Good news today from World Snooker as it has been announced that World Open sponsors 12bet.com will also sponsor the upcoming UK Championship in Telford…
Click here for the official press release over at WorldSnooker.com.
Another big tournament, another sponsor, it goes without saying that this is good news for the sport, particularly when taking into account the fact that a little over 12 months ago events such as the Grand Prix and Welsh Open were going unsponsored.
What I think is particularly positive about this deal however is the fact that 12BET.com have decided to back another event so soon after their first. As Barry Hearn has indicated, this is a real vote of confidence in the sport and surely proves that they were happy with the exposure that they got over in Glasgow.
One problem that I think snooker has suffered from recently is that some of the events have not really got a strong connection with either the venues or their sponsors. Back in the 90’s you had the Embassy World Championship at the Crucible, the Rothmans Grand Prix in Reading, the UK Championship in Preston, the Regal Welsh Open and so on.
More recently various different sponsors have come and gone which is not always a bad thing, venues have changed around (although less so recently) and each event is not so easy to identify these days. Hopefully now with the sport on the up, sponsors will be more tempted to make a long-term commitment to the sport as Betfred.com appear to have done with their sponsorship of the World Championship.
Hopefully we will have some news on the Masters soon…