“Pool is Pool”… Really Megan?
February 18th, 2008 by poolcuereview
It seems that there are no longer enough tournaments for card carrying WPBA members anymore as the #20 WPBA player, Megan Minerich, made her way down to Hagerstown, MD to in an effort to win 400 bucks against players who are theoretically well below her skill level. As either a testament to how good the players are on the Tiger Planet Pool tour or how bad Megan is, Minerich failed in her quest to gain a fistful of $20’s by losing to Linda Shea and eventual winner Ming Ng (wait… isn’t she on the WPBA tour too?).
In all fairness to Ms. Minerich, she’s not the only one doing this. Karen Corr plays on the Joss NE tour, Helena Thornfeldt and Monica Webb were recently spotted playing on the Ladies Spirit Tour and the list goes on and on. For me, this would be the equivalent to seeing PGA cardholders playing on the Nationwide (formally Nike) Tour.
In the end, you can pretty much lay the blame on the WPBA President. Let’s face it, the tour is a mess. Prize money is so bad that the WPBA won’t even tell anyone how little the players are winning and perennial runner up to Allison Fisher, Karen Corr still can’t get a sponsor no matter how many WPBA final events she’s in.
If you want to read more about Megan’s visit to Maryland, check out the article in the Hagerstown Morning Herald.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Pool Hotties, Pool Players, Pool and Billiard News, WPBA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Actually the WPBA has increased the number of tournaments. This is determined mainly by the number of hours of television ESPN will commit to which has been slowly increasing. Still, they are a long way from having even monthly events.
Prize money has also improved slightly (first place usually around $10K)though by switching to the points system, they seem to want to avoid comparisons with big money sports like golf. It could work - nobody talks too much about NASCAR earnings - but in the end prize money is a function of sponsorship. As long as pool tournaments are sponsored primarily by industry firms, they will not see big money.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Ok, I’ll give you the fact that it’s not decreasing. There was a rumor that the WPBA was going to cancel at least one event this year, but they just ended up delaying it. Still though, they’ve only had 7 events (not including the BCA championships) every year since 2005. Also, we have no idea what the prize money is, since the WPBA only reports points now for their “leader board”.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Just coed the tournaments …. Stick the ladies with the men or vise versa. The world of pool and billiards is tiny next to Golf and other coed sports of such. Segregation of pool and billiard just makes it smaller…