TSB - New ranking event to match UK Championships

[ferret]

The new International Championship will be staged for the first time later this year, with the biggest top prize ever for a snooker event in Asia. The world ranking event will run from October 28 to November 4 with £600,000 total prize money and the winner to collect £125,000. It will have the same level more .....

Click to read on TSB

[FOXMULDER]

Hmm... mixed feelings.

Big new tournament - great. But the UK Championship just lost its status as the 2nd most important tournament.

I suppose this is what China gets instead of the World Championship (which they no doubt have bidded for).

[montoya10]

What next? Ranking event in China that matches the World Championship in terms of ranking points?
Like trademarks moving their bases towards China for money and cheap manpower, snooker is exactly doing the same. Maybe they should start a new sport from the scratch. May be named smoother, I don't know.

[FOXMULDER]

What happens when this Chinese "fad" ends....? It's not going to go on forever. The game could die over there as quickly as it's become popular. What then, if World Snooker becomes so dependent on China?

I think Mr Hearn should be doing more to promote the sport in the UK. This is snooker's grass roots, and it seems to me it's being overlooked in favour of business overseas.

[montoya10]

What happens when this Chinese "fad" ends....? It's not going to go on forever. The game could die over there as quickly as it's become popular. What then, if World Snooker becomes so dependent on China?

I think Mr Hearn should be doing more to promote the sport in the UK. This is snooker's grass roots, and it seems to me it's being overlooked in favour of business overseas.

You can't consider China overseas anymore. With five ranking tournaments there, actually UK is overseas as the sport has shifted its base to China with recent moves.
England hosts two tournaments. Wales? Just one and I bet they're dying to cancel that event and get another one in China. Northern Ireland has none. Scotland has none.

Who cares if all-time greats come out of your country? It's all about money. And yet, they still continue to give the annoying Chinese wildcards. I don't know if things can get any worse than this.

[FOXMULDER]

When Hearn got the job my gut reaction was "he'll be good for snooker initially but long-term he will be bad news". He's done nothing to change my opinion.

He's promised not to touch the World Championship. I believe him. Instead, he'll just slowly phase in bigger tournaments in Asia.

[CueInAction]

Wow, I was only having a conversation a couple of days ago suggesting that in a few years time I wouldn't be surprised to see a big tournament based in China to rival the UK Championship. Definitely not a huge surprise as the game has exploded over there but I think 5 ranking events there next season is OTT.

“Last season there were two ranking events in China, next season there will be five. That shows the level of growth in the region and the hunger of the Chinese fans for more snooker. This tournament will really be something special.”

It seems as though we could be in for the snooker world becoming divided (like had been debated a few years ago) much like the BDO & PDC in darts. China is where the money is, the money attracts the players.

[FOXMULDER]

Mark Allen's going to love this!

[montoya10]

It's pretty much like the tennis circuit now. You have little time to rest and you have no right to spend time with your family.
Instead, you'll have to fly around the world to China, play in front of a pumped up crowd and try to take care of your ranking.
More tournaments is good for snooker. Being forced to play in all of them is not, especially when half of those are now scattered around the world.

[Odrl]

It's pretty much like the tennis circuit now. You have little time to rest and you have no right to spend time with your family.
Instead, you'll have to fly around the world to China, play in front of a pumped up crowd and try to take care of your ranking.
More tournaments is good for snooker. Being forced to play in all of them is not, especially when half of those are now scattered around the world.

Fly around the world to China? Unless you're Chinese of course. Not only do you have to fly around the world to the UK, you actually have to move there. And if you're from Belgium, you're screwed either way.

[montoya10]

Fly around the world to China? Unless you're Chinese of course. Not only do you have to fly around the world to the UK, you actually have to move there. And if you're from Belgium, you're screwed either way.

True, but moving to UK is about improving your game and training against higher competition. With the renewed calendar, Chinese players may well stay in China if they wanted to do so, I guess.
But so true about continental Europeans. They're in no man's land for sure!

[Odrl]

I think every professional player will still have to move to the UK, as long as all the qualifiers are held in the UK. It's pointless for someone like Li Yan to stay in China, because he is unlikely to play at the main stages of the Chinese events anyway. Almost all of his matches will be in cubicles in the UK.

It would help if a couple of the Chinese events were held back to back, as a sort of a mini tour, but it looks like they're all scattered across the calendar. As are the UK events of course.

[Tred]

Hearn has done a great job of breathing some life into a dying game.

However, he does have form for this - look what he did with the 9-ball pool World Championships in Cardiff in the early 2000s. He built the tournament up, made a success of it then sold it to the Chinese...

I'd like to think that snooker means more to him than any other sport, but at the end of the day I suspect he only cares about making money.

Snooker isn't a global sport like tennis, so I think it's very easy for it to fracture. The logical conclusion is that there'll be a far-eastern tour and a British/European tour with just a handful of truly "World" tournaments

But, if Chinese snooker could produce a White/Higgins/O'Sullivan type player then I think that could be a unifying force.

[LittleMissAlexa]

thailand should have a ranking event too many in china why not have one in bangkok? its also a snooker hotbed

[P.Smith]

I don't have a problem with this, if China admire the game just as much as we do (if not more) then they deserve these events, it wouldn't be fair for them not to have them.