Episode 362: Pinball in the media

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·15m 57s·analyzed·May 13, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Media coverage and public relations strategy for pinball community

Summary

Jeff Teolis discusses the importance of pinball media coverage and public relations, highlighting recent TV and radio appearances promoting the sport. He addresses community groaning about overused "pinball wizard" terminology, explaining that mainstream media uses familiar cultural references to engage general audiences unfamiliar with pinball. The episode features a radio interview where Teolis discusses his competitive pinball career and upcoming World Championship trip to Europe, serving as a case study in how pinball is portrayed to the public.

Key Claims

IFPA membership has grown from just under 25,000 to approximately 100,000 registered players
high confidence · Jeff Teolis directly states this growth metric during radio interview
Indisc tournament in January had over 15,000 live viewers on Twitch and over a million views after the fact
high confidence · Teolis cites this as example of pinball's media reach and visibility
Major tournaments can offer prizes including brand new pinball machines worth $10,000 plus additional cash
high confidence · Teolis discusses prize structure in radio interview
Keith Elwin is described as the greatest pinball player of all time and is now making pinball machines
high confidence · Teolis mentions Elwin in context of competitive play and manufacturing involvement
Jeff Teolis voiced a pinball machine called Legends of Valhalla by American Pinball
high confidence · Teolis states 'there's this game I was actually fortunate enough to voice the pinball machine. It's called Legends of Valhalla by American Pinball'
Four Canadian players qualified for the World Pinball Championships: Jeff Teolis, John Cotman, Derek Thompson, and Jack Tappan
high confidence · Teolis identifies the Canadian delegation during radio interview
Pinball Profile podcast has seven years of interviews with figures like Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, and game designers
high confidence · Teolis mentions podcast content in radio interview

Notable Quotes

“Most people in the media have no clue about pinball. None.”
Jeff Teolis @ N/A — Core thesis explaining why mainstream media uses familiar cultural references like 'Pinball Wizard'
“We are a little too close to it. When these stories appear, you want the audience to be able to relate some way somehow, so those hearing about pinball for perhaps the first time can relate to the term Pinball Wizard and the song.”
Jeff Teolis @ N/A — Defense of mainstream media terminology and explanation of marketing/accessibility strategy
“If I was a golfer, as good as I could be, I'd never golf against Tiger Woods. But in pinball, you're playing and you're like, oh, look at that. There's the number one player in the world.”
Jeff Teolis @ N/A — Explanation of what drew him to competitive pinball and appeal of playing against elite competitors
“I don't. That's the nice thing about pinball is there's such wonderful people.”
Jeff Teolis @ N/A — Contrasts pinball community positively with other competitive communities; addresses question about rivals
“The whole point is just to promote the hobby and show that it's fun and fun for everyone. And besides, there's a lot worse things you can be called than a pinball wizard.”
Jeff Teolis @ N/A — Final argument reconciling community criticism with practical media strategy

Entities

Jeff Teolisperson Eric Stoneperson Carl D'Angeloperson Keith Elwinperson Pinball Profileorganization IE PinballorganizationPinclashevent

Signals

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business_signal: IFPA experiencing significant growth in registered competitive players
high · Teolis states IFPA membership grew from 'just under 25,000' to 'basically 100,000' in recent years
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event_signal: Pinclash international online tournament with 24 players from 7 countries competing for cash prizes, featuring professional streaming and commentary
high · Carl D'Angelo's Pinclash event on May 13 with professional commentators and multiple media outlets covering player participants
~
sentiment_shift: Community groaning about overuse of 'Pinball Wizard' terminology in mainstream media coverage, but Teolis argues this is necessary for general audience engagement
high · Teolis acknowledges 'there are people in pinball that are sick of it, I get it' but defends the practice as accessibility strategy
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community_signal: Multiple TV media outlets covering individual pinball players' tournament successes as human interest stories
high · Eric Stone receives regular TV coverage from Tampa station; Stephanie Traub, Neil Graff, and Nahorniak brothers received local TV pieces for Pinclash participation
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event_signal: Indisc tournament achieved significant mainstream streaming reach with 15,000+ live viewers and over 1 million total views
high · Teolis cites January Indisc event reaching front page of Twitch with 15,000 live viewers and over 1 million views after the fact

