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The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby Aislabie

It's really quite worrying to watch how snooker is going at the moment. Not only with the ongoing fixing scandal that's seen ten of the Tour's professionals suspended - including some of the most talented young players in the game - but also with the huge regression in playing opportunities for lower-ranked players who are trying to scrape together a living through snooker.

Only 50 players have so far earned the UK's so-called "National Living Wage" (£20,800 as of April 2023), and the costs of holding down a career as a snooker player are huge. Among the players who've not yet earned that kind of money are John Higgins, Stephen Maguire, Mark King, Elliot Slessor, Martin Gould and Marco Fu. Normally at this point in the season there would still be plenty of time to rectify that, but for so many players there's now only one tournament left this season: the World Championship.

The very top players are still being looked after though: as Mark Williams mentioned, they got paid £20,000 just to show up in Hong Kong for the non-ranking event.

Let's have a quick look at how the ranking calendar has been this season:
  1. Championship League (England) - 128 player draw, best of 4 all tournament long, best of 5 final
  2. European Masters (Belgium; qualifiers in England) - 64 player draw, best of 9 up to a best of 17 final
  3. British Open (England) - 64 player draw, best of 7 up to a best of 19 final
  4. Northern Ireland Open (Northern Ireland; qualifiers in England) - 64 player draw, best of 7 up to a best of 17 final
  5. UK Championship (England) - 32-player draw, best of 11 up to a best of 19 final
  6. Scottish Open (Scotland; qualifiers in England) - 64 player draw, best of 7 up to a best of 17 final
  7. English Open (England) - 64 player draw, best of 7 up to a best of 17 final
  8. World Grand Prix (England) - 32-player draw (no qualifying), best of 7 up to a best of 19 final
  9. German Masters (Germany; qualifiers in England) - 32 player draw, best of 9 up to a best of 19 final
  10. Welsh Open (Wales; qualifiers in England) - 64 player draw, best of 7 up to a best of 17 final
  11. Players Championship (England) - 16-player draw, best of 11 up to a best of 19 final
  12. Tour Championship (England) - 8-player draw (no qualifying), best of 19 throughout
  13. World Championship (England) - 32-player draw, best of 19 up to a best of 35 final
It's no wonder I had no idea who Jenson Kendrick was when he came out in the Shootout - he's only been to the main venue twice, and never for longer than a best-of-4. How utterly pointless. He's won £1,000 all year, and he's been on a hiding to nothing the whole time. This is the first year in a long time where I've had absolutely no idea who's actually on the tour.

And the whole thing is so awfully parochial. It doesn't matter what tournament it is you're trying to win, your road to victory begins in a leisure centre in Wigan. The entire "Players Series" is now held in England. The entire Triple Crown is held in England with the top 16 players guaranteed their places. To be blunt, is it any wonder that young foreign players are turning to fixing to supplement their income? The entire structure of the Tour tells them that they're not wanted anyway.

I'll probably post about the sort of changes I'd want to make in the next couple of days, but I do also look forward to everyone else's views too.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby lhpirnie

I agree that the tour has regressed and that snooker is in some trouble right now, with a potential slump in the next few years, as the big-name players on whom the sport depends so much nearing the end of their careers.

But I wouldn't say that this has happened because Barry Hearn is no longer running WST. In fact, I think most of the problems are as a result of his decisions. I think he found a good time to leave... Whilst Barry Hearn did a great job to revitalise snooker, and build up the calendar, he opposed the necessary reforms to the tour that would allow snooker to go forward as a global game.

You mentioned the poor livelihood that many players are forced to suffer, because of the shift in prizemoney towards the top players. Myself I am concerned that the ranking system is too inflexible to allow some tournaments to be viable. That's why we lost the Turkish Masters and possibly Gibraltar. Similarly, many of the Chinese tournaments will probably not return.

