I’m curious. As the powers that be in 8-ball pool are not famed for their forgiving natures, I wonder whether or not there will be repercussions as a result of Barcelo’s decision to get into bed with the newly reinvented GB9 Tour. Since this represents a ‘rival’ association, at least in terms of cue-sport participation, if not actual discipline or rule-set, are we to assume that Mr Harwood decided not to bother with an exclusivity clause? Or that such a clause did exist, but that for reasons of goodwill (or maybe something more tangible?) it was decided to waive it? I’ll leave this alone, as I don’t have the information at my disposal to answer the question or even really speculate too much, but I felt the question needed to be aired…

(Article on Cuesportnews.com 11th November 2009)

First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate the GB9 Tour on their new affiliation. If there was ever a sure-fire way of adding prestige to an event or tour, it has been adding a seriously good accommodation deal and a prestigious sponsor to the overall package advertised to players.

This is where the famed ‘but’ comes in…

Is using Barcelo really the way forward? A hotel chain that is now linked indelibly with the IPA in the minds of pool players across the country, while being currently proven in the area(s) required and also having a history of being able to meet the projected requirements of their new affiliates, will no doubt lead to a certain stigma being attached to the GB9. The question has to be asked; were there no other chains available? There is no doubting the quality of the Barcelo chain, and their experience in dealing with the pool fraternity could be invaluable (Previous article dated 8th October 2009), but every silver lining has a cloud…

It has to be appreciated that the GB9 is a relatively new organization, and therefore cannot be expected to have long-standing links to businesses that will allow for mutually beneficial deals, however the decision to align themselves with the one hotel chain that is currently dealing with another major cue-sport tour smacks of tenancy. By this I mean that were another team/club, even from another sport, to decide to use the facilities at Old Trafford, for example, they would only ever be seen generically as a temporary tenant. As much as the stadium is linked irrevocably in people’s minds with Manchester Utd, the Barcelo chain is linked with the IPA tour. This agreement, far from helping to give the GB9 a sense of identity, has potentially had exactly the opposite effect. By giving themselves the unwitting identity of tenants, the GB9 organizers have acceded some sort of advantage, some idea of “big brother”-dom (not in the familial sense, rather the Orwellian context), to the IPA.

This presents another issue. It is a little-known fact that there is a condition known colloquially as “Elephant and Peg Syndrome”. It is this concept that prevents us from beating our dad at table tennis, that shows itself in the unwillingness of foreigners to drive as fast as Germans do on an autobahn; it goes something like this; A baby elephant is tied to a peg in the ground. It learns very quickly that it cannot either break the rope or pull the peg out of the ground. This becomes so set in the elephant’s consciousness that even when it grows fully into adulthood, and could easily pull the peg out of the ground, it never does. It reaches the end of the rope, and stops. Period. So does this granting of affirmation to a rival organization, of some sort of superiority, have the same effect? Will the GB9 be scared in future to tread new boards, those as yet deemed too maverick by other governing bodies?

I hesitate to criticize the decision making or the rationale behind the GB9 making allegiances with any organization that will benefit them. In fact I applaud the decision to further promote the tour, and add even more prestige to what was already Britain’s biggest 9-ball tour by a mile, rather than rest on those laurels and risk stagnation. It just seems like there must have been other options, and making the decision to dilute the sense of individual identity that the tour possessed and also give off the image of a tour in thrall of another’s methods/affiliations/objectives could be counter-productive, in the long term, especially given the perception held by many that the IPA is becoming stagnant in its own right. Imitating another tour’s torpor will not have been the object, and we can only hope that it will not be the result, either.

(c) Rich Wharton, November 2009.

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