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Friday, August 17, 2012

Foosball Promotions: From the Nineties to Today

      One of the primary reasons for this blog is to assist new foosball tournament directors across the nation. Grassroots promotion is the key to rebuilding foosball. The number of foosball promoters has dramatically dropped in the last 20 years. I began playing Foosball in 1994. This was an era before the internet, casino expansions, the poker craze, and smartphones. Gas was still under a dollar a gallon, allowing for cheap tournament travel and foosball table locations were plentiful.

     A complete shift in the entertainment industry was on the horizon. Arcades, billiard rooms, game rooms, bars, and night clubs all were host to a staple brown-sided marble Tornado coin-operated foosball table.  If you looked in the yellow pages or night life pages foosball was advertised everywhere. Recreational and tournament players co-existed, fueling a number of successful foosball promoters. The manufacturer directly controlled the Player's Association and professional tour. Tornado ran 5 "major" tournaments across the country every year. The payouts of these events ranged from $25,000 to $120,000, the smallest of which had a larger attendance than the majors of today. The World Championships would commonly have 512 man brackets with rookies fighting for a payout that consisted of a table, trophies, jackets, and a coveted title. All competitors had paid only a modest $10 to enter. Total attendance at many of these tournaments reached well over 1000 people. Media coverage included all major news networks, documentaries, and even extensive ESPN coverage. In 1996, Rob Mares and Oklahoma's own Tommy Adkisson took home the Open Doubles titles. The ESPN footage of this tournament aired on both ESPN and ESPN 2 for years. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwLbjN_Afo )

   Veteran tournament directors, promoters, and foosball vendors like Link Pendley, Tracey McManus, Rocky Wilson, Charles Macintosh, Lloyd Mandel and hundreds of other successful foosball business people maintained commercial foosball table routes, promoted recreational foosball, and hosted tournament operations suited to their tournament player base. These successful business people made money fifty cents at a time and were not dependent on picky tournament players to pay the bills, as most promoters of today are. This increased business allowed entrepreneurs to invest more capital into their business and promotions.

     The 1995 United States Table Soccer Association magazine, the Table Talk, was filled with flyers of multiple regional tournaments all less than the tour cap of $15,000. The game was not about the money for most players. During the summer there were multiple regional tournaments every single weekend all across the nation. I once attended a $1,500 tournament in Dallas that drew around 200 players battling on 15 or so very used commercial tables. A majority of the players were Rookies unlike today where Expert is by far the biggest rank. The Rookie Doubles event at the $10,000 Halloween Open held at Star Bucks pool hall paid 1st-$60, 2nd-$30, 3rd-$10, plus trophies, a jacket, and the title to the victor. The bracket was a 128-man bracket and payouts were four times that the advertised amount after Link added more money due to the awesome turnout. Player desires, motivations, and expectations were entirely different than today.

     Inside Foosball video productions and Fooscaster Jim Stevens began covering the sport in 1993 (www.insidefoos.com)  The following 1997 Inside Foos promotional internet post offers a list of events that were professionally recorded, commentated, and sold to foosers worldwide.
 ______________________________________________________________
*4-HOUR CHAMPIONSHIP FOOSBALL VIDEOS*
 Produced using a 4-6 camera set-up and featuring the rapid -fire play by
play of 'The World's Only Fooscaster' Jim Stevens along with expert
commentary by Tom Yore, Mike Archer, Evan Stachelek and other of the
game's top stars...

            LIST OF INSIDE FOOS VIDEO TITLES $25 ea.
1993 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS-DALLAS, TX    (Tommy wins two)
1994 KICKOFF CLASSIC-SAN FRANCISCO, CA   (Horton doubles)
1994 U.S. OPEN-MINNEAPOLIS, MN  (Dube & Srock underdog champs)
1994 MASTERS-ATLANTA, GA   (Mares is Masterful)
1994 NATIONALS-ST. LOUIS, MO   (Yore & Pruitt do it)
1994 WORLDS-DALLAS   (Colorado sweep--Head unbeatable)
1995 HALL OF FAME CLASSIC-HOUSTON, TX   (Swan, Terry & Todd)
1995 U.S. OPEN-CLEVELAND, OH(Horton/Beine vs. Murray/Adkisson)
1995 MASTERS-ATLANTA   (Loffredo finally Masters it)
1995 NATIONALS-SAN FRANCISCO(Swan vs. Loff. Singles classic)
1995 WORLDS-DALLAS   (Todd & Scotty again--Gummeson takes Singles)
1996 HALL OF FAME CLASSIC-LONG BEACH, CA   (Swan & Beine)
1996 U.S. OPEN- MINNEAPOLIS   (Todd vs. Terry)
1996 MASTERS-ATLANTA(Cartwright & Moore's defensive struggle)
1996 NATIONALS-NEW ORLEANS, LA(Terry vs. Jeep classic match)
1996 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS-DALLAS(King Louis-Mares &Adkis.)
1997 HALL OF FAME CLASSIC-OAKLAND, CA(Moore  and more Moore) 1997 U.S.
OPEN-ST. LOUIS,MO(Yore vsGummeson-Tommy & Rob). 1997 MASTERS-ATLANTA
(Moore triples--Swan's Masterpiece)

