by elliott west
An announcement was made by Barry Hearn just before Christmas that World Snooker had signed a ten year deal for a tournament in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, beginning this October. With a total prize fund of £2.5 million pounds, one lucky winner gets set to scoop £500,000 in prize money!
These are exciting times as snooker blows the sand off the tables in this region. Anyone who knows the history of snooker in this neck of the woods knows that mixed success exists here. The Dubai Classic ran successfully for many years and the Bahrain Open bombed after one tournament due to a poor response.
The aim of targeting this area of the world is two fold. First to showcase snooker and secondly to energise a new market, bringing potential Arabic players out of the woodwork to play on the main stage. Hearn hopes that this approach will continue to expand his snooker mission of the globalisation of the sport.
Barry Hearn has sold this tournament to players by saying that you can either take part or not attend. However, there has been a backlash from some quarters, attacking Saudi Arabia’s appalling record on human rights and sexual inequality. This a tough ask for the now renamed World Snooker Tour. Pressure will have to be made for changes but the governing body knows that they will have to be careful in their response if they are to keep the monetary tap running. An inroad into this political minefield is the use of female referees at the tournament. Thankfully the Saudi body have agreed to this and avoided a larger chasm that could have engulfed the event. Barry Hearn knows this could be the start of a snooker revolution in the region but he must tread carefully if he is to achieve his aim of a global footprint for the sport.
The governing body will also have to look at ticket prices and audience figures. Working closely with the Saudi event organisers this will be crucial if this event is to survive this deal and prevent the plug being pulled. Hearn will have to become a juggler, creating a concentration equilibrium that balances between all geographical areas of snooker. Pardon the pun but it is very easy to take your eye off the ball and ignore the European, China or UK markets. However, the World Snooker Tour has promised that this won’t occur and has pledged to target and focus on these markets as well as making inroads in India. Perhaps this surge in Saudi Arabia was encouraged by the success of the boxing match involving Anthony Joshua when he went there and the follow on has been huge with Saudi Arabia becoming hungry to host other major sporting events.
This is an exciting time for snooker and can be further fuelled by the creation of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters. With massive investment in this region the sky’s the limit bringing the creation of academies and local interest in the sport with the creation of more snooker clubs to attract new players to snooker, nurturing existing players who may be struggling to break out onto the main stream of the game.
Africa has already started this journey and with places like Morocco and South Africa starting to produce players, this can only be a good thing and so Saudi Arabia can only fuel this ambitious goal. So keep your ear to the ground because this Arabian journey will soon bubble to the surface!
