There was a palpable buzz around the 2026 U.S. Open Pool Championship that I hadn’t felt since the 2024 WPA World Pool Championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

As was the case at that Saudi-based event, which was a lavish affair and most significantly offered a $1 million purse, the players were the first sign that the ’26 U.S. Open was different than the others. The prize money, while impressive at $500,000, was no different than the previous year. But the players had a different look, a different pep in their step.

Indeed, there was a lot to be excited about. First was the move from Atlantic City, the U.S. Open’s home for the past five years, to Frisco, Texas, about 25 miles north of Dallas. Personally, Sioux City, Iowa, would be an improvement over Atlantic City hotel/casinos and the Boardwalk. But A.C. had served the U.S. Open well and by 2025 had begun to draw significant crowds on the final days.

But, as the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas, and Frisco is proof — a growing, affluent city that bills itself as “Sports City USA.” With a population of roughly a quarter million people, Frisco is already home to the 91-acre headquarters and practice facility for the NFL Dallas Cowboys, the Major League Soccer FC Dallas stadium, and a 600-plus-acre PGA of America golf campus.

Credit to Matchroom for creating a partnership with Visit Frisco. The promoter has been open about its desire to plant a major U.S. event in Texas for some time. But Frisco is a truly strategic fit — rubbing elbows with a city that can help legitimize pro pool as a sport by sheer association.

And for a first year in a new location, the Texas pool community — as well as hardcore fans from around the country — showed up and showed out in numbers that rivaled the final year in Atlantic City. While Matchroom’s deal with Frisco was only a one-year test-the-waters arrangement, it appeared both sides were ecstatic with the results. A multi-year partnership and home for the U.S. Open would bode well.

Then, of course, there was the ESPN banner hanging over the early rounds of the event like a promise. Not since the last millennium did a live pool broadcast find its way onto network television in the U.S., and Matchroom’s deal with ESPN to carry coverage of the entire event on the cable network’s ESPN+ streaming app, with the added bonus of airing the title match live on ESPN2, was a big deal. Normally accessible only through a pay wall, this World Nineball Tour event had the potential to reach 24 million ESPN+ subscribers and more than 70 million television households through ESPN2. And let’s face it: getting new eyeballs on the sport is what growth is all about.

Of course, the final didn’t go according to the script — although the hopes in the room were that finalists Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and Robbie Capito would engage in a tight and dramatic contest that, ideally, would go hill-hill.

While the scoreline obliged, the combatants didn’t. (Not that they were at fault.) Gritty racks, extensions and time outs caused the match to run well past its three-hour allotted live window on ESPN2, and the network opted to shift the remainder of the match (which was tied, 10-10) to its ESPNU network and ESPN+ app in favor of a Division II college football matchup. And what a shame that was. The match peaked at a promising 347,000 viewers and was still above 300,000 when the network moved the final off ESPN2.

Not surprisingly, angered pool fans (half of whom didn’t pay attention to the graphic informing them of the imminent channel switch) flooded social media, blaming Matchroom for everything from giving the sport a black eye to ruining the sport forever.

To which I say, “Pump the brakes, Scooter!”

For starters, I blame ESPN for its decision to move an event they were testing when it was drawing over 300,000 viewers and was clearly headed for a dramatic finish. For what, the opening segment of a middling Sunday night college football game? That doesn’t even sound like smart business to me.

Regardless, I think both Matchroom and ESPN learned plenty from the U.S. Open. ESPN learned that a live pool match on a Sunday night could well exceed the network’s average prime-time rating. And Matchroom learned that future forays onto live linear television in the U.S. would require some tinkering with the format. Some of the fixes are easy. A 15-minute opener followed by a 20-minute opening rack is bad for business. Was the race to 13 dangerously ambitious for a three-hour window (when factoring in an opening segment and network commercial breaks)? Should in-game extensions (which reduced the match’s pace to a crawl) be limited?

All fixable issues. And it’s hard to imagine ESPN wasn’t intrigued enough by the production quality and viewer numbers to give pool another run.

Still, lots of work ahead for Matchroom, assuming the end goal isn’t having a single event a year broadcast live. But the U.S. Open left me encouraged and hopeful for actual breakthroughs in the not-too-distant future.

(By the way, West Alabama defeated Tuskegee, 27-17, in the college football game. I knew you were wondering.)