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  April 22, 2019

  There was little to suggest, through the week, at the Karnataka State Billiards Association (KSBA) in central Bengaluru that a World Championship was underway. Despite some of the games best players in the house, the playing hall was largely empty and quiet; except for the final, which was packed, there were fewer than a dozen spectators - and half of those were invariably players families.The answer possibly lies with the sport in question - Billiards.At a time when sport is being tweaked to fit capsule-sized formats, and keeping in mind decreasing audience attention spans, billiards sticks to tradition: Players dressed in waistcoat and bowtie, matches sometimes lasting seven hours long. Billiards evolved from a lawn game similar to croquet played in the 15th century, and doesnt seem to have changed much since then.Its younger cousin, snooker, ticks the right boxes. Its faster, uses more balls (15 as opposed to the three of billiards) and generally enjoys a wider profile across the globe. In Myanmar, for example, snooker is the growing sport; billiards languishes in obscurity. Youngsters in Myanmar take to snooker a lot more than they do to billiards, Myanmars highest-ranked billiards player Aung Htay told ESPN at the World Championships. Billiards is viewed as old fashioned.It seems almost everyone in the game agrees with that, but nothing has been done about it. The rules of the sport have to be tweaked, says reigning national billiards champion and this years World Championship silver medallist Sourav Kothari. Billiards is getting monotonous, especially the long format. You have to jazz it up, bring more noise into the sport. The absence of a marketable star with a magnetic personality - someone who would venture beyond the staid and predictable, and maybe even engage in the occasional trash talk to fan viewer interest - has also hurt the sport. Pankaj Advani, one of its bigger stars, is reticent, non-controversial and anything but pompous of his achievements. Rivalries in sport work like a charm. Theres very little of it in cue sport. The ones that exist arent storied or publicized enough. We need a couple of good rivalries to latch on to peoples imagination, feels Geet Sethi.A primary concern for the sport is its lack of television coverage. A crushing blow in frenzied times such as these. The reason again lies in the sport itself: not being spectator-friendly enough. Talking to ESPN, Peter Gilchrist admits despite decent attempts at making the game shorter, little has changed. Weve tried everything: 50-up, 100-up, 150-up, points format, time format but unfortunately theres still no people. We probably need a bunch of girls in bikinis, he says, over a laugh, At least it worked for beach volleyball.While shorter formats, like the 100-up, which essentially means a player would have to first score over 100 points to win a frame in a usually best of five frame format which can last anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour are more popular among a wider base, it hasnt really translated into tangible numbers for the sport.Geet Sethi, easily Indias most celebrated name in billiards, argues that the relevance of the sport in the 21st century isnt a fair question, choosing instead to focus on the factors which contribute to its peripheral status. To make billiards spectator friendly is a tough call, he says, Given that weve tried the shorter formats as well. Take a sport like shooting or archery for instance. Theyre really boring to watch and anything but spectator-friendly, but being a part of the Olympics has changed the dynamics. We need to be back in the Asian Games at least, to start with.Cue sports were part of the Asian Games from the 1998 Bangkok edition, but were dropped at the 2014 Games in Guangzhou due to financial constraints. It does not feature in the Commonwealth Games either. That makes the Olympics a pretty long shot. Getting into the Asian Games would be a huge boost and would lead to a revival. The future of billiards, I feel, lies in making a comeback at the Asian Games, which would be fantastic. Or else we would be plodding along like we currently are, adds Gilchrist, agreeing with Sethi.One way, Kothari suggests, of making the game more interesting is by adding a circle somewhere on the table, either by way of a thin round film or a laser beam. We could say that if theres any ball in that circle and you score points from there you get 30 extra points, he says, The circle could be put in a very difficult spot in the table, where the ball cannot go too often, maybe inside the D and we could have a blue ball as one of the strikers instead of having a spotted white and spotted yellow one. If the ball stops inside a particular circle, you lose a point that you scored or if it stops inside a particular zone you lose your visit and a certain number of points. We need to change the way viewers see the game. We need to make it more colorful. Maybe the white can be done away with totally and we could have a green or blue striker instead.Ascribing billiards sagging interest to a sea change in the sponsorship scenario, Gilchrist says that through the 1990s when ITC sponsored billiards events, there was money in the sport. Since tobacco sponsorship ended, billiards too is more or less gone, he adds. ITC