It must be pretty miserable being a young player now. A coveted tour card only gets you as far as qualifier cubicles, with not much hope of getting into the top-64 after 2 years (because of the large number of tough, experienced players above you), and only 8 places now available via Q School. Being a professional is very costly - even the guaranteed £20000 is not enough to break even. It's no wonder so many young players have quit snooker, for example Simon Lichtenberg aged 24. The highlight of his career was playing an exhibition in the Tempodrom after last year's final finished early. He didn't think much of his chances of qualifying to play in his home city.

I'm sure you've seen my contributions to the debate (http://www.snookerlewis.com), and I certainly look forward to hearing your ideas. Unfortunately, you may find that not many people are particularly interested in thinking about the future of snooker.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby Aislabie

lhpirnie wrote:I agree that the tour has regressed and that snooker is in some trouble right now, with a potential slump in the next few years, as the big-name players on whom the sport depends so much nearing the end of their careers.

But I wouldn't say that this has happened because Barry Hearn is no longer running WST. In fact, I think most of the problems are as a result of his decisions. I think he found a good time to leave... Whilst Barry Hearn did a great job to revitalise snooker, and build up the calendar, he opposed the necessary reforms to the tour that would allow snooker to go forward as a global game.

I completely agree with this. I certainly didn't mean to imply cause and effect, that Hearn's leaving was what precipitated this decline, more that it has become exceptionally apparent ever since he left that snooker is spiralling. I certainly disagreed with a lot of his choices running snooker at the time, and that hasn't changed at all.

I think one of the weirdest things with snooker is that running the World Snooker Tour has been conflated with running the sport of snooker. The money list for rankings, the curated-for-TV tournaments, the Anglocentrism - none of those would necessarily be a problem if WST was merely one professional tour, but they are problems when to all intents and purposes, WST is snooker. The WPBSA owns 26% of the tour, which no doubt contributes to their reluctance to actually move things forward in the game as a whole when that might have negative effects on their investment.

To use your rankings as an example, they absolutely should be the model for WPBSA World Rankings; WST's rankings could then be its annual Order of Merit, but a money list should never be the world ranking system of an entire sport.

lhpirnie wrote:You mentioned the poor livelihood that many players are forced to suffer, because of the shift in prizemoney towards the top players. Myself I am concerned that the ranking system is too inflexible to allow some tournaments to be viable. That's why we lost the Turkish Masters and possibly Gibraltar. Similarly, many of the Chinese tournaments will probably not return.

I completely agree with this. The old European Tour events used to get a lot of rubbish for being low-paying, and for not attracting a very good field as a result. Personally, I don't understand why that is a problem. The Vienna Open is a great example (although it's been on hold since covid) - it's a Pro-Am event that has 80 players every year, and despite being a short-format tournament the cream does rise to the top. The 2019 quarter finalists were Tom Ford, Craig Steadman, Mark Joyce, Michael Georgiou, Robert Milkins, Alexander Ursenbacher, Sam Baird and Mark King.

That is a tournament which was held annually without any support or incentive beyond a modest prize pool and some game time. There's no reason whatsoever that there couldn't be a tournament like that in every major city in Europe, let alone beyond.

lhpirnie wrote:It must be pretty miserable being a young player now. A coveted tour card only gets you as far as qualifier cubicles, with not much hope of getting into the top-64 after 2 years (because of the large number of tough, experienced players above you), and only 8 places now available via Q School. Being a professional is very costly - even the guaranteed £20000 is not enough to break even. It's no wonder so many young players have quit snooker, for example Simon Lichtenberg aged 24. The highlight of his career was playing an exhibition in the Tempodrom after last year's final finished early. He didn't think much of his chances of qualifying to play in his home city.

