The structure of the World Snooker Tour

Hi folks,

it's been a while since my last posting, and I apologize for that. However I never intended this as a news-blog (like Pro Snooker Blog or Snookerbacker etc. - if you dont know that sites yet, check them out!) but as a place for snooker-related specials / spotlights / essays / whatever you wanna call it.

WorldSnooker announced today, that from 2014/15 on, the World ranking will be a Order of merit instead of the current ranking systems, and I wanna write down my thoughts here regarding the structure of the tour.

the snooker pro tour compared to golf & tennis

First of you have to consider, that you can't compare snooker to golf in my humble opinion. Snooker is based on 1vs1 matches, while you play golf for yourself/against the rest of the field. This means, you dont have to think about scheudles and you can't "protect" higher ranked players by giving them a couple of wildcards like its done in snooker at the moment.

You can, however, compare it to tennis, which is a 1vs1 sport just like snooker. I'm not so much into tennis, but as far as I know there are a lot more tournaments compared to snooker all over the world in different categories depending on price money. The players get ranking points for the stage they reached in a tournament depending on its category and the rankings are updated permanent. The Grand Slams are the most important, where almost everyone competes and the most points and money can be earned and then there are less important tournaments all around the world and often simultaneously in which only a few world class players compete. 

Snooker meanwhile has been a sport, where only 6-10 pro tournaments [carrying ranking points] a year were played for decades, mostly in the UK. Now with the PTC Events the number has increased, but fails to reach the amount of tennis tournaments by far. In contrast to tennis, in snooker almost all players play all events (besides Ronnie). I think its fair to say that this will change, when the new rules apply...

earning money with snooker // spending money on travelling

Imagine you are an England-based player: Why would you want to travel to Bulgaria for - lets say - 1000 pound when you have a 1:128 chance winning 10.000 pound, but a 1:2 chance being knocked out in round 1 without earning a penny? I think it was Mark Williams who said something similar after the Australian Goldfields Open (and thats a full ranking event, not a PTC!). It's kind of a bad deal for the player. Until now, the ranking points kind of forced them to enter more or less all events carrying ranking points (well.... besides Ronnie)

So the main problem is: you have very high travel costs, when you have to travel to events all around the globe, but World Snooker wants to promote snooker in new countries (like Bulgaria) - which is understandable as well. The current solution in full rankers, which already has been adopted for a few PTCs, is that only the Last 32 will play in Australia, Bulgaria (or whereever), while the previous matches are played somehwere in the UK. Good for the UK players, bad for the rest if you consider, that every player that isnt from the UK basically has to change his residence to the UK when we wants to play as a pro. Oh well, and its bad for the atmosphere (I think Stephen Maguire recently complained about that). And last but not least its bad for the non-British amateurs in the PTCs as well.

While this has worked quite well the last couple of years (as 90% of the players were from UK/Ireland), it may not be in the future anymore, when Snooker wants to become a global sport. Like tennis is. Ask Igor Figureido from Brazil, who showed the potential to rise in the rankings 2010/11 but couldnt afford it after a year anymore.

So what are the solutions? I have to be honest: it's hard to give any. WorldSnooker made a right decision with replacing PIOS by Q School. Its much easier for non-UK-players to qualify for the tour. But now they have to take care that all 128 players can participate in tournaments, without taking debts. And thats not an easy task to manage.

ranking points or order of merit?

so we have no ranking points in future anymore. everything is more easy. hooray.

well not really. I understand the idea behind the change, but no it's not that easy. If you compare the prize money with the ranking points you will see its not proportional. The champion gets about 10 times more money compared to a quarterfinalist.

example: World championship 2012:

winner 250k - finalist 125k - half-finalists 52k - quarter-finalists 24k

compared to the ranking points of the same tournament:

winner 10k - finalist 8k - half-finalists 6,4k - quarter-finalists 5k

you dont have to study math to see the difference. The current systems helps average quarterfinalists, while the new one will help tournament winners. So if you discuss about which system is the better system, ask yourself: What is a tournament victory worth? 10x quarterfinal or 2x quarterfinal

Everyone has to answer this for him/herself, I think its somewhere in between. 2x isnt enough, while 10x is too much. 

Final conclusion:

Snooker saw some radical changes already in the last couple of years:

- PTCs

- QSchool

- Power Snooker
- new Premier League rules

- other new Events in new countries (Brazil/Australia)

- 128 players instead of 96

and now:

- money based world ranking; probably associated with a more flat tournament system in all tournaments

Some of them worked well, some were already made undone. Its a work in progress.

And there are more changes yet to come, I am sure. The interests of top-level players, mid to low level players, TV stations, sponsors, audience, WorldSnooker itself and many more have to be considered to design a tour that fits to all expectations.

Snooker is developing quick after years of stagnancy, but there are also some serious problems, as I tried to figure out. Only time will tell, if it was a developement into the right direction or not.