EXCLUSIVE Interview with Barry Hearn

[Leila Keller]

ferret, thank you very much for this interview!

(btw... I see everything... interview and comments too)

[Peter147]

Thanks ferret for the interview and to Barry Hearn, Paul Collier and John Higgins who have given their thoughts. It's interesting to hear what they have to say. The timing of Rodney Walker's 15 ranking tournaments plan looks suspicious to me. The AGM is around the corner, and to me it's just a ploy to get more votes.

[ADR147]

from what i can gather if there was a free vote this would be a done deal.

[bongo]

This is such positive news, really, really positive. Great news. I just hope Barry becomes the chairman and we can finally say bye bye to Sir Rodney Walker. This is snooker's real opportunity to, as Barry said, to get it where it should be. Thanks for doing the interview ferret.

[darrus]

Now I finally was able to read it in full

It all is great news, and it's good to see so many points of view here in one place.
Barry Hearn says many reasonable things, and doesn't make empty promises. I hope players will listen to it.
WPBSA'a reaction is as always "brilliant".

Thank you again for your work, ferret!

[Paddy007]

15 events in 2010/11

The reason for most people in the game having a sceptical view on this are as follows.

Can 15 ranking tournament be ran in a year, yes quite easily. However WPBSA cant release a calendar for 6 due to as they put in print, 'broadcasting and scheduling difficulties'

Also in the timeframes, where is the resource coming from to survey and recce the tournaments irregardless of who the promoter is it still has to be quality assured by TV and tournament director.

TV Production costs of a ranking event in the real world are in excess of 150,000 Euros. exclude the BBC and this means finding someone to covr this cost for a further 9 events. That is an estimated outlay of 1.35 million before you put a penny in the prize pot. The actual costs asssociated with the venue travel and all other sundry requirements equates to a nother very large sum. Now dont get me wrong all of this can be sourced and sponsorship found to make it happen but never in the timescales they have mentioned.

Final point, If this can be acheived within a year, we would surely be expecting an announcement for Sponsors for the Welsh and the masters as this is only two events and are established, therefore with such a dynamic plan in place for expansion I imagine they would take care of them first.

[wildJONESEYE]

Barry Hearn certainly talkes a good game ..i just want change now Rod the blob has had his chance and lets face it hes blown it.

but also the WPBSA hs blown it we need change.

regarding the 25 weekend tournaments.how will that work ? in darts you can have 3 matches done and dusted in about 4 hours on the same dart board. snooker on the other hand not that simple to play as many matches in a weekend.

[Migtsf]

They won't be best of 9 matches, that's for sure.

This sounds like the new version of Championship League, and the Players Championship probably would be the new Premier League.

Not a word about the sporting aspect of the game by Mr. Hearn. All about fun, making money and have all partners involved happy.

[ironic]

thanks, Ferret! very interesting!

[Odrl]

Well... He didn't really say much about his plans, though I can understand his reasons. I wouldn't want to make promises either, until I saw the actual situation.

The good news of course is his intention not to reduce the number of players, and not to mess with broadcasting rights. Although he only spoke about the BBC, which covers 4 events, and nothing about Eurosport, which covers all 7.

About these 25 weekend events, I can't say I'm particularly excited about that. My worry here is that for this to be introduced, it would either have to be short matches that I could never get excited about, or shot clock snooker, which I don't care for either. And hopefully this wouldn't have the Championship League "no audience" style, because that lacks any sort of atmosphere whatsoever. And he uses the phrase "across the country", which would mean the UK, and says nothing about globalizing the sport.

Still, he seems like a good character, and he has my support over Walker any day.

[wildJONESEYE]

They won't be best of 9 matches, that's for sure.

This sounds like the new version of Championship League, and the Players Championship probably would be the new Premier League.

Not a word about the sporting aspect of the game by Mr. Hearn. All about fun, making money and have all partners involved happy.

sporting aspect is the fun but bottom line as professionals they got to make money unfortunately....they fell in love with snooker but to make sure kids dont go without lower rank players got to make money or they might aswell go to the job centre.

[ADR147]

people can we please remember that recent competitions had no sponsors which in this business is a total disaster, now like everyone i have no idea what would happen if barry hearn took over but i am 100% sure if he was making such a biblical balls up of it he would do the decent thing and resign.

[ferret]

Italian Translation here - http://snooker.forumfree.it/?t=44239...entry363130162

Thank you Claudia aka WhiteBall

[WhiteBall_girl]

It's my pleasure, Kevin
If anyone would like to post something to our italian forum, please join the English version!!

here http://snooker.forumfree.it/?t=38221704

Again, thanks everyone for the interview!!!

[ADR147]

i could arrange a french version kevin!