I'm genuinely gutted for players like Simon Lichtenberg and Kacper Filipiak. Snooker failed these players, and they are among the very few of their age who even made it to the professional ranks from outside the UK or China in the last decade. They are the best of that particular crop, and they had to fight so hard to get there that by the time WST spat them out, they decided they'd rather quit than do it all again. I don't blame them in the slightest.

lhpirnie wrote:I'm sure you've seen my contributions to the debate (http://www.snookerlewis.com), and I certainly look forward to hearing your ideas. Unfortunately, you may find that not many people are particularly interested in thinking about the future of snooker.

Your site is incredible, and shows more insight and forward-thinking than the entire rest of the sport put together. I only wish that was a higher bar to clear!

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby The_Abbott

well England did do a good job of keeping snooker alive during a world pandemic!

I think this was always going to be the case with China's quarantine rule. Technically, there should be events again next season.

The rest of Europe just doesn't seem to work. At least we still have the German Masters and European Masters in different countries. Riga was another that got lost in recent years, Indian Open too,

The network of places just hasn't worked sadly. Maybe snooker needs to expect it is a two country game now (in the majority).

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby KrazeeEyezKilla

The whole Turkish Masters thing feels like something from the Rodney Walker era. Announce a tournament in a place that wouldn't be the first place you'd think a Snooker tournament would be. Lots of big talk about five year deals. Then the event is gone as quickly as it appeared with claims that it will be back next year and a scramble to get a new event going on short notice. I almost expect to see the Malta Cup making a comeback.

I saw a good point somewhere on twitter that WST are too reliant on local promoters which is why Snooker has had so many random tournaments that have come and gone over the years. That they would be better having a long term strategy of focusing on places where Snooker is established like Belgium or Thailand where you can create events that are more sustainable. They probably don't have the resources to make those kinds of commitments.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby SnookerFan

I do think Hearn saved snooker when he first came in, of that there is no doubt. He brought it a long way. Created new tournaments when there was few, brought in some of his contacts to sponsor events when there were no sponsors.

But you do wonder how much he did for the long term health of the game.

Getting in betting sponsorship was fine when we had no sponsors at all, but where were the other industries so we didn't have to rely on the gambling industry? Cazoo basically, and snooker gave them exclusive sponsorship when pretty much everybody knew they were going to go bankrupt.

Where was the back up plan, should something happen to the Chinese market?

This match fixing scandal sounds like could've been picked up earlier too.

Obviously, all of this is easy for me to say online and difficult to implement.

My point is, though Hearn was excellent, and much needed, for the sport in the short term. He saved the sport. But has he left it on firm grounds? Let's hope so.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby Iranu

To be honest, I don’t think it would be realistic to have a back up plan in case something happened to the China market. That would require an unbelievable about of planning (and pessimism) and in terms of tournaments, it’s not like they could organise venues etc elsewhere and just say, “Yeah we’re reserving this just on the off chance there’s a major global pandemic followed by a significant match fixing scandal.”

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby SnookerFan

Iranu wrote:To be honest, I don’t think it would be realistic to have a back up plan in case something happened to the China market. That would require an unbelievable about of planning (and pessimism) and in terms of tournaments, it’s not like they could organise venues etc elsewhere and just say, “Yeah we’re reserving this just on the off chance there’s a major global pandemic followed by a significant match fixing scandal.”


Fair points.

I meant more as some half plans, rather than anything direct.

But you're right.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby chengdufan

This is how professional snooker would be organised if I were running the show:

Elite Tour (Professional)
The top 32 players in the world compete in 16 week-long ranking events, each event being a ‘home’ tournament for one member of the top 16.
Each event has a random draw.
You may not face the same player more than once in a first round match in a season.
L32 – Bo11
L16 – Bo11
(Monday-Thursday, 3 sessions per day, 2 matches per session)
QF – Bo11
(Friday, 3 sessions, 1+1+2 matches)
SF – Bo13
(Saturday)
F – Bo19
(Sunday)
Players are ranked by number of frames won, with 1 point for a L32 frame, 2 points for a L16 frame, 3 points for a QF frame, 4 points for a semi-final frame and 5 points for a final frame won. End of season tie-breaker for players on the same points is number of points won against the top ranked player.

