Not the greatest time of year to be debating about the game - hopefully this will change in seasons to come.
I do hope for this programme that that there will be journalists around the table, and I don't mean feature sport's writers who only turn up in Sheffield and Wembley.
I mean 'proper' snooker journalists who are on the circuit who can challenge the waffle that's bound to come out in this show, save Barry Hearn.
Any idea which hacks will be representing the fourth estate and, is this show pre-recorded?
I know Matthew is a good writer, but I would rather Clive or Phil could've represented the media along with your goodself.
It wasn't so long ago, he was on another radio5 Live sports debate show. They really could've booked someone with more knowledge apart from someone that knows Table Tennis and Snooker.
Can we also confirm that Pat Mooney is going to be there, representing World Series?
I hope that you are honest and forthright about the sorry state that the game is currently in, Dave, and don't attempt to defend Sir Rodney and the diabolical actions of the upper echelons, who are single-handedly responsible for the current mess.
It's a sorry state of affairs to see darts and indoor bowls getting more TV coverage and sponsorship revenue.
If it is allowed to continue, there'll soon be no TV coverage and/or sponsors.
Make sure you mention the current generation of Selby, Murphy, Cope, Ding, Liang, Robertson, Trump etc etc to counter any nonsense about O'Sullivan being the only player worth watching.
How can you possibly say that the World Bowls Tour receives more televison exposure and prize money than snooker?
Yes, SKY Sports are currently televising the Matchroom promoted Premier League that runs on the same format as the snooker and darts equivilent but the event took place in April and is packaged highlights while James Wade's triumph was live and won £125,000 at Wembley last month for his triumph, triple World Champion Paul Foster successfully defended his title for a mere £15,000. What a difference!
Also, while we are lucky to receive all 17 days coverage of our flagship event at The Crucible through the BBC they only covered the last 5 five days at Potters in Norfolk. The bulk of that was televised in the very early hours of the morning, thank god for 247.tv.
Finally, while John Higgins took back to Wishaw a cheque for £250,000 Billy Jackson won less than Ali Carter received as the unsponsered Welsh Open champion - £30,000 and was back at work within a couple of days!
I understand your point but don't agree with it, but ask yourself this; why does indoor bowls have a queue of sponsors lining up to invest in tournaments while snooker events such as The Masters is devoid of a sponsor?
You mentioned the WC at Sheffield. If it wasn't for Betfair stepping in at the last moment, the "flagship" event that you term, would also have been devoid of much needed sponsorship revenue.
The sport is run like a sport that's on its knees. Long gone are the days of it being touted as an Olympic sport....unlike darts and bowls.
Totally agree with Anon's comments, regarding the bowls. They hardly get any coverage compared to snooker and how someone can say bowls gets more exposure than snooker is beyond me. And yes, £30,000 for being world champion is chicken feed compared to Higgins' £250,000 (and just think the Wimbledon tennis singles champions receive £850,000).
We should be getting MORE bowls coverage... please!
Is it down to match-fixing? Drugs? Poor attendances? Lack of characters? No. It's down to the current administrators who've let the sport slip to a state where it will be nigh-on impossible to recover.
There's so much young talent coming through, it's f***** criminal to the extreme that the sport is in it's current poor state.
I mean. Introducing a female referee to "sex up" the sport stinks of desperation.
Over the past 20 or so more years snooker and darts wer'nt even in the same breath, snooker was the bees neez between these 2 sports, fast forward it 20 years and its darts imo that have moved forward. WSA need to wake up and smell the coffee, snooker is dieing while'st darts is booming, wake up sir rodder's.
Compared to other sports except football, snooker gets more live coverage on terrestrial UK TV than any other sport.
This shows either two things; it cannot attract an audience or is so over exposed people want to participate in other sports.
With the amount of money being spent by the BBC on snooker coverage, and with the health watchdogs insistence on 'proper' sweating sports, it may not be long before our great game is banished for good from the screens :-(.
No doubt Sir Roddy will spend the entire programme bigging himself up and patting himself on the back for securing the sponsorship from Fred (who I firmly believe has got a great deal for his money). I hope the programme sparks some live debate and if necessary forces SRW to justify some of World Snooker's actions over the last few years. The failure to secure internet rights for live coverage of qualifiers whilst running a substandard website scoreboard would be very high on my list of questions.
Where's all this emerging talent some people keep talking about? It's the same old faces at the top of the game. If these so called new stars were any good they would surely be beating the better players - but they're not. What sponsors are going to get involved when you've got the same old robots turning up at the business end of the tournaments. It's sad but we've got to realise our sport is over exposed on TV now.
"Same old robots" "It's sad but we've got to realise our sport is over exposed on TV now".
What a lot of tosh.
I've just taken a minute to look at the 2005 World Rankings, just 4 years ago but only 6 of the players in the top 16 then remain there now, so how exactly does that equate to the same old robots?
Over-exposed on TV? I don't even think I need to answer that one.
