My answer would be a qualified yes, an owner with a lot of money
and a willingness to lose some money at the start in exchange
for developing a long term benefit would in fact be able to save
the sport IMO.
My personal opinion on the matter, the single largest problem
Jai Alai faces is the public perception of the sport. I remember
when I first started to go to Jai Alai, all I heard was how the
game was fixed and all the rest of the silly rumors. Personally,
I was fascinated by the game from the first moment I saw it. However,
those people I went with who werent as instantly hooked as I was,
saw things happen in terms of players lack of effort, sloppy play
from lesser players, etc etc that served to support all the negative
things they had heard about the sport.
The first thing an owner who had the money and the desire to save
the sport would have to do IMO is build the deepest and most talented
roster possible. Im talking not only the superstars of the game
playing lates, but high quality players playing the early games
as well. Americans on the whole do not understand the ins and
outs of the sport and so what those of us who do know the game
well see as mistakes that are just part of the game, the unfamiliar
see as fixes, mediocre or worse players playing early games only
exacerbates these suspicions, as every drop, every errant throw,
every blown remate we see as just part of play looks like a fix
to those who come in with a disbelieving eye. Also Id say build
a very deep roster that allowed for players to have plenty of
days off because lets face it, physically given the number of
performances per week, it would be virtually impossible for a
player to be at 100% physically and bring his "A" game
every day playing the huge number of games per week thats now
part of Jai Alai. Also I agree 100% with Victor, players must
go in knowing that anything less than 100%, regardless of the
circumstances, will not be tolerated. Players walking off the
court as a dejada gets thrown against them, guys refusing to run
out chic-chacs etc etc. To my mind, that would mean that players
salaries and potential boloeto earnings would have to be put on
a level that would attract the top talent from around the world.
Simply put, pay good salaries and put up boloetos so big that
every player on the planet would want to bust his ass for every
point of every game.
Finally, promotion, clearly Jai Alai has done a poor job with
this. First step in my opinion, this new owner would build an
amateur facility either on the same property as his fronton or
very close to it, give people acccess to the game itself, again,
in the short term, this would be a money losing venture but in
terms of building a long term audience, it would be invaluable,
look at this message board, watching it, I feel sometimes like
I am the only hardcore Jai Alai fan who didnt grow up playing
some amateur Jai Alai, clearly, this exposure to the game builds
a love for the sport. Second, Jai Alai needs to get exposure in
the electronic media, even if its a matter of buying time on sports
networks and radio to do so at first. Create big events and hire
film crews to create programming, then get them shown on TV and
covered on Radio.
Anyway IMO, yeah, the right owner could probably "save"
the sport, but would probably have to be willing to take a large
up front loss to do so.
