Future of snooker to be decided
The future of snooker will be decided tomorrow at an emergency general meeting of the World Professional Snooker and Billiards Association (WPBSA).
The meeting comes after the emergence of a rival bid to Barry Hearn’s proposal for the future governance of the sport and players will vote for who will have the power to run professional snooker.
Hearn was elected WPBSA chairman last year, and has put plans in place to transform snooker. He has already put in place a provisional calendar for next season, which is planned to include 11 televised tournaments and a new Pro Tour consisting of 12 events, which would be open to all 96 players on the circuit. Prize money will increase to a minimum of £4.5million with that figure potentially rising every year.
The counter proposal comes from John Davison. A former Great Britain Olympian in clay target shooting and retired businessman from private equity firm Bridgepoint, Davison plans to introduce 10 ranking tournaments, two invitational events, six Players Tour Events and prize money for next season at £5million, with an increase of £200,000 over the next three years.
As a businessman, Davison boasts strong financial resources and contacts, but no association with snooker in the past. Hearn, however, has a long association with snooker. In 1974 he became chairman of Lucana Snooker Clubs. In 1976, he became the manager of six-time world champion Steve Davis, and in 1982 formed Matchroom Sport, dealing with top players such as Davis, Cliff Thorburn, Dennis Taylor and Terry Griffiths. With the help of these players Hearn promoted snooker in the Far East.
Hearn’s proposals involve him taking a 51% controlling stake in World Snooker and make it its own independent business, with players and other stakeholders owning the other 49%. World Snooker is the commercial arm of the WPBSA, and is responsible for running and administrating snooker’s professional circuit.
Davison’s bid involves him taking a 63% stake, and after an initial 15 years, the rights would go back to the WPBSA to be made available again. It is Hearn’s controlling stake of 51% that has lost the support of some of the players, most notably Peter Ebdon. Now with Davison lodging a rival bid, Ebdon, along with Stephen Hendry and recently Ding Junhui, have backed the new bid.
“For a sport which many would like to write off, to have two bids on the table to take the game forward shows that there is plenty of life in snooker. He has stipulated the time scale he will work within, which for me is more appealing than just handing all of our assets over,” said Hendry.
Davison was part of the Altium bid in 2002 which tried to take over snooker in a similar fashion.
“Having been both a successful athlete and a successful businessman I also really understand the balance that all sports need to achieve between commercial success of a sport and the fact that at the heart of each sport you always have a game that people - grown-ups and children alike - love to play. But what I see in snooker is a game that has a huge heritage, is loved by many people but is in decline. It has failed to overcome the loss of tobacco sponsorship, has declining broadcast and sponsorship revenues and limited international presence,” said Davison.
Three-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is on Hearn’s side. “It's great to see new ideas for the game. Barry is already delivering on his promises and I'm positive that there will be more to come.”
The players have a choice between someone who has had a long association in snooker, and someone with a lot of money but with no involvement in snooker. The other choice could be that neither of the bids will be accepted, and then snooker will be back to square one, but that is unlikely to happen. If Hearn loses this battle, he has said he will resign as chairman and walk away from snooker.
This is one game where the winner takes all.
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