Same old robots at the business end of tournaments:
Only John Higgins has won more than one ranking event this season, with first time winners Ricky Walden and Ali Carter amongst the others who did. Mark Allen is emerging as a real contender, Mark Selby has only been around a couple of years at the top end of the game, Jamie Cope continues to improve and impress, Judd Trump has his fans and is seen as a future champ by some, not me though. Ding is still only very young. I could go on, but don't really need to. Only Higgins and O'Sullivan from the 'old guard' are still consistently at the business end of things.
Darts has moved forward to where snooker was 20 years ago.
Snooker had moved on from there but the brick wall came and at the moment thats where snooker is at.
both 2009 World Darts champion together got less than John Higgins in price money.
Sponsors can sponsor Darts for Less at the moment but if the price money gets equal they would rather sponsor Snooker because they would get more out of it.
Looking forward to that, especially to hear Syed's views on the game. I think the reason perhaps the younger players are not coming through is that the standard is more all around so it is hard for say a Cope and a Walden to be consistent. Also Dave has said the standard of the game peaked in the late 90's and early noughties which I agree with. The players who produced that snooker are largely better than the new young breed coming through.
I agree that the peak in terms of overall standard was late nineties early noughties. But one point I would make is exactly what are people classing as young? Do we expect an 18 year old to be challenging at the highest level?
It stands to reason that with the peak time we will increasingly see older world champions and the stat about early 30's being the last time you can win it becoming a thing of the past. I would not be at all surprised to see Higgins/O'Sullivan/Murphy/Selby etc. competing at the top level as they approach 40, if they remain driven enough.
32 comments:
Hopefully it will be more insightful than the Newsnight nonsense...
Hi Dave,
Not the greatest time of year to be debating about the game - hopefully this will change in seasons to come.
I do hope for this programme that that there will be journalists around the table, and I don't mean feature sport's writers who only turn up in Sheffield and Wembley.
I mean 'proper' snooker journalists who are on the circuit who can challenge the waffle that's bound to come out in this show, save Barry Hearn.
Any idea which hacks will be representing the fourth estate and, is this show pre-recorded?
Thanks, Joe
PS - Totally agree with you, Matt.
The programme will be live and I will be one of the guests, as will Matthew Syed of The Times, recently voted Sportswriter of the Year
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the information.
I know Matthew is a good writer, but I would rather Clive or Phil could've represented the media along with your goodself.
It wasn't so long ago, he was on another radio5 Live sports debate show. They really could've booked someone with more knowledge apart from someone that knows Table Tennis and Snooker.
Can we also confirm that Pat Mooney is going to be there, representing World Series?
Thanks, Joe
Give 'em hell Dave!
I hope that you are honest and forthright about the sorry state that the game is currently in, Dave, and don't attempt to defend Sir Rodney and the diabolical actions of the upper echelons, who are single-handedly responsible for the current mess.
It's a sorry state of affairs to see darts and indoor bowls getting more TV coverage and sponsorship revenue.
If it is allowed to continue, there'll soon be no TV coverage and/or sponsors.
Dave H said...
The programme will be live and I will be one of the guests, as will Matthew Syed of The Times, recently voted Sportswriter of the Year
4:47 PM
----------------------
Dave
If you manage to say the 'phrase' "elephant joker" live during the program then i will donate £50 to charity.
Make sure you mention the current generation of Selby, Murphy, Cope, Ding, Liang, Robertson, Trump etc etc to counter any nonsense about O'Sullivan being the only player worth watching.
i suspect Clive Everton wasent invited ?
its a shame that the wsa hasent taken on board what clive been saying for years instead of burrieng theire heads in the sand and taking him to court.
i agree wild
Anon 17.56
How can you possibly say that the World Bowls Tour receives more televison exposure and prize money than snooker?
Yes, SKY Sports are currently televising the Matchroom promoted Premier League that runs on the same format as the snooker and darts equivilent but the event took place in April and is packaged highlights while James Wade's triumph was live and won £125,000 at Wembley last month for his triumph, triple World Champion Paul Foster successfully defended his title for a mere £15,000. What a difference!
Also, while we are lucky to receive all 17 days coverage of our flagship event at The Crucible through the BBC they only covered the last 5 five days at Potters in Norfolk. The bulk of that was televised in the very early hours of the morning, thank god for 247.tv.
Finally, while John Higgins took back to Wishaw a cheque for £250,000 Billy Jackson won less than Ali Carter received as the unsponsered Welsh Open champion - £30,000 and was back at work within a couple of days!
Anon @ 17.56
I understand your point but don't agree with it, but ask yourself this; why does indoor bowls have a queue of sponsors lining up to invest in tournaments while snooker events such as The Masters is devoid of a sponsor?
You mentioned the WC at Sheffield. If it wasn't for Betfair stepping in at the last moment, the "flagship" event that you term, would also have been devoid of much needed sponsorship revenue.
The sport is run like a sport that's on its knees. Long gone are the days of it being touted as an Olympic sport....unlike darts and bowls.
