Will Skins Be Must-See TV?
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| The special effects got a bit out of hand for the semifinals' player introductions. |
The billiard industry has long looked to the media and popular arts to push the public's interest in pool to higher levels. Hollywood has done its part, producing industry booms with "The Hustler" in 1961 and "The Color of Money" in 1986. But pool has been a staple on the ESPN networks for about 15 years, and yet nationwide participation in the sport has barely wavered over the last decade from 40 million players a year, according to sporting goods industry studies.
ESPN currently books about 60 hours of new pool programming annually, and typically airs between 30 and 60 hours of events per month, including repeats. The sport is close to the saturation point on the cable sports giant, said Doug White, ESPN programming manager.
"[Sixty hours of new programs per year] may be even a little too much, but the appetite has been pretty healthy for it, as far as I can see," White said. "But I think anything more, and you're really starting to push the envelope a little bit, and you may lose the unique nature of the different events."
The key to popularizing the sport is not necessarily to add more pool programming, but instead "things that are fairly unique or are high-stakes," White said.
"The thing that I liked about [the Skins Billiard Championship] … is that obviously the players are going to start feeling the pressure once that money starts to increase," White said. "To me, that's what it's all about. It's the pressure, it's the suspense of the players vying for the money."
Hopkins and Matt Braun, president of Billiards International, have reaped the most success from unusual pool formats, collaborating to produce such made-for-TV events as the annual Trick Shot Magic and Sudden-Death 7-Ball contests. The Trick Shot Magic events, in fact, typically score the highest ratings among billiard programs on ESPN, White said.
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