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.048

0:00

it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teolis you can find everything on pinballprofile.com all past episodes subscriptions and more we're on twitter and instagram at pinball profile we have a big facebook group you can always email pinballprofile at gmail.com and if you would like to show your support it would mean a lot to me you can go to patreon.com slash pinball profile don't worry the show will always be free there has been a lot of press and media attention this month for pinball great more press our community is well aware of each game tournament and league but by showing off pinball on tv print blogs radio these are great ways to let others know about our amazing hobby and sport eric stone recently he's a world champion he gets a lot of pinball airtime as the weatherman on his Tampa TV station, especially when he does well in an event like he just did at Allentown. His TV colleagues and viewers get a kick out of seeing Eric's success and they usually showcase the Twitch stream of his recent event. In television, they call those stories kickers, kind of light, fluff, human interest pieces. Who cares? It's pinball on TV. Move now to Pinclash. This is the brainchild of Carl D'Angelo. It's ready for the big event today, Saturday, May the 13th. You can catch it on twitch.tv slash IEPinball. It starts at noon Pacific time, 3pm Eastern. This is 24 pinballers from around the world. There are seven different countries represented. They're going to be online playing Godzilla heads up for cash and prizes. Snow Galvin and Steven Bowden will provide the play-by-play commentating. Yours truly. I did a bunch of introductions and short interviews with each player. We all know about Carl's award-winning streaming in my humble opinion, the best that pinball has to offer. Remember how Indisc this past January was on the front page of Twitch with over 15,000 people watching the tournament live? Then over a million views after the fact. Again, more pinball press. So back to Pin Clash. At the time of this recording, there were three different local TV pieces with competitors Stephanie Traub of DC, Neil Graff of Wisconsin, and the Nahorniak brothers, Tate and Luke from Minnesota. Great job by every player there in spreading the word about pinball. I myself had a bit of a media blitz this week with a TV piece and interviews on eight different radio stations regarding the upcoming mega event in Germany this month. The European Pinball Championship, the IFPA Olympics, then the IFPA World Championship. You can catch all the world clash competition on JDLPinball on Twitch.tv. You'll hear more about those events this week on Pinball Profile with Jim and Dina Lindsay. But you can see the TV piece, if you'd like, the write-up and some bonus video on Pinball Profile on Facebook and Twitter. Now, before filming this at a place called Tilt in London, Ontario, my hometown, I asked Mike Dimas of the London, Ontario Pinball League and Pinball Shenanigans to show up, bring your logo shirts so that the piece wasn't just about me and more about pinball in general and competitions. It was the London, Ontario Pinball League that gave me the competition bug and I've been grateful ever since. So I'm glad they included those guys in the logos in the TV piece as well. But there were a couple things that were left on the cutting floor. I talked a lot about how anyone can play pinball and do well. Men, women, children. Doesn't matter. I also mentioned the story of Roger Sharp in the movie Pinball, the man who saved the game. But because it was a short TV piece, just under two minutes, the timing, editing, it didn't include those, unfortunately. I was given a proof of the TV piece in the online write-up before it was posted. it, as you can imagine, said, quote, pinball wizard. I asked for that to be changed. The writer said, but pinball wizard is perfect, it fits. I explained, it's been overused, and it's kind of frowned upon by some people in our community. So we changed it to pinball pro, which was fine. I thought Brent Lael of CTV did a great job on the piece Brent and I actually used to host a sports TV show 20 plus years ago so it was nice to catch up with him again after such a long period Now there are those people that will groan about the term pinball wizard You have to remember this. Most people in the media have no clue about pinball. None. So the people in the media that are doing the interview, they're trying to relate and make their TV or blog piece catch someone's attention. so they'll use words like Pinball Wizard or even the song by The Who. Yes, there are people in pinball that are sick of it, I get it. But we are a little too close to it. When these stories appear, you want the audience to be able to relate some way somehow, so those hearing about pinball for perhaps the first time can relate to the term Pinball Wizard and the song. In fact, every time they do a TV piece on Eric Stone, it's always Pinball Wizard. They did it for the TV spots for Stephanie, Neil, and the Nahorniacs too. If you ask somebody who isn't in pinball what they know about pinball, good chance they're probably going to say Pinball Wizard. I remember seeing somebody once and telling them I was from Canada near Toronto, and they said, oh, do you go up to CN Tower a lot? I might have been a smart mouth and said, yeah, I've got my season pass. The point is, no, I've only been up to CN Tower maybe twice in my life, but it was their way of trying to relate, oh, I know something about Toronto. I get it. So keep that in mind when you hear the song Pinball Wizard, when you hear the term. And actually, what you're about to hear is me on a national radio show, and you guessed it, they used Pinball Wizard. I tried to explain there were other choices. But have a listen, and you can tell it's another example of the interviewer just trying to relate. I ain't seen nothing like him in any amusement hall. That damn young black kid sure plays a meme pinball. London, Ontario. Oh, sorry, I jumped in there. I got excited by the music.

