Tourneys
Topic: ABP

Just seen this article on the front page. Congratulations to the US players for taking decisive action and starting this. It's now up to players around the world to show some balls and take control of their own destiny by joining and supporting a players organisation.

Stop being controlled (and sometimes blackmailed) by other organisations who are only interested in furthering their own initiatives rather than the game as a whole.

To make this work players will need to make some short term sacrifices to achieve long term benefits. That's something many players have not had the balls to do in the past. Let's hope this time it's different.

Instead of players being told you can't do this or do that unless you do it our way it should be the other way round. It should be players saying we won't attend this event or that event unless you show us some respect.

They actually started this back in 2009, but it looks like they are ready to give it the big push now, do you think they will get the support they need?



Full article here... http://www.pro9.co.uk/html/article.php?sid=1584


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On 2011-05-27 12:31 , BigDave Wrote:Probably not for the reasons stated in Marco's article.

But it is possible. It needs a large group of the most influential and big named players to get together and stand up for themselves. It means taking some risks and potentially missing some lucrative tournaments for a season or more. Surely if they get a big enough group of influential players they can start running some major tournaments of their own then build it up from there until they get where they want to be i.e. where the players are the driving force behind the game and the players control their own destiny.

An important starting point for the ABP or any similar organisation is to decide what your goals are and what it is you are trying to change.

For example when GB9 started there were a number of things we needed to change in Great Britain so we made it clear to all players what our goals were. The tour we have now was built around taht intial philosophy. For us this was things like openness with finances, rankings that mean something, well managed tournaments with time slots, consitent payouts, value for money for lower ranked players etc.

For an organisation like the ABP they will have a different set of goals but they must have some and all members need to be clear what these goals are and unite behind them. That builds a strong team and they will grow from there.


In the write up they talk about 'a common goal' and go on to mention things like standardising equipment, rules etc but whilst it's a start it's a bit too woolly for my liking. I'd like to see a stronger more purposeful statement about what exactly they want to change. If they do that they are more likely to get more players to sign up to their cause.

I agree Lee and I was surprised that there doesn't appear to be a website for the ABP yet? Surely that would be the best way to detail what they are about, what their vision and goals are.

I am curious about why this article has yet to find it's way on to the World's biggest pool website - AZ Billiards.

what an awesome possibility, I am going to be in the US/Canada for most of next year, and something like this will hopefully improve player strength to avoid calamities made in the past often through no fault of their own. Lee, is this something you would associate the GB9 with?

On 2011-05-30 22:52 , toomuchaMaverick Wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by associate GB9 with but in any event anything impacting GB9 would be a matter for the GB9 Committee to consider and they would not enter into discussion on forums about it.

Equally I wouldn't expect the sports top stars to comment in forums about stuff like this so for that reason I don't think we'll hear much more about it.

of course, my apologies, very poorly worded on my part, speaking without thinking and all that.

fair enough, cheers for clarifying.

I'm surprised the 11 board of directors are not sending this information out the players worldwide via Facebook, Twitter, emails etc.

How on earth are players going to know about it if they don't let others know.

I think it's the best way forward for the sport and should have been done years ago.