Approximately 18.5 million BBC viewers witnessed Dennis Taylor pot the final black of the final frame to defeat Steve Davis, and claim the 1985 World Snooker Championship. Only a couple of decades earlier, however, snooker was in such dire straits that a recognizable World Championship was no longer contested. The game was weighed down by dull players and its inadaptability to black and white television. In the seventies, however, the influx of colourful new characters (particularly Alex Higgins) and the advent of colour TV initiated a snooker renaissance. By the eighties snooker boasted a plethora of intriguing personalities (in addition to Higgins, Taylor and Davis, Jimmy White, Terry Griffiths, Cliff Thorburn and many others), and, assisted by imaginative marketing (in particular by Barry Hearn, who managed a number of top players), the game established itself as the UK’s second most popular spectator sport (behind football, of course); the 1985 World Final being the apex of snooker's popularity. In short, Britain went ‘snooker loopy’ (the title of a successful record performed by Chas and Dave, with five players, all managed by Hearn, providing backing vocals).
And then the long decline began. In the nineties a new breed of snooker player dominated the game, amongst them John Higgins, Mark Williams, and, in particular, Stephen Hendry; young men inspired by Davis and White. This new generation of professional was single-mindedly dedicated and ruthlessly brilliant, but, with the exception of Ronnie O’Sullivan, lacking the colourful public personality that had been the game’s biggest selling point in the previous decade. On top of this the presentation of the sport was becoming tired, and snooker was now plagued by incompetent and corrupt administration. By the end of the ‘noughties’, just as it had been in the sixties, snooker was in a rut, and this time there seemed no way back.
But snooker is on the way back. The average audience for the final session of the 2011 World Championship was over 50% higher than the previous year, seminal new events are being launched and the game is infused with a sense of excitement and anticipation not experienced for a long time. More than anyone, two men, one young, and one not so young, are driving this revival. Twenty-one-year-old Judd Trump may have narrowly failed to win the World title this year (having been worn down by the grit of John Higgins), but his breathtaking potting (probably the best the game has ever seen) and youthful exuberance, reminiscent of a young Alex Higgins, White or O’Sullivan, has captured the public’s imagination. Meanwhile, Hearn has captured control of the sport, and refreshed it with his enterprise and infectious optimism. Today, in Sheffield, one of his many innovations, Q School (inspired by qualifying schools in professional golf), kicks off. More than 120 players are competing for 12 places on the 96-player professional tour (84 players are exempted from Q School, having qualified via their current ranking, or various other routes).
But, whilst snooker is a sport with momentum once more, most of the 12 players who negotiate Q School will make little, if any, money from the game. The lowest ranked players on the tour will have to scrap to earn four figures, whilst having to meet travelling expenses that could reach five figures (especially if they are not British). These players, obviously, have to earn their living elsewhere, so the professional tour is really a semi-professional tour. To establish a comprehensively professional tour snooker needs to attract much more capital. To attract much more capital snooker needs to appeal to the young and upwardly mobile. But the young and upwardly mobile of the twenty-first century demand a new brand of fast and furious, and sexy, snooker, encompassing fewer frames, time limits on shots and a more boisterous atmosphere in the arena, for example, and many of the game’s established players are resistant to such radical changes (at least in world ranking tournaments). All this leaves Hearn with the delicate balancing act of trying to bring new money into the game whilst simultaneously satisfying the old guard.
Snooker may be back in the black, therefore, but Barry Hearn is still trying to make the big break.
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