6:14

Okay. But that one by The Who is pretty darn good. It's a classic for sure. I love it. All right. So what got you into this? I mean, you're a grown-up, a misspent youth or something? No, just, you know, hanging around a bowling alley or something like that, or arcades that you do when you're a kid. And, you know, video games were fun. They were exciting. But the quarters just kept getting sucked up, whereas if you played pinball machine, you could play a little bit longer. You might win a game or two. Seems like a design flaw in the pinball business, but I know what you mean. And my brother had a situation once where he went for a couple of hours, and then it was dinner time. He had to go home. He had to get the proprietor to say he'd hold the machine for him when he came back. Oh, that's cool. That's great. Yeah. Or maybe if you're savvy enough, you sell off your free games. Oh, yeah. I'll tell my brother, you know. So on second thought, you blew it back then. You could have made a couple of bucks. All right. So at some point, you realized, hey, I'm pretty good at this? I just always had a knack of it. And maybe just from experience playing over and over and over again. But it was kind of like a baseball thing for me. It was kind of a hand-eye coordination. The flippers were a lot like bats. Do I want to hit it early? Do I want to hit it late? And just that kind of, and maybe even playing drums as a kid, you know, again, that hand-eye coordination. In the newer games, there's all kinds of math you have to calculate in your head. So I've always been kind of good at that, figuring out where the best possible points are and the least amount of risk. So, yeah, I was really good until I was 25, and then I didn't see a machine again until I was 44. And then you started playing, and apparently you're still good. I've been pretty lucky lately. Sometimes good, but it's better to be lucky than good. And yeah, so now I'm off to this major, major event in Germany. It the European Pinball Championships the IFPA Olympics and then the IFPA World Championships And you kind of have to be selected to go Luckily I was you know top two in Canada There actually four of us Canadians going John Cotman Derek Thompson the Valberta and the guy from your neck of the woods, Jack Tappan, and Manitoba. So the four of us Canadians are going to try to see if we're going to be the best in the world. I didn't realize that there was that community existed to the point where you'd have world championships. I didn't either back when I was 44. And then there's this company called International Flipper Pinball Association. You can see it all on ISPAPinball.com. And it's competitive pinball all across the world. They have a calendar. They can show you where all these events are. When I joined, there were just under 25,000 registered players. Now there's basically 100,000. So, yeah, this is definitely global. I'm talking to Jeff Teolas. He's of London, Ontario. He is a pinball pro headed to Europe to the World Championships. Now, the credit I have for you is pinball pro. That would denote you make a living at it. No, it's not a pro. It's just, you know, I think that's just what Brent Lail, a good friend, decided to call it. But there is money involved. There are prizes involved. There's big cash prizes. In fact, there's some of these major tournaments. You know, you might win yourself a brand new pinball machine, which is, you know, $10,000. And then there's cash on top of that. So I've been lucky to make a little bit of bucks off this as well. It sounds like it's being a top bowler. Like you can claim to be really good at it, but there isn't hockey and baseball and football money in this. Well, you know, the whole thing for me that made me fall in love with competitive pinball was, you know, if I was a golfer, as good as I could be, I'd never golf against Tiger Woods. But in pinball, you're playing and you're like, oh, look at that. There's the number one player in the world. He's considered the greatest player of all time. It seems Keith Elwin. And I would get to play him. And that's kind of cool. And, you know, it's a bit of a rush, you know, can I, can I beat the best? All right. So now you're going to go to, do you have to pay your own expenses or how does that work? So there, there's some things that are, uh, there's some things that are covered, but yeah, it is an expensive trip for sure. Um, but, uh, I think a lot of people, some of them I've seen do GoFundMe pages and have sponsorships and things like that. So, um, yeah, it's expensive, but it's a bit of a rush. And again, you're entering a big tournament. It's like no different than the world series of poker, right? You have an entry fee, and then there's prize money and stuff. Okay, Jeff. But at the World Series of Poker, you could win $3 million.

13:11

Pinballprofile.com, just like it sounds. And there's seven years of interviews. You know, I've interviewed Gene Simmons and Alice Cooper and, of course, Ed Robertson and all these game designers and people from all over the world that are associated with pinball. Well, I can see how you could do that, and I could see how you would get invited to do events and such because you've got personality. There's got to be some people who are good at pinball who are kind of geeks and difficult to converse with. But I wish you all the luck in the world at the World Championships. Maybe we'll hear that you won and we'll be talking again. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Jerry. Jeff Teolis, London, Ontario, pinball champ, headed to the world championships in Europe. Okay, now that you hear that, you can tell the interview has very little knowledge of pinball. He doesn't know anything about me or competitions. In fact, it was the sixth interview he did that morning after six the day before and six the day before that. So, you know, he's just reading kind of the Coles Notes version of the TV piece and the article that was online and trying to make an interview of it. That's how it goes. He's not going to get deep into it. So my job when I'm promoting pinball is to do these things. Number one, make it sound inviting to everyone. Anybody can play. Number two, make pinball sound exciting. It's fun. And number three, kind of a time management thing. Give as much brief information as possible within the time frame allotted. And those who know me, yes, I was asked, do I have a rival? Think about it. How can I explain Josh Sharp and the backstory in 15-20 seconds? It's tough to do and kind of too inside. It's just better to say everyone's great, which is mostly true. So the next time you read an article or see a TV piece when they're talking about pinball, don't groan when they say pinball wizard. It's not a tune-out factor for anybody watching it, other than maybe people inside pinball. The whole point is just to promote the hobby and show that it's fun and fun for everyone. And besides, there's a lot worse things you can be called than a pinball wizard. I can think of many I've been called, but they're not suitable for this show. This has been your pinball profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Past episodes, subscriptions, and more. We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. pinballprofile at gmail.com is where you can reach me. And if you'd like to show your support, thank you in advance. Go to patreon.com slash pinballprofile. I'm your pinball pro, Jeff Teoles.