was known to have spent close to Rs 250 crore annually in sponsoring cricket, golf, billiards, tennis and horse racing events before pulling out in 2001 following the central governments decision to ban advertising and promotion of tobacco products. It did, however, return following a three-year hiatus to hold the 2005 Sunfeast Open tennis tournament in Kolkata. Billiards needs an influx of cash to pick up. Its not really a spectator sport. Its more of a strategic game and the best players make it look far too easy, says Gilchrist, who won his first world title in 1994.While a snooker and pool league is in the works for a possible March 2017 launch in India, billiards isnt part of the plan. Hosting the ongoing World Championship cost the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) close to Rs 70 lakhs, out of which the primary sponsor, Karnataka Tourism, paid Rs 15 lakhs. The lacunae lies within the federation itself, says BSFI secretary G Balasubramaniam, We are unable to promote the event (World Billiards Championship) because of our limitations. Private sponsorship is little. What is worrying is that even for a big-ticket snooker event like the Indian Open, which is beamed live and well-promoted it is very difficult to find willing sponsors.Earlier this month, the sports ministry in association with the BSFI inaugurated a billiards academy at the Talkatora stadium in New Delhi and the idea, Balasubramaniam adds, is to replicate the effort in five centres across the country. It is divided into two sections: one for beginners and the other for players, he says, Its been less than a fortnight so far and the numbers are on the rise in the beginners section. Also our application for promotion of billiards in schools and colleges is pending.An oft-talked about disincentive of the sport is its need for infrastructure to be played: Table, balls, cue, unlike say football or cricket. The accessibility to such facilities being limited to high-end social clubs or pool parlours makes it instantly unappealing to a large section of people. The jury has also been long out on the need for the sport to shed its bowtie-waistcoat dress code and become more casual, funky, colorful and most importantly, relatable. Kothari, though feels the sport is synonymous with its look. I like the waistcoat, maybe not the bowtie. It adds to the grace of the game. Gilchrist had a more ingenious idea to offer. We should probably turn up in trunks, he says, cracking up.While billiards future, some might suggest, hinges on its ability to reinvent and package itself better, Sethi has a word of faith. There will be periods when well have brilliant players, good rivalry and it will become popular. Then well go through a lull phase. It could be alternating decades possibly, he says.Billiards is a great survivor. Vans Shoes Nz Sale . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Cheap Vans Shoes For Sale Nz . Spiller left Week 3s 27-20 loss to the New York Jets with a thigh injury, but fully practiced with the team all week and expects to be ready to go on Sunday. http://www.cheapvansnz.com/ .J. -- Seven games into a disappointing season, New York Giants defensive catalyst Jason Pierre-Paul is getting the feeling hes back. Cheap Vans Shoes Nz . The scientists believe the small earthquake during a Marshawn Lynch touchdown was likely greater than Lynchs famous "beast quake" touchdown run three years ago, which also came against New Orleans during a playoff game. Vans Shoes Nz Buy Online .J. -- Pitcher Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 major league seasons.Russell Westbrook tallied a triple-double and Kevin Durant finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds as Oklahoma City routed Golden State 118-94 to put the Warriors on the brink of elimination from the NBA play-offs. Westbrook had 36 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for the Thunder, who are 3-1 up in the seven-game series and can advance to the NBA Finals with a victory in Thursdays Game Five on the road.The Warriors lost back-to-back games for the first time this season after winning a league-record 73 games in the regular season. Thunder forward Durant scored his points on eight-of-24 shooting from the field, while Serge Ibaka and Andre Roberson each scored 17 points and Steven Adams tallied 11 points and seven rebounds.League MVP Stephen Curry was held to 19 points while Klay Thompson led the defending champion Warriors with 26 points.Curry shot a disappointing six-of-20 from the field, and he and Thompson combined to make just six-of-21 shots from beyond the arc.dddddddddddd Russell Westbrook played a starring role for the Oklahoma City Thunder Harrison Barnes posted 11 points in the loss for the Warriors, who attempted just 17 free throws in the first half.I am proud of the way the guys hung in there, said Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan. We kept battling and fighting. We defended as hard as we could for 48 minutes.Westbrook, who led the league with 18 triple-doubles during the regular season, posted his first triple-double of the play-offs for the Thunder.I try to use my size and ability to create some havoc, Westbrook said. We did a great job of defending home court. Also See: Play-offs talking points Raptors level series ' ' '