            STATE AND REGIONAL EVENTS ($20 each)
1994,'95,'96 Oklahoma State--1996 North Carolina State--1995,'96 Texas
State--1995,'96 Minnesota State--1995 East Coast Open--1995 Louisiana
State--1995,'96 Halloween Open--1996 New York Cup--1995 Mississippi
State--1997 California State--1995 Colorado State  ___________________________________________________________
 This amazing coverage from Inside Foos represents just a small fraction of the regional, state, and major events that occurred on an annual basis during the era. Many of the promoters retired from the game or watched their demand dwindle as their route went out of business. One regional promoter of the time, Mary Moore, began Independent Foosball Promotions during this decade (www.ifptour.com). IFP now organizes and runs the majority of the regional and national tour events in the United States. IFP was not involved in with the USTSA and even backed the Warrior table for one year of the tour.
 
     The regional and major tour of 1995 may have been much larger in scope of attendance compared to the tour of today. While this is a disturbing example of foosball shrinking in the United States, what is even truly alarming is the drop off of local foosball tournaments and recreational play. People gathered on a nightly basis at hundreds of various foosball table locations. A majority of players gathered for fun while others chose to raise the intensity by competing in local tournaments. There was no such thing really as a "beginner". Play began at the recreational level. Some players would never transfer over to tournament play, happy to keep the intensity level down and stay at the recreational level play. There were plenty of skilled and savvy players that were by no means beginners after decades of play but had no prayer of competing against serious tour rookies. At the recreational level of play the only thing to play for was to "hold the table". Loser usually pays in recreational play and quarters would pile up with players waiting to challenge the king of the hill. This is where "beginners" learned to play the game, facing a variety of shots, game styles, and players back to back with little pressure and more fun. This is scenario is a rarity in this day and age.

     Today, challenge play happens only before or after tournaments. This lack of recreational play often leaves the tables to sit empty during the week. This is does not look good to the location owners. In 1995, the busiest location in the world hosted 12-15 tables that operated to capacity every night. It was not uncommon for a couple hundred people to file through and play a few games even on a weeknight. 98% or more of foosball was played by recreational players of varying skill levels that had no desire to enter competitive tournaments. Retired tournament players, old school players of the 70's & 80's, and new players created a demand for the product and fueled the business of foosball. Some of the top locations made respectable 6 figure incomes fifty cents at a time. Tournament promoters added another competitive element to the game that was secondary to recreational play in the scope of financial gain. Tens of thousands of national recreational players fueled the demand for the game that allowed higher levels of competition. Tournament foosball then had a wide player base and a solid "grass roots" culture in place to draw in new players from the recreational side of the game.  Business practices, tournament formats, styles of play, and entire player bases disappeared over the course of a decade due to numerous internal factors and environmental variables.

    Tournaments rules and formats varied across the country. Tournament directors learned from each other through word of mouth, traveling players, and traveling to larger events that were host to promoter meetings. This was a time before the internet and social media. Formats like Hawaii 5-0, Goalie's Delight and Pick Your Partner DYPs that were once common tournament variants across the nation were lost. Most foosers of today have not heard of these formats nor did the new directors and promoters of today have the opportunity to learn from the veteran tournament directors. 

     I began running tournaments 6 months or so after I started playing tournaments in 1995. I filled in for the local employees of the regional promoter. That's right, there was a promoter with MULTIPLE employees on the payroll, with two in Tulsa. Link Pendley owned Southwest Tornado and a pool hall in Moore named Star Bucks. This was well before the coffee chain had began the global surge. The largest promoter in the world had 100+ tables on location with 20+ weekly tournaments in 4 states. This provided a fertile ground for foosball player growth and competition. Southwest Tornado became the most successful foosball vending business in the world.  Link became the national tournament director. In 1997 or so Link closed his pool room and took a high level postion working for Tornado. After many changes of corporate ownership, Link is still director of International Sales at Tornado. The loss of grass roots foosball routes like Southwest Tornado has affected the level of foosball promotions, business opportunities, as well as the level of play.