Prize money:
Winner: 80,000GBP
Runner-up: 40,000GBP
SF: 20,000GBP
QF: 10,000GBP
L16: 5,000GBP
L32: 2,500GBP
Total: 280,000GBP * 16 events = 4,480,000 (an average of 140,000 per player)
All player travel and accommodation expenses covered.

World Tour (Professional)
Players ranked 33-64 compete in a league format over the season, with everyone playing each other in a best of 9 once (31 matches per player). Matches are played on 16 weekends, with the schedule alternating between an Elite tour knockout event and a World tour league weekend. League events have sixteen players at a venue with each player playing 4 matches, one on Saturday afternoon, one Saturday evening, one Sunday morning and one Sunday afternoon. On two of the 16 weekends, players only play 3 matches, rather than 4. Each session has 8 matches being played simultaneously.
The league table is determined by matches won, followed by frames won.
All player travel and accommodation expenses covered.

Prize money:
Match winner: 2,000GBP
Match loser: 1,000GBP
Total for 496 matches: 1,488,000 (an average of 46,500 per player)

Regional Tour (Semi Professional)
Players ranked 65-128 are divided into 4 groups of 16 based on geography and compete in a league format over the season, with everyone playing each other in a best of 9 once (15 matches per player). Matches are played on 16 weekends, scheduled on a free weekend or coinciding with a World tour league weekend. League events have eight players at a venue with each player playing 4 matches, one on Saturday afternoon, one Saturday evening, one Sunday morning and one Sunday afternoon. On two of the 16 weekends, players only play 3 matches, rather than 4. Each session has 4 matches being played simultaneously.
The league table is determined by matches won, followed by frames won.
All player travel and accommodation expenses covered.

Prize money:
Match winner: 1,600GBP
Match loser: 800GBP
Total for 480 matches: 1,152,000 (an average of 18,000 per player)

At the end of the season, the 6 players ranked 27-32 are relegated to the World Tour and the 6 players ranked 33-38 are promoted to the Elite Tour.
The players ranked 26 and 39, and 25 and 40 have play-off matches for promotion/relegation or to remain in their previous Tour.
The 8 players ranked 56-64 are relegated to the Regional Tour and the top 2 players in each of the Regional Tour leagues is promoted to the World Tour.
The 4 players placed third in the regional leagues play a mini-tournament, the winner of which has a promotion/relegation play-off match with the 55th ranked player.
The players ranked 13th-16th in each of the four regional leagues are relegated from the tour and replaced with 16 qualifiers from various amateur events:
1. World Amateur Champion
2. World Amateur Runner-up
3. World U-21 Champion
4. Asian Champion
5. Asian Runner-up
6. Asian U-21 Champion
7. European Champion
8. European Runner-up
9. European U-21 Champion
10. African Champion
11. Oceania Champion
12. Americas Champion
13. Chinese Champion
14. Chinese U-21 Champion
15. British Amateur Champion
16. British U-21 Champion

Additional, non-ranking events
The World Championship is played as normal, with seedings determined by the end of season rankings. The field of 144 is made up of the 64 professionals, 64 semi-professionals, and 16 amateurs who have qualified to join the tour the next season.
The Masters takes place as normal.
The World Grand Prix, Players Championship and Tour Championship will take place, with the field of 32 for the first event made up of the top 24 ranked players, the 4 highest ranked players on the World Tour, and the highest ranked players in each of the Regional Tour leagues. The top 16 are seeded and randomly drawn to play one of the other 16 players in the first round. All first round winners play in the next 16-player event, with all second round winners seeded. All first round winners in the 16-player event qualify for the 8 player event, with the four semi-finalists being seeded.
The Champion of Champions takes place after the 16-event regular season finishes, and before the World Championship. Participants are the winners of the 16 regular season Elite League knockouts and the previous year’s World Championship, topped up with the TC, PC, WGP, Masters, Shoot Out, 6 Reds, Seniors and Women’s Champions, and further topped-up with Amateur event winners, as required.
The Shoot Out takes place as normal
The 6-Reds takes place as normal
There is space for a few invitational events such as the Hong Kong Masters.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby Aislabie

lhpirnie wrote:I certainly look forward to hearing your ideas.


