Future of Pool/Magazine owners

[slim]

To all the owners of billiard magazines and posters on this board, I have a question that I would like and answer. I know people within your organization (P&B mag and BD mag and ALL mags nationwide) have had dealings and even seats on the BCA board and have had direct involvement with the BEF and the Junior programs of the BCA which has been somewhat vague for a few years. My question is, if your business is directly related to the increase in players and those wanting to participate, why haven't you for years ever listed the BCA Junior qualifiers on your Tournament listing in your magazine? We all know how well you have done promoting your local and National events, I applaud you, tho as we know there is still a ways to go. But why have we forgotten to address the roots of our industry? WHY WHY WHY????? I mean how difficult is it to get with Carrie at the BCA and just copy paste her list and put it where it counts. You are just picking the fruit but never planting any trees (thank god for Bart Mahoney and now Tom Riccobene), its been going on forever, it makes me just shake my head. Hell if it were not for poolrooms of the early days without alcohol, we probably would of not had a plethora of players like Buddy, Varner, Siegel etc. I mean I know one of em probably would of never evolved if they had alcohol in rooms long ago, same goes for the women, only they knew there was no money in it. TV is important, what about the KIDS, tournaments are important.....Do something about it, it will only help your pocket.
It just makes me sick how long this has been ongoing.
Slim

[DSAPOLIS]

It is my opinion that the two big magazines (BD and P&B Magazine) are very structured in the way they plan there issues. (A little too well planned out in my opinion) but this is mostly done because issues are planned according to theme, so they target their ad sales, articles, and market towards the subject that issue is themed for. Regardless of opinions on their thoroughness of billiard coverage (including amateur & juniors), they both run very tight ships and publish very professional,quality publications.

I believe that the junior tournaments should have somebody aggressively generating publicity for these events. Buying a full page ad may cost a bit of money, but draws attention to the event, its sponsors, and its participants. It is a two way street. No publicity drawn, no publicity given. This is the job of the tournament/event planners, as well as the event sponsors to ensure the publicity end is taken care of. It is not the job of the publications. I have done benefit tournaments for local and national charities, and I have always done press releases (Plural) and schedule these press releases strategically. I try to book myself on local morning radio, public access, local news, newspapers, etc. It's not as hard as you'd think to do this. All they need is a computer, a fax machine, a telephone, and the motivation to get it done. A simple phone call or e-mail to Mike Howerton would get it on Azbilliards in a heart beat.