     Link made sure to have a flyer area at each location with the tournament calendar, flyers, and other foosball information. A small newsletter with results, the Rookie of the Month, other foosball news kept people informed. This great Oklahoma promoter was the person I graciously borrowed the sign off of "FOOS ON" from for my past and current promotions. Link's national exposure allowed him to gather new ideas and his massive player base offered the testing grounds. Locally, Link employed Scott Nobles as tournament director and promoter for the Tulsa Billiard Palace. Scott was not only a Pro-Master at the game but managed to run a 25 team tournament at the same time he played. For two years Scott and another local Pro Master, Trad Powell, won 95% of all the tournaments in Tulsa. I saw my first true example of a successful player/promoter. Modern foosball promoters do not need to re-invent the wheel to be successful but they must attempt the uphill battle to grow in a era that offers little grass roots support. Now in the United States, recreational play has dried up and foosball is no longer part of the entertainment culture.

     Promotions, tournament variants, and business practices of past foosball promoters are applicable today. There are numerous foosball promoters and business people putting up hard earned capital to fight the good fight of trying to rebuild this sport. After a few years of being an assistant tournament director, I became a full time Tulsa Foosball promoter April of 2000. I purchased my first foosball location, which happened to be the 12 table location I mentioned earlier that had at one time at been the busiest in the world.The frequency of play was down for numerous reasons and an opportunity was presented for me to buy the location. I had been a Licensed Real Estate Agent for 7 years and the General Manager of a real estate business for two years. I had been successful but burned out. I got a loan, quit my job, took the pay cut, and began to do what I loved for a living: playing, promoting and talking about foosball. I was fortunate that I already had received training as an assistant tournament director and had exposure to a quality program. 

    I worked hard personally running most of the tournaments (as many as 5 tournaments per week), buying new equipment, and improving playing conditions. I brought back a free entry rookie tournament format, an investment that paid great dividends in way of future players. My Tulsa location surged back to the top becoming best in the nation (per Link Pendley at that time). I bought out a retiring OKC promotions company, gaining tables allowing me to gather more locations.  A few years later I expanded across state lines by buying out 50% of Dallas based Mercury Games from Mike Archer. I had a great partner and incredible operator in Steve Marshall.

    I was involved in some part of 40+ tables, in 2 states across up to 6 cities. I ran six regional tournaments every year and assisted in running events for other promoters. Tournaments of the 90's routinely paid more than the amounts suggested on the flyer. This was a tradition I continued and planned for. Players would cheer as revised and raised payouts were announced. One annual tournament I ran every year consistently doubled in payout, The Rookie/Semi-Pro Regional. This annual tournament would routinely double in advertised payout from $5,000 to $10,000.  The results and some details from these past tournaments are still on my old business website,  www.angelfire.com/ok/fsbll .

     While foosball action was heating up in Tulsa at the beginning of the century, this was not the case nationally. Foosball was losing touch with the younger generation, demand was plummeting, and vendors were leaving the business . Arcades, game rooms, and pool halls began to go out of business as home entertainment began to surge. Xbox, Playstations, DVD players, and personal computers were what the kids wanted now. Foosball demand and identity was disappearing at an alarming rate from youth entertainment radar.

     Table quality fell of in 1997 when Valley-Dynamo Inc. bought Tornado Foosball. The factory was moved to Michigan and skilled veteran builders from the Texas factory were lost. Corporate cost cutting, price increases, and quality issues affect route owners and players alike. This all came at a bad time as demand for the product was already beginning to falter. Now the impeccably reliable brand was not only in less demand for play on commercial vending routes, but also required more maintenance and parts were retailing at a higher cost.  By the time I began to promote full time in 2000, a majority of the local vending companies no longer offered foosball.This left me the opportunity to vend only foosball with little competition.

     Gas prices were increasing with trouble in the Gulf. The existing tournament player base that fed the tour was affected by this. Gas increased to 50% or more around 2000 then skyrocketed after September 11th. The effects were traveling foosball players were able to afford less events and had to stay closer to home. The large tour events depended on traveling players and turnouts quickly dropped off. The 5 Tornado-run majors shrank to 3 events then 2 before they removed themselves entirely from the foosball promotions business and instead backing the promoting efforts of Independent Foosball Promotions. 

    Changes in the youth culture and a relatively sudden increase in travel cost were not the only blows foosball.  I wrote an article that was published in the foosball magazine Foosball Quarterly warning of a change in the landscape of adult entertainment. The rise of casino gambling and the later surge of Texas Hold'em popularity raked players from foosball. The lure of riches not only gave foosers a new vice to battle, gambling, but also removed the disposable travel income. Foosball players stopped playing as they began to invest in poker bankrolls to chase large payouts. The change in national gambling laws and rise of casinos were not the only culprit of this gambling intrusion into entertainment markets. The internet brought online poker and gave access to game to everyone, 24 hours a day from the privacy of a home computer. Huge poker tournament payouts that reached the millions made foosball seem like a waste of time for the money to some players. There was one more source of entertainment for foosball to compete with. Coupling this surge with the rising gas cost was brutal to the touring player demographic. This was not the only variable crippling the game. Locations were closing for another reason, changes in smoking laws.
   