Totally agree with Anon's comments, regarding the bowls. They hardly get any coverage compared to snooker and how someone can say bowls gets more exposure than snooker is beyond me. And yes, £30,000 for being world champion is chicken feed compared to Higgins' £250,000 (and just think the Wimbledon tennis singles champions receive £850,000).
We should be getting MORE bowls coverage... please!
snooker gets the equivelant terestrial TV Covarage on the BBC as about 70 football matches per year.
theres 43 days snooker on the BBC per year and roughly about 5 hours a day terestrial covarage thats 215 hours.
no other sport gets that much terestrial TV Covarage.
Anon @ 8.20
Why doesn't snooker attract sponsors?
Is it down to match-fixing? Drugs? Poor attendances? Lack of characters? No. It's down to the current administrators who've let the sport slip to a state where it will be nigh-on impossible to recover.
There's so much young talent coming through, it's f***** criminal to the extreme that the sport is in it's current poor state.
I mean. Introducing a female referee to "sex up" the sport stinks of desperation.
anon 8.33pm
that is the question and its more to do with the running of the game (clash of persanalities or pig headed stouberness).
it has nothing to do with the sport more to do with sponsors not wanting to work with incompitance within the WSA.
Anon 8:33pm that's a FACT A MUNDO post spot on mate.
the exposure Snooker can give sponsors is far greater than anything Darts or Bowls can hope to get.
Over the past 20 or so more years snooker and darts wer'nt even in the same breath, snooker was the bees neez between these 2 sports, fast forward it 20 years and its darts imo that have moved forward. WSA need to wake up and smell the coffee, snooker is dieing while'st darts is booming, wake up sir rodder's.
Compared to other sports except football, snooker gets more live coverage on terrestrial UK TV than any other sport.
This shows either two things; it cannot attract an audience or is so over exposed people want to participate in other sports.
With the amount of money being spent by the BBC on snooker coverage, and with the health watchdogs insistence on 'proper' sweating sports, it may not be long before our great game is banished for good from the screens :-(.
No doubt Sir Roddy will spend the entire programme bigging himself up and patting himself on the back for securing the sponsorship from Fred (who I firmly believe has got a great deal for his money). I hope the programme sparks some live debate and if necessary forces SRW to justify some of World Snooker's actions over the last few years. The failure to secure internet rights for live coverage of qualifiers whilst running a substandard website scoreboard would be very high on my list of questions.
Where's all this emerging talent some people keep talking about? It's the same old faces at the top of the game. If these so called new stars were any good they would surely be beating the better players - but they're not. What sponsors are going to get involved when you've got the same old robots turning up at the business end of the tournaments. It's sad but we've got to realise our sport is over exposed on TV now.
"Same old robots" "It's sad but we've got to realise our sport is over exposed on TV now".
What a lot of tosh.
I've just taken a minute to look at the 2005 World Rankings, just 4 years ago but only 6 of the players in the top 16 then remain there now, so how exactly does that equate to the same old robots?
Over-exposed on TV? I don't even think I need to answer that one.
Same old robots at the business end of tournaments:
Only John Higgins has won more than one ranking event this season, with first time winners Ricky Walden and Ali Carter amongst the others who did. Mark Allen is emerging as a real contender, Mark Selby has only been around a couple of years at the top end of the game, Jamie Cope continues to improve and impress, Judd Trump has his fans and is seen as a future champ by some, not me though. Ding is still only very young. I could go on, but don't really need to. Only Higgins and O'Sullivan from the 'old guard' are still consistently at the business end of things.
12.28
Darts has moved forward to where snooker was 20 years ago.
Snooker had moved on from there but the brick wall came and at the moment thats where snooker is at.
both 2009 World Darts champion together got less than John Higgins in price money.
Sponsors can sponsor Darts for Less at the moment but if the price money gets equal they would rather sponsor Snooker because they would get more out of it.
Looking forward to that, especially to hear Syed's views on the game. I think the reason perhaps the younger players are not coming through is that the standard is more all around so it is hard for say a Cope and a Walden to be consistent. Also Dave has said the standard of the game peaked in the late 90's and early noughties which I agree with. The players who produced that snooker are largely better than the new young breed coming through.
I agree that the peak in terms of overall standard was late nineties early noughties. But one point I would make is exactly what are people classing as young? Do we expect an 18 year old to be challenging at the highest level?
It stands to reason that with the peak time we will increasingly see older world champions and the stat about early 30's being the last time you can win it becoming a thing of the past. I would not be at all surprised to see Higgins/O'Sullivan/Murphy/Selby etc. competing at the top level as they approach 40, if they remain driven enough.
Matthew Syed?
failed ping-pong player
what does he know about snooker?
I'd imagine there are a few people who would upset the applecart better than he
but they would never be invited by Aunty Beeb
I've heard Syed doing commentary.
And unlike 'a few people who would upset the applecart' his view isn't prejudiced by historic grievances or personal rivalries.
It's always a pity when someone who states the obvious and points out where faults rest is accused of raking up the past.
A well-used get out of jail card used by those who don't want to confront the real issues in the sport
Syed is the second best writer in the country in my opinion.
i think he is crap
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