Power Snooker to increase number of snooker fans
Snooker is considered to be a sport for old people because of its time consuming and slow nature as one match consists of up to 33 frames and many matches in World Snooker Championships last for two days and comprise of 19 to 35 frames.
Even during a frame, players take so much time executing a safety or potting shot which bores spectators and thus, they do not watch the game and just confirm the final results via news articles.
The snooker governing body, World Snooker, was not paying much attention to this factor until the new management, led by current chairman Barry Hearn, took it as a challenge and their foremost priority was to not only expand the game’s boundaries beyond
Europe, but also compel many fans, especially young ones towards the sport. One initiative included adding more snooker events to the calendar with new and revised playing formats.
After Hearn joined World Snooker as chief, he has made many reforms in some major tournaments. He revised playing formats of many tournaments, including the UK Championship and Players Tour Championship, lessening the number of frames.
The snooker boss also introduced various major ranking, minor ranking and non-ranking snooker events into the yearly calendar, stretching the borders of the game across the world. The first major ranking event in Australia, 2011 Australian Goldfields Open,
clearly complemented the efforts of Hearn with the success of the tournament.
Another addition to the calendar is Power Snooker, a tournament with a new format of play, which is comparatively short, fast and entertaining. This tournament does not carry the traditional format of the sport, but is directed more towards making the game
more entertaining to attract more viewership.
The mere idea of Power Snooker was conceived from a similar type of tournament in the game of cricket, called Twenty20 (T20) cricket. Unlike the fifty-fifty over usual format, T20 consumes less time and provides more entertainment and thrill to spectators.
The purpose of Power Snooker is to do the same job for snooker fans.
Barry Hearn implemented this new-formatted tournament in July, 2010, where top players from around the world participated. Power Snooker was created by Rod Gunner and Ed Simons. The second episode of Power Snooker finished last week, which witnessed more
spectators, especially the-targeted young generation, coming and watching the game.
What makes Power Snooker more interesting is its’ unique format of play. Unlike other snooker events, it does not have timeless play and long frames but it has a speculated time and scores are calculated on the basis of points earned by a player during that
considered time. This new format plays a key role in drawing more and more people to the sport.
Players have a 30-minute window to earn as many points as they can, without a specific number of frames. The rack in Power Snooker contains nine red balls, including a power ball, along with regular colour balls. Players have to pot with the usual snooker
rules, a red followed by a coloured ball, until the end of the frame but under a 20-second shot-clock.
The point structure is same but with one difference. If the power ball, a red ball containing the Power Snooker logo on it, is potted by any player, a two-minute power play starts, just like in cricket, in which points for each pot are doubled. This makes
the game more entertaining and thrilling.
The new format of Power Snooker has been welcomed not only by spectators, but also by players. So far, the event has been a great success on World Snooker’s account, as it has fulfilled the purpose of Barry Hearn, drawing attention of more and more snooker
crowd towards the arena.
However, one tournament of the sort is not enough, as the rest of the snooker calendar is crowded with old-formatted events, which needs attention of the authorities. If reforms like snooker power play could be added to those events too, the result would
be much better.
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