So I'm probably going to just scattergun my ideas down here, and then I might try to figure out how they would fit together at the end.

So, first (and least important) things first:
  • A Championship is a tournament with a seeded draw of up to 64 players. Some top players will be seeded into the tournament, and for most Championships there should be Qualifiers to decide the remaining places in the field.
  • A Qualifier decides at least half of the places in the Championship. I liked how the World Championship Qualifiers used to be, with eight-player brackets to decide each place in the field. Qualifiers must be held in the same city as the main Championship, immediately beforehand.
  • A Masters tournament should have an invitational field of no more than 32 players, In the case of national Masters tournaments, places can be reserved for top national players.
  • An Open tournament should have a flat draw of at least 128 players. Seeding is optional for Open tournaments.
  • A Challenge Trophy would be a tournament not open to players ranked higher than a certain place. Q School would be an example of this, as would all the Q Tour events that exist currently.

That doesn't mean that other names for tournaments wouldn't exist - the World Grand Prix is a perfectly valid name and tournament - but it should be possible for fans to immediately get a vibe for what type of event they're in for just from what it's called.

Speaking of being in for a tournament, every match not on broadcast television should be streamed in one place. If that means fans have to pay a bit of money for "snooker.tv" to watch outside tables, then so be it - that needs to be available.

- - - - - - - - - -

I would also want to move away from the Triple Crown being the be-all and end-all of snooker: three tournaments in England that have fields of 32, 32 and 16 players. By all means the Triple Crown and its tournaments can continue to exist, but the focus needs to broaden a lot.

At the top of the tree, I would still have the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible. I wouldn't be looking to change that. I would, however, like to the the Worlds come under the control of the WPBSA, rather than WST.

The second-best tournament would be the Tour Championship - held immediately before the World Championship, for the top eight players in that season's World Tour Order of Merit. That is what I would call the money list; the World Rankings would be the global Elo rankings.

The best of the rest tournaments would be four Major Championships, like you might see in golf or tennis. These four events would be held in four different countries, with the exact same format as each other. It might take some time to get all four tournaments off the ground, but my list would be:
  • Image The UK Championship at York Barbican.
  • Image The German Championship at Berlin Tempodrom. In my opinion, this is the best venue in snooker, and it should have a tournament to match.
  • Image The China Championship - Getting this name might prove tricky given the tangle of promoters that handled the Chinese events pre-Covid, but one of the Majors absolutely must be held in China.

    Now, the last one is probably a controversial selection, so I'll leave two options:
  • Image The Saudi Arabian Championship - Putting aside very valid problems with sportswashing, this would-be event was touted as the highest-paying Championship in snooker. If it realised that vision, then it would be a Major by default.
    OR
  • Image The All-Ireland Championship at Goffs - Another spectacular and historic venue for snooker. If the Saudi tournament either never came to be or was simply too problematic, I would look to create this tournament as a Major.

