I had a idea that adding something from each tournament, there could be a Player of the Year award with a cash stipend.
I don't really think that men who would rather live by their wits without resorting to work should get anything extra from anybody but, just for the sake of argument, let's take your idea to it's logical conclusion.
Let's say there is a multi-billionaire, maniacal pool fan out there and he decides to establish a "Player Of The Year" award, in the amount of $100,000, to be given to the top points winner of ten major tournaments. He establishes how many points will be awarded for 1st through 20th places at the top ten tourneys in this country.
That's a wonderful idea right? Let's also say that after 9 tournaments have been played the two top players are within a point or two of each other. Guess what happens next. Yep, the two top players meet in the finals of the 10th and deciding tourney to battle it out for 1st & 2nd place and more importantly for the $100,000 Player Of The Year award. Now I expect you will see one of the most hard-fought and greatest matches that these two players have ever played in their lives, right? Wrong. Since neither of them wants to take the chance of missing out on a big payday they have decided beforehand to whack-up the $100,000. Now they just go through the motions in the match and try to put on a good show for the people watching but that's difficult to do with no pressure on either player isn't it? So they play a shitty match, missing balls & runouts from everywhere. The spectators boo and are pissed off because they all know what is happening and the T.V. (this is a fantasy right?) commentators call for investigations into what is happening before their very eyes, live on national T.V..
Thousands of letters & e-mails are sent to the tournament directors, T.V. executives, player organizations and sponsors of the tourney and they are complaining about what they witnessed live on T.V. from these two players. People start boycotts of the products advertised by the sponsors of the tourney and those sponsors disavow any and all knowledge of what took place.
All of the sponsors withdraw their names and products from any future tournaments that feature pool, in any form.
The T.V. executives decide to never in life have a major pool tournament broadcast again after the fiasco they just saw.
The multi-billionaire says "to hell with these jerk-offs" and decides to never offer the $100,000 POTY award again.
The two players don't care what anyone thinks or does, they both scored $50,000 and are very happy even though they are on the way to the casino to lose it all.
If you think this isn't a likely scenario just ask Buddy Hall & Mike LeBron about the tournament they colluded in to ensure the outcome of and many here want to enshrine Buddy Hall in our HOF even though most know of his dishonest ways and treachery.
One of the reasons that golfers, tennis players, baseball players and many others make so much money is this:
When you saw Jack & Arnie walking to the 18th tee in a major you knew they hadn't decided to whack-up the money for 1st and 2nd place. You know that Tiger & Phil aren't splitting 1st & 2nd place cash no matter what happens, it's all on the level and we know it.
When you see Serena Williams playing injured and winning anyway you know that she hasn't pre-arranged a split with her opponent. In the same way you knew that Johnny Mac wasn't whacking-up Wimbledon with Bjorn Borg when they matched up. Because of that we saw some of the greatest tennis two humans ever played.
When you saw "Sugar" Ray Robinson fight Jake Lamotta six times you knew that it was on the level. Nobody who saw Ali fight Frazier three times would ever say "it's a fix". Those guys fought for their lives in the ring and we appreciated it because we knew it was real.
When you see the ballplayers from Texas and St. Louis playing in the World Series you know they aren't in cahoots to whack-up the cash the winners get, they are playing for history and a chance to be a hero and maybe one day get mentioned with the greatest that ever played the game. They want to be in the HOF at Cooperstown with the Babe, the Iron Horse, Stan the Man, and 292 others from the past who've reached that pinnacle in baseball. They want their names to be spoken of reverently with the greatest ever to play the game.
They want to be above Eddie Cicotte, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the other 6 from the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox". They want to be better than Pete Rose and others who bet on baseball while they were a part of it.
The reasons that pool will never be cared about again in this country as it once was many years ago are many and varied but one of the main reasons is the dishonest, lying, cheating thieves who play the game will continue to forever hold it back and there's nothing you can do to change that. They don't care about themselves so why should anybody else?
Dennis