Suffice to say, I’ve seen things!

I’m certainly not alone. Ask any of the players who’ve been around since the ’80s and they will tell you that they’ve seen more than their fair share of tours, tournaments, players associations and promoters come and go. Most arrived with good intentions and big ideas. Some enjoyed long periods of success, none more so than the rejuvenated Women’s Professional Billiard Association. The Professional Billiards Tour is another that had some substance and longevity.

Most, however, rode onto the pool scene with a good story, bold predictions, little cash and no sustainable business model. And before you could say, “based on entries,” they were gone.

The mother of all flash-in-the-pans, of course, was Kevin Trudeau’s uber ambitious but ill-conceived International Pool Tour. Still, dropping well over $10 million into pool prize purses in less than a year was a welcome infusion.

But I will go on record as saying that the latest Matchroom announcement regarding the World Pool Championship (see “Wing Shots,” pg. 13) and its impact on the World Nineball Tour has me more legitimately hopeful than ever before that pool could see a sustainable professional tour, staged in real venues and packed with real money. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that anything other than clear success for the WNT would actually shock me.

I realize that the announcement was for a single event, the World Pool Championship, to which Matchroom holds rights with the World Pool Association (WPA). But it’s the commitment and magnitude of the event that bodes well for the rest of the WNT and pool in general.

Matchroom’s deal with the Ministry of Sport for Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabian Billiards & Snooker Federation will see the World Pool Championship staged in the Kingdom through 2033. And the first year’s prize fund is set at a cool $1 million. (No word on whether there is any escalation clause in the contract for future years.)

Now, this is not about Matchroom relative to other promoters (WPA, Predator, Joy, independent promoters, etc.). I want to see events in every pool discipline continue to grow as they have in recent years, and I still hold out hope that players will be free to play in every big event that pops up. But you have to give Matchroom the props it deserves for the progress of its very public and ambitious plan for 9-ball. Each step of the promoter’s evolution from “events company” producing three invitational events a year (World Pool Master, World Cup of Pool and Mosconi Cup), to its current position as a bona fide tour with four (and soon to be five) invitational events, a half dozen major open championships and a host of coattail “ranking” events, has been meticulously planned and carefully unveiled. And each step of the way, Matchroom czarista Emily Frazer has preached patience and has asked the players and fans to have faith in the journey.

Legitimate concerns have been expressed along the way, with the cost of being an aspiring “professional pool player” a barrier to entry for many due to the global nature of the WNT. But the World Pool Championship and its $1 million prize fund may have been the very announcement Matchroom needed to reward that faith and put to rest any concerns about its commitment to building a legit tour.

It can’t have been easy for Frazer to suppress the urge to talk about the potential Saudi deal while the WPA was waving its ban threat over the players’ heads, and as she was attempting to sign players to the WNT. According to Frazer, the deal had been in the works for well over a year.

“Things like this don’t happen overnight,” she said on the “Doggin’ It” podcast after the announcement. “We’ve been working with the ministry of sport in Saudi Arabia for quite a while. And we couldn’t say anything about this event because we don’t discuss things until they’re signed and sealed. Players signing up was about players having faith in us.”

To me, one of the great things about the WPC is that the event will likely have a trickledown effect on the rest of the tour, particularly the Matchroom-produced “opens.” I would bet that the WNT will be pitching new sponsors to help trim the disparity between the WPC prize fund and those in the other events. And at that point, players should actually start to realize the opportunity to truly call pool a “profession.”

“It’s still going to take time,” Frazer cautioned, as she always does. “At the end of the day our plan is for a global professional tour where the players are millionaires. It’s our responsibility to deliver on that promise.”

Given Matchroom’s history of sticking with a sport and dragging it kicking and screaming to prosperity, I’m more optimistic than I’ve ever been about professional pool reaching the level its owed for its perseverance. And I’m most excited for the players who have patiently waited for this day to come.

About time they got to visit the pay window.