Snooker: towards a brave new world

What is happening to snooker? Amid claims that the sport has lost its lustre, plans were unveiled recently for a new, expanded World Snooker Tour. Then just days later the chairman of World Snooker was voted out and promoter Barry Hearn was set to be installed as the new snooker chief – immediately talking about a fresh approach and faster formats.

World Snooker said of its Tour idea that the intention was “to capitalise on the burgeoning interest in professional snooker in many countries around the world, and develop snooker’s professional circuit in a way similar to that of global sports such as tennis and golf”. The concept would envisage staging at least 15 ranking tournaments every year – a big increase on the mere 6 on the calendar in 2009/2010. Hearn has meanwhile said he would have a masterplan ready to show the players by the time of the World Championship in April 2010.

All this means the corridors are likely to be buzzing with speculation about the future of snooker at the UK Championship, regarded as the sport’s second biggest ranking event, which starts tomorrow in Telford (December 5-13). The question is: do we need to be worried about snooker’s state of health? If so, would a new international circuit or other masterplan be the right response? And what about the destiny of the World Championship?

Let’s cast our minds back to snooker’s 1980s heyday. Astonishingly, some 18.5 million people in the UK are said to have witnessed the legendary 1985 world snooker final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis. Fast-forward to the snooker Grand Prix tournament in October 2009 and the empty seats visible at several matches were one indication of how times have changed. As the years have passed many of the game’s great characters – Davis, Parrott, Taylor, Thorne, Virgo etc – have been lining up behind the BBC microphone (even if on a part-time basis) rather than strutting their stuff out on the baize. They are even, in the case of Jimmy White, to be found in the “I’m a Celebrity” TV jungle. All the while other televised sports have been staking their own claim to prominence.

It is for such reasons that there has been talk of introducing more razzmatazz, more ‘x-factor’, to snooker. But this could be problematic. It is a game that relies by its very essence on a sense of studied decorum. Beyond the “Let’s get the boys on the baize” showmanship as the cue-men enter the arena, it is not easy to see how snooker could be turned into the new boxing or the new darts.

The proposed increase in the number of ranking events could be a positive step, helping to boost the fan base and perhaps the breadth/depth of playing talent as well as increasing commercial revenues. However, more tournaments does not necessarily make for better tournaments, or better snooker. The basic issue facing the sport is that it has one event that is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of profile and tradition: the World Championship. In this sense snooker is fundamentally different to the likes of tennis and golf, which each trade in four ‘majors’ or ‘slams’ of reasonably equal standing, not to mention a host of other big tournaments and Olympic recognition.

Perhaps snooker should instead cut its cloth in more realistic fashion, giving up on any delusions of global grandeur and accepting that it is never going to be a glitzy multi-billion dollar corporate franchise – more of an amateur pursuit for smoke-filled rooms. Otherwise – if you do believe that snooker needs to be shaken up and given more of a worldwide presence – you can create all the new events and formats you like, but the World Championship, as snooker’s Crown Jewel, is still pivotal. It was announced earlier this year that Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, the long-standing venue for the World Championship, would continue to stage the event until at least 2014. That followed apparent interest from China in holding the tournament in the Far East, a situation that raised key questions about snooker’s future direction: stay loyal to your roots or try to broaden your horizons. One has to suspect that offering lesser tournaments to promoters abroad is of only limited compensation for not being able to stage the World Championship. The question of where to hold the event is therefore, it seems safe to assume, certain to re-surface as the Crucible’s current contract comes up for expiry in 2014/2015.

Maybe it need not be a question of either the Crucible or somewhere else. The Ideas Machine that is QoS has been at work again and has come up with the following compromise solution: the World Championship could be staged alternately between the Crucible and other international venues – perhaps, say, having it at the Crucible every four years with, given sufficient interest, the Far East, the Middle East and North America staging it in between; or at the Crucible every other year and alternating between the others. Ultimately, that might be the only way of allowing snooker to move forward while preserving a balance between tradition and modernisation. Indeed, such a step might add to the Crucible’s mystique rather than dilute it: though a world title would be a world title wherever it was won, winning it at the Crucible would always have that certain extra cachet – not unlike winning The Open golf at St Andrews. This might not make for a return to 1980s glory days, but it could do something to put snooker ‘back on the map’.

And now to enjoy some actual snooker: the pick of the first-round draw for the UK Championship has to be the match-up between veterans Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis, while world number 1 (and tournament favourite) Ronnie O'Sullivan takes on Matthew Stevens. The Ebdon v Trump match has an intriguing look about it too...