      California was the first to begin smoking bans. One newspaper article of the day reported that 75% of the bars, night clubs, pool rooms, and cigar clubs closed with in a year. Regardless on one's stance on the health of smoking, this was a big change for the existing entertainment industry. Casinos were either on sovereign tribal lands sheltered from smoking bans or just exempt from such measures. Most people did not just quit smoking overnight, they just began to relax at entertainment establishments that found a way around the law, frequented casinos, or just stayed home. Society has since adapt to changes in public health laws but the business landscape is forever changed and the  number of possible foosball locations drastically decreased.

     The changes in the domestic entertainment scene are not the only issues for foosball in 2012 Technology has progressed and people are spending more time playing games on tablets and smart phones. It is hard for a $1500 foosball table to compete with a 99 cent copy of Angry Birds.

   The United States International Team is now hindered in ITSF international play because Tornado withdrew from the ITSF as an official table. This move left team USA without the choice of Tornado in multi-table tournament tournaments like the World Cup (http://www.table-soccer.org/). The team was forced to chose the Fireball table. Since Fireball tables do not have many commercial location in the U.S and are more common global this gave opponents a more even playing field against the U.S. team that dominated on Tornado. This caused the usually dominant U.S. team to take home the bronze.



     There are positive changes in the game. Tornado has returned to former ownership. Though the company is no longer directly involved in promotions, they are making a quality table. The retail cost has increased but at least the large purchase price is no longer a gamble on table quality. Tornado is doing what it does best, building great foosball tables. This is important for table sales and promoters investing in commercial equipment. Along with the IFP tour, there are still many independent promoters investing in tables and furthering the game with regional events (http://www.foosball.com/schedule/).

     Internationally, foosball is gaining in popularity. Europe has growing markets for multiple table manufacturers that are non existent in the U.S. The International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) has attempted to bring the nations together in a multiple table team competition.  Italy has a Foosball auditorium built by the government. Germany has the P4P (Players for Players) association with a championship that draws nearly 900 competitors. Globally the high level of soccer popularity has benefited table soccer, something that is not the case in the United States. Further east, Fireball tables are in production in China. The Fireball is similar in play style to Tornado but are more forgiving technically. This forgiveness is especially true in catching the ball which is the usual disparity between good and great players.   Fireball is quickly making a global mark. Fireball is establishing sales, locations and tournaments in Europe and across Asia/Pacific, building a well made table that is cheaper alternative to Tornado for both commercial and home play. New manufactures are still starting up and markets of opportunities exist.  I have been consulting for a table entrepreneur in Thailand which is currently putting together the first alpha units. This international growth helps keep the game alive even as popularity skips along the bottom of the charts domestically.
  
      Foosball is still a great game! Yes, there is a big learning curve but that makes success sweeter. The game is fast paced and all participants (up to four players) are continuously and actively involved. This is vastly different than other bar rooms games. Darts and pool force players to take turns and wait for the action of the active player. Foosball is all action from the first drop to the final point. As one of my local players liked to say, "the most fun you can have playing a game while standing in the same place".

     So now you are one of the brave few that still love this game and still reading this long blog post, Hurray!! Some of you reading this are giving of your time by running a tournament or buying a few tables. Awesome!  I want to take my 17 years of foosball experience and share this with current local promoters. Tournament formats, table location negotiations, player sociology are all important factors to success but there is no FAQ, assistance, or local tournament guidelines.  Consistency and professionalism are more crucial to success than the passion to play and run tournaments. Most foosball investors have limited investment income to work with, do not know the pitfalls of the business, and are only listening to the desires of the remaining players instead of building a player base and establish a program of conducive to growth.

   I retired from active promotions Dec 2009 to return to school and start a family. Now I am assisting the local Tulsa foosball promoter, Jeff Cook. The first location closed, the second location burned down, and we are gearing up for another reboot starting this Saturday (Tulsa Foosball Facebook). So  I am not just writing this blog to teach but to share and learn. I want to teach new promoters and bring in successful ideas from current promoters and foosball tournament directors! We need to work together, share experiences, pitfalls, and cross promote the game regionally for the benefit of all. If a new idea works in California maybe it will work in Florida. Ideas could work together and pay dividends for all! We must all think at of the box and not be quick to discount new ideas or avenues of promotion.

   I did not expect this post to become such a monster. The next post will be less historical and more informative in nature. I will narrow the subject matter down right now to discipline myself. The next topic will be how to run a successful local Draw Your Partner tournament format.

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