  There was little to suggest, through the week, at the Karnataka State Billiards Association (KSBA) in central Bengaluru that a World Championship was underway. Despite some of the games best players in the house, the playing hall was largely empty and quiet; except for the final, which was packed, there were fewer than a dozen spectators - and half of those were invariably players families.The answer possibly lies with the sport in question - Billiards.At a time when sport is being tweaked to fit capsule-sized formats, and keeping in mind decreasing audience attention spans, billiards sticks to tradition: Players dressed in waistcoat and bowtie, matches sometimes lasting seven hours long. Billiards evolved from a lawn game similar to croquet played in the 15th century, and doesnt seem to have changed much since then.Its younger cousin, snooker, ticks the right boxes. Its faster, uses more balls (15 as opposed to the three of billiards) and generally enjoys a wider profile across the globe. In Myanmar, for example, snooker is the growing sport; billiards languishes in obscurity. Youngsters in Myanmar take to snooker a lot more than they do to billiards, Myanmars highest-ranked billiards player Aung Htay told ESPN at the World Championships. Billiards is viewed as old fashioned.It seems almost everyone in the game agrees with that, but nothing has been done about it. The rules of the sport have to be tweaked, says reigning national billiards champion and this years World Championship silver medallist Sourav Kothari. Billiards is getting monotonous, especially the long format. You have to jazz it up, bring more noise into the sport. The absence of a marketable star with a magnetic personality - someone who would venture beyond the staid and predictable, and maybe even engage in the occasional trash talk to fan viewer interest - has also hurt the sport. Pankaj Advani, one of its bigger stars, is reticent, non-controversial and anything but pompous of his achievements. Rivalries in sport work like a charm. Theres very little of it in cue sport. The ones that exist arent storied or publicized enough. We need a couple of good rivalries to latch on to peoples imagination, feels Geet Sethi.A primary concern for the sport is its lack of television coverage. A crushing blow in frenzied times such as these. The reason again lies in the sport itself: not being spectator-friendly enough. Talking to ESPN, Peter Gilchrist admits despite decent attempts at making the game shorter, little has changed. Weve tried everything: 50-up, 100-up, 150-up, points format, time format but unfortunately theres still no people. We probably need a bunch of girls in bikinis, he says, over a laugh, At least it worked for beach volleyball.While shorter formats, like the 100-up, which essentially means a player would have to first score over 100 points to win a frame in a usually best of five frame format which can last anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour are more popular among a wider base, it hasnt really translated into tangible numbers for the sport.Geet Sethi, easily Indias most celebrated name in billiards, argues that the relevance of the sport in the 21st century isnt a fair question, choosing instead to focus on the factors which contribute to its peripheral status. To make billiards spectator friendly is a tough call, he says, Given that weve tried the shorter formats as well. Take a sport like shooting or archery for instance. Theyre really boring to watch and anything but spectator-friendly, but being a part of the Olympics has changed the dynamics. We need to be back in the Asian Games at least, to start with.Cue sports were part of the Asian Games from the 1998 Bangkok edition, but were dropped at the 2014 Games in Guangzhou due to financial constraints. It does not feature in the Commonwealth Games either. That makes the Olympics a pretty long shot. Getting into the Asian Games would be a huge boost and would lead to a revival. The future of billiards, I feel, lies in making a comeback at the Asian Games, which would be fantastic. Or else we would be plodding along like we currently are, adds Gilchrist, agreeing with Sethi.One way, Kothari suggests, of making the game more interesting is by adding a circle somewhere on the table, either by way of a thin round film or a laser beam. We could say that if theres any ball in that circle and you score points from there you get 30 extra points, he says, The circle could be put in a very difficult spot in the table, where the ball cannot go too often, maybe inside the D and we could have a blue ball as one of the strikers instead of having a spotted white and spotted yellow one. If the ball stops inside a particular circle, you lose a point that you scored or if it stops inside a particular zone you lose your visit and a certain number of points. We need to change the way viewers see the game. We need to make it more colorful. Maybe the white can be done away with totally and we could have a green or blue striker instead.Ascribing billiards sagging interest to a sea change in the sponsorship scenario, Gilchrist says that through the 1990s when ITC sponsored billiards events, there was money in the sport. Since tobacco sponsorship ended, billiards too is more or less gone, he adds. ITC was known to have spent close to Rs 250 crore annually in sponsoring cricket, golf, billiards, tennis and horse racing events before