- - - - - - - - - -

I would also like to formalise the structure of multiple snooker tours. My ideal structure would be for there to eventually be six tours:
  • The World Tour - The top of the professional game, responsible for organising Major tournaments and runner of the best-paying events.
  • The European Tour (NEW) - Inspired by the PTC and European Tour events of old, this would be a second-tier tour for players based in and around Europe. The Home Nations Series could also end up serving as the Majors of this Tour if it were to mirror the World Tour in that way.
  • The Asian Tour (NEW) - Inspired by the many Chinese PTC and Asian Tour events, this would be based mostly in China, Hong Kong and Thailand, although events in India and Pakistan would also be desirable.
  • The Seniors Tour - A Tour for players over the age of 45 who don't have membership to any of the top three Tours. Winners of Triple Crown events, Major Championships and Tour Championships would all get automatic Seniors Tour cards once they are no longer in the top three Tours. This would have more of a tilt towards exhibition-style events than any of the other Tours.
  • The Challenge Tour - A Tour for players under the age of 25, or new to professional snooker, and who don't already have membership of the top three Tours. This should help young players to develop their events and become ready to make the step up to the main professional game.
  • The Women's Tour - If anything, this might be the best-run Tour in snooker, and I don't feel like there'd be much that would need changing at all.

Tournaments on one Tour could and should still be topped up by players from other Tours at the organisers' discretion. Each tour would maintain its own Order of Merit, but none would be responsible for the overall world rankings (as mentioned before, they'd be Elo rankings).

- - - - - - - - - -

I'd also like to see more variant format events. Snooker has lots to offer, and it doesn't have to be all best-of-sevens even though I do actually really like best-of-sevens as a format. Some of the variant formats I have in mind would inclide:
  • Set play - As opposed to playing best of a number of frames, players could play for the best of three sets. Each set would consist of four frames, with a respotted black to serve as a decider if the set finished at 2-2. This sort of format works well in darts, and obviously works well in tennis. It could be a strong option for something different to do within the confines of normal matchplay snooker.
  • Aggregate points - There are different ways of doing this - either first to a certain number of points, or you have a 60-minute match clock (with a 30-second shot clock), and the most points at the end wins. The latter might be best for TV scheduling. The attraction of this format is that every ball matters - there's an incentive for players to stay attentive and clear up in a frame, while there's always an incentive for their opponent to get up and keep potting when they miss.
  • More six-red events - I don't particularly like them, but Six-Red snooker seems to be a route into snooker for players from non-traditional snooker countries as it is big in the UAE and Thailand. I'm thinking regional tournaments to act as qualifiers for the World Six-Red Championship.
  • More Shootout events - I do really like Shootout events, but I also have a reason for wanting more of them: you can hold a 64-player event in any event big enough to hold one table, and have it done in a weekend. That's unique, and would be a really good way of introducing snooker to spectators in new locations. I've mentioned Goffs already as a potential venue for something else, but a big weekend of shootout action there would be absolutely mental.
  • Team/Pairs events - Revive the World Cup as a biennial event, and on the off-years hold a UK vs China team event in the style of the Mosconi and Ryder Cups. The mixed doubles was a good starting point, but I would consider simply including female players in World Cup teams. For example, a Thai team of Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Noppon Saengkham and Mink Nutcharut. There might also be scope for a Premier League type event (called a Championship League of course) with teams of snooker players, but that could be quite tricky to fit into the schedule.

To be clear, I wouldn't want these to be replacements for conventional snooker tournaments, I'd like them to be additions alongside conventional snooker tournaments.

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I don't know how well I've really folded them into a cohesive vision, but not to worry.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby KrazeeEyezKilla

Goffs is a great venue but it's small so there's a limit to what type of event you could have there.

Always thought six reds on a smaller table would be a good way of bringing young players through. Footballers don't start out on full size pitches.

Re: The Tour is regressing since Barry Hearn retired

Postby lhpirnie

Again, all great ideas.

I tend to be wary about very intricate systems which depend on an exact number of players. It never quite works out in exact terms: we have hardly ever had exactly 128 players on tour, and there are always illnesses, suspensions, withdrawals, players stuck overseas. The problem of having a closely-knit tour makes it virtually impossible to be truly global - you just end up with endless qualifiers or second-division matches being played in the UK, which puts everyone else at a disadvantage.

That's why I favour a more organic tournament landscape with an incremental ranking system. Tournaments happen if they are viable, of any size and in any location.