The way snooker tournaments are set up needs to change to keep the game fresh
A friend of mine once told me that he went to the Lakeside World darts Championship for a couple of rounds, earlier rounds so they were not the most mouth watering of ties but he said he had an absolute blast, a few drinks, a real good fun night out.
A few months later my same pal said he had just been to the Crucible to watch the Snooker semi-finals, he said that whilst the snooker skills were out of this world, the actual evening was boring, sitting there, in quiet, just watching, occasional clapping included to keep you awake.
Snooker has changed slightly over the last year or so. We now have this entry music when O’Sullivan or Higgins walk into hall. The music is over in less than two minutes – excitement over. For the hard core snooker fans many will feel that everything is just right at the moment, but surely, to bring new players into the game and new fans watching, a tournament should be created that breaks all the barriers.
First off is the amount of players. Instead of the World’s top 16 or 32, let’s make a competition for 128 players with the rounds all the way to the final set at “best of one”. Sounds frightening and it probably would be.
The speed of some of these games will be immense, stars will be flying out of the competition in a matter of hours, in the back ground, instead of the usual sit and watch scenario, lets have the tables and jugs of beer like they do in darts, get the crowd involved more, the table would be put on a higher oche at the top (Just like darts) and snooker fans will show their respect and not shout out stupid things when a player is about to take an important shot.
After numerous rounds where certain stars are knocked out, and new players are making a name for themselves, we then get to the semi final, where it will be the “best of three”, and the final which would be a simple, fast, “best of five”.
The idea might sound obsurd but after one or two of these, snooker will have moved on to a much higher plain, bringing with it more money, more fans, more entertainment and more players able to have a go for a title.