pulling out in 2001 following the central governments decision to ban advertising and promotion of tobacco products. It did, however, return following a three-year hiatus to hold the 2005 Sunfeast Open tennis tournament in Kolkata. Billiards needs an influx of cash to pick up. Its not really a spectator sport. Its more of a strategic game and the best players make it look far too easy, says Gilchrist, who won his first world title in 1994.While a snooker and pool league is in the works for a possible March 2017 launch in India, billiards isnt part of the plan. Hosting the ongoing World Championship cost the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) close to Rs 70 lakhs, out of which the primary sponsor, Karnataka Tourism, paid Rs 15 lakhs. The lacunae lies within the federation itself, says BSFI secretary G Balasubramaniam, We are unable to promote the event (World Billiards Championship) because of our limitations. Private sponsorship is little. What is worrying is that even for a big-ticket snooker event like the Indian Open, which is beamed live and well-promoted it is very difficult to find willing sponsors.Earlier this month, the sports ministry in association with the BSFI inaugurated a billiards academy at the Talkatora stadium in New Delhi and the idea, Balasubramaniam adds, is to replicate the effort in five centres across the country. It is divided into two sections: one for beginners and the other for players, he says, Its been less than a fortnight so far and the numbers are on the rise in the beginners section. Also our application for promotion of billiards in schools and colleges is pending.An oft-talked about disincentive of the sport is its need for infrastructure to be played: Table, balls, cue, unlike say football or cricket. The accessibility to such facilities being limited to high-end social clubs or pool parlours makes it instantly unappealing to a large section of people. The jury has also been long out on the need for the sport to shed its bowtie-waistcoat dress code and become more casual, funky, colorful and most importantly, relatable. Kothari, though feels the sport is synonymous with its look. I like the waistcoat, maybe not the bowtie. It adds to the grace of the game. Gilchrist had a more ingenious idea to offer. We should probably turn up in trunks, he says, cracking up.While billiards future, some might suggest, hinges on its ability to reinvent and package itself better, Sethi has a word of faith. There will be periods when well have brilliant players, good rivalry and it will become popular. Then well go through a lull phase. It could be alternating decades possibly, he says.Billiards is a great survivor. [url=http://www.cheapvansnz.com/]Vans Shoes Nz Sale[/url] . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. [url=http://www.cheapvansnz.com/]Cheap Vans Shoes For Sale Nz[/url] . Spiller left Week 3s 27-20 loss to the New York Jets with a thigh injury, but fully practiced with the team all week and expects to be ready to go on Sunday. [url=http://www.cheapvansnz.com/]http://www.cheapvansnz.com/[/url] .J. -- Seven games into a disappointing season, New York Giants defensive catalyst Jason Pierre-Paul is getting the feeling hes back. [url=http://www.cheapvansnz.com/]Cheap Vans Shoes Nz[/url] . The scientists believe the small earthquake during a Marshawn Lynch touchdown was likely greater than Lynchs famous "beast quake" touchdown run three years ago, which also came against New Orleans during a playoff game. [url=http://www.cheapvansnz.com/]Vans Shoes Nz Buy Online[/url] .J. -- Pitcher Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 major league seasons.Russell Westbrook tallied a triple-double and Kevin Durant finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds as Oklahoma City routed Golden State 118-94 to put the Warriors on the brink of elimination from the NBA play-offs. Westbrook had 36 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for the Thunder, who are 3-1 up in the seven-game series and can advance to the NBA Finals with a victory in Thursdays Game Five on the road.The Warriors lost back-to-back games for the first time this season after winning a league-record 73 games in the regular season. Thunder forward Durant scored his points on eight-of-24 shooting from the field, while Serge Ibaka and Andre Roberson each scored 17 points and Steven Adams tallied 11 points and seven rebounds.League MVP Stephen Curry was held to 19 points while Klay Thompson led the defending champion Warriors with 26 points.Curry shot a disappointing six-of-20 from the field, and he and Thompson combined to make just six-of-21 shots from beyond the arc.dddddddddddd Russell Westbrook played a starring role for the Oklahoma City Thunder Harrison Barnes posted 11 points in the loss for the Warriors, who attempted just 17 free throws in the first half.I am proud of the way the guys hung in there, said Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan. We kept battling and fighting. We defended as hard as we could for 48 minutes.Westbrook, who led the league with 18 triple-doubles during the regular season, posted his first triple-double of the play-offs for the Thunder.I try to use my size and ability to create some havoc, Westbrook said. We did a great job of defending home court. Also See: Play-offs talking points Raptors level series ' ' '