lack of leadership at the top. Just look at what’s happening today between the folks running the US Open 9 Ball Championships and the professional men players. Both sides have legitimate concerns, but there’s absolutely no reason for this dirty laundry to be aired out in the media. They should be sitting at a conference table working it out. Like professionals.
Hey Michael, was hoping to see you guys signed up to the three-player tournament at Jillian’s this time around. Was kinda a bummer that we didn’t get to play our finals match against each other, but travelling all the way back up the next day for one match wouldn’t make sense, especially with the expenses you’ve laid out here.
We played again today and our team made it to the hot seat this time with 3-4 teams still remaining on the one loss side. We’re returning tomorrow to finish up and I’m going to attempt to stream some of the matches on ustream. I’ll post the stream to facebook if it works out.
-Larry