As well as the announcement that Betfred will sponsor the World Championship this year, today’s press conference with WPBSA chairman Rodney Walker also saw some more interesting revelations regarding the tour as a whole…
For more information click here to read an article on the Guardian website, as well as here to read David Hendon’s take on the situation.
Like Dave, I am sceptical as to whether a six-red format would be for the best. What we have in snooker is a fantastic game already and it has always struck me that any problems in bringing the crowds in are down to various other factors such as the promotion of events and the use of the media. Still, this at least shows that the WPBSA are not standing still and are willing to try different things to generate interest in the sport. As a traditionalist I can’t say that the idea appeals to me particularly, but I can imagine that some will be interested.
As for the suggestion that there could be a variety of minor ranking tournaments introduced, so that players can choose to opt in or out of them in the pursuit of ranking points and prize money, this sounds like a great idea. As a big fan of tennis, I am used to the system there with two or three tournaments a week and the player having to carefully plan their schedules. The only thing I would say is that there will have to be a lot of these events staged because otherwise I can still see the top players entering them for ranking points and match practice, thus defeating the object of trying to give those further down the rankings a chance to win titles.
It will be very interesting to see how this develops over the next 12 months…