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TThe upcoming World Snooker Championship was supposed to be centered around Ronnie O'Sullivan aiming for a modern-record eighth title, or Belgium's Luca Brecel looking to repeat his stunning victory last year, but instead A big shadow looms over this sport.
The first production will be from Saudi Arabia and will be cast directly at the Crucible Theatre. Almost every year for at least the past decade, the question of whether the World Championship should move away from the Crucible, or from Sheffield altogether, has reared its head with varying degrees of weight.
The debate generally falls into two different camps and can be easily explained. history and future. romanticism and realism. Nostalgia and ambition.
Meanwhile, the history of snooker is closely woven into the fabric of the Crucible. The venue has been the sport's spiritual home since the tournament moved there in 1977. Its biggest moments happened within those walls. From a tearful Alex Higgins beckoning his baby to Dennis Taylor's defeat of Steve Davis in the black-ball final, which was watched by 18.5 million people across the UK. From Stephen Hendry's ruthless domination of the people's champion Jimmy White to the never-ending embrace of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Judd Trump. Players dream of playing there, fans from all over the world make the annual pilgrimage to the mecca of snooker, and the pressure from its packed arenas creates diamonds. Every year, the World Snooker Championship is the premier drama staged by this theater.
On the other hand, this venue is objectively unfit for purpose in 2024. On the World Snooker Tour (WST), the 980-person capacity could easily be sold out by three times, the backstage facilities are old and dilapidated, and everything about this place is so bad that it's too small for the sport. There is no scope for gaining any kind of advantageous corporate experience that might enrich the company. And holding the 'world' championships of a global sport at the same South Yorkshire venue every year is perhaps unnecessarily parochial.
From a business perspective, the right decision would be to raise the money and move to a location more suitable for such a huge event.But despite what the people running things would have you believe, sports I never have It's a purely business proposition, and it thrives on tapping into the emotional and romantic. Fans become attached to players, teams and venues, investing their hearts as well as their brains. That special connection is what makes the sport unique, and if we forget that we risk losing loyalty.
The decision to leave the Crucible has serious consequences and cannot be made purely for financial reasons. Many sports have put greed above all else and used it as the sole motivator for their decisions, putting themselves in serious trouble.
The current broadcast rights, or contract to host the World Championships at the Crucible Theater, run until 2027, 50 years after the event was first held at the venue. Whether this tournament will be his 51st is completely up in the air. As a city, Sheffield benefits greatly from the tournament. In fact, Sheffield City Council pays WST to run the event due to the estimated £3m of extra income it brings to tourism each year.
Rumors are swirling that a new, larger venue will be built to host the tournament, possibly in the same location as the current Crucible. This seems like the perfect solution for all parties, but such discussions have been going on for years. You can't get too excited until you break ground on a construction site. What is certain is that snooker needs to find a long-term solution, whether it stays in Sheffield or leaves Sheffield.
It's Saudi Arabia's fault that there have been so many calls for the World Championships to be postponed this year. In the latest aspect of the sports cleaning business, the country has set its sights on snooker. Last month saw the successful hosting of the Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker, an invitation-only event featuring the 'Golden Ball' and the possibility of a break of up to 167, with a full ranking event featuring all 128 professionals. Players scheduled to participate in the summer. The competition is already being touted as snooker's 'fourth major', with a total prize pool of more than £2 million, making it his second richest event for players after the World Championship.
WST also released a statement earlier this month announcing that Riyadh Season had become an “official partner” of the World Snooker Championship, increasing speculation that the tournament could be moved to the Middle East, while O'Sullivan He had signed a three-year ambassador contract. The agreement with Saudi Arabia guarantees him to play in all events in the country, undertake coaching trips in the country and open the Ronnie O'Sullivan Snooker Academy.
Like any highly paid ambassador, 'Rocket' immediately launched a media campaign to bring the World Championship to Saudi Arabia, but the crux of his argument is that at the moment the players and the shuttles for them are It seems that it will be prepared. The food will be good – it may take some work – but he has also photographed Sheffield and the Crucible.
Another shadow currently casting over snooker is the prospect of a breakaway tour, possibly funded by China. While this is still in the vicious rumor stage, players have occasionally dropped opaque hints about something rumbling in the background, and it's another storyline to keep an eye on over the coming weeks. Perhaps snooker would do well to look at what happened to the sport of golf in that regard.
The beauty of the World Championship, of course, is the quality and drama that is sure to be produced at Baize, with all sorts of far-reaching stories, whether it be Rucible departures, match-fixing scandals, rumors of a possible takeover, or even the Sheikh's fake stabbing. It's something I've always hidden.
I hope that happens again this year. From a purely sporting perspective, this is shaping up to be an attractive tournament. O'Sullivan's quest to break Hendry's record and win an almost unthinkable eighth world title will be fascinating, and Wednesday's first fight against talented and attacking 22-year-old Jackson Page will be a blast It should be really interesting.
Bressel, on the other hand, admirably en route to the title 12 months ago, but the Belgian has had to ignore his indifferent form so far this season, as well as the first-time winner repeating the same trick next year. In a legendary theater that also faces the “curse of the Crucible” that you have never seen.
Aside from O'Sullivan, Judd Trump was the player of the season with five ranking titles this year and will be keen to add a second world championship to his resume, while Mark Allen is now more of a top-tier player than ever before. Mark Selby, who has won four world champions in the past 18 months, is a Crucible-friendly man, but he has been away from the table in recent days as his wife Vicki battles breast cancer and his own struggles with mental health. I'm going through a difficult time.
Whether it's former world champions like John Higgins, Mark Williams and Shaun Murphy in the draw, Ding Junhui, who is trying to become the first Chinese world champion, or last year's surprise semi-finalist There is almost no need to mention young talents like Shi Jiahui, and persistent ranking events. -Man Jack Lisowski is ready to rock the tournament.
17 Days of Spring will never disappoint. The bright lights of snooker's greatest stars will once again cast out the shadows, at least for a while. But deep down, it feels like snooker's day of reckoning is just over the horizon.
