is snooker dying out in uk?

[Darren Maudling]

Probably a controversial statement but I find televised snooker pretty boring
I don't know what the answer is, I think matches are too long to watch on TV, and I really think its one sport better enjoyed than watched
Just my opinion of course

[GeordieDS]

Probably a controversial statement but I find televised snooker pretty boring
I don't know what the answer is, I think matches are too long to watch on TV, and I really think its one sport better enjoyed than watched
Just my opinion of course

It's like watching paint dry, I love playing the game but these days with the amount of other shows/sport/films etc i rarely if ever watch snooker anymore

[golferson123]

It's like watching paint dry, I love playing the game but these days with the amount of other shows/sport/films etc i rarely if ever watch snooker anymore

Too true. Some would have you believe that snooker is all about the pro game nothing could be further from the truth.i have played this game for many decades and spent many full sessions at the crucible when younger but its only now when my eyes have gone my knees are shot that i realise that sport is to be enjoyed personally and thats where the growth or more realisticly the halt of its decline can be found but i dont know how. At the moment the pro game is riding the chinese wave but that wont last forever. On another note i enjoyed the six reds seemed to be less messy and suited televised snooker well

[Darren Maudling]

Maybe a shorter format of the game with a shot clock (ala 9 ball pool) may make it more enjoyable and less 'formal'
( I hear the purists turning in their coffins )

[j6uk]

most of my most memorable moments in watching snooker has been some of the money matches iv witnessed waiting for the fella who struggles to make a 20 break. he's my lift home but after the comp has ended at 2am he offers someone out for a hundred pound a game till 6am. yeah your upside down on the sofa, up to your neck in teas n toast and your nodding off every five mins but, you remember all those mad pressure shots and crazy ending to frames..
its entertainment and, a circus.. long live our cruel game, wherever its played

[itsnoteasy]

I'm the complete opposite, I don't like the short format, I love the longer matches, but that's how it was when I first watched it, so I'm probably biased, but it does seem no one has an attention span nowadays, it has to be instant, or as near to it as possible, there has to be a result now, it's happened in darts, and cricket with that stupid twenty twenty, and best of fives in snooker just don't interest me at all.

[golferson123]

I'm the complete opposite, I don't like the short format, I love the longer matches, but that's how it was when I first watched it, so I'm probably biased, but it does seem no one has an attention span nowadays, it has to be instant, or as near to it as possible, there has to be a result now, it's happened in darts, and cricket with that stupid twenty twenty, and best of fives in snooker just don't interest me at all.

. What! You dont like twenty twenty its the future. How much five day cricket did you play as a youth? Me neither so why watch it.how many best of 35 did you play for your local champs. Like it or not long matches take up to much time. remember when snooker was at its peak a vast portion of casual viewers were the blue rinse brigade sat in their shackleton highchairs.i love snooker as much as the next man but we cant turn back the clock thirty years several hours for a single match is to long, rather than watch highlights of a long match i would rather watch all of a shorter match

[itsnoteasy]

Played forty overs cricket , but it felt like five days when we played it lol. I hate twenty twenty, it's baseball with pads, it's the reason players can't stay in during test matches as their technique and mental application isn't good enough, to busy swinging away at twenty twenty. The only cricket I watch is test cricket, the only snooker I watch are the longer framed matches, I like to see the changes in form, the run of the balls change, the player behind having enough frames to change his approach to the game by either tightening it up or going for it for a few frames to try and make something happen, in a best of five you just don't get that, it holds not one bit of interest for me.
Didn't play snooker when younger (except for a few months) but loved watching it, give me Taylor coming back in 85 , from eight nil down , or Hendry beating Jimmy from 14-8 behind, or him getting pegged back then making a147 in the final frame to win 9-8 , these are matches I remember amongst many others all played over a long distance, off the top of my head I can't think of one classic best of five, but I don't watch them, there could be loads.
Come to think of it I don't see any correlation between what you played as a youngster and what you should watch, I didn't do any formula one racing as a boy but I like to watch that, and I'll wager you never played in many Ryder cups at school, or even any seventy two hole comps over four days, so shouldyou not be allowed to watch them?

[golferson123]

Point taken, i have actually played 72 hole comps scarborough swing every year hated it only went for the beer. Dig at twenty twenty was a joke hoped you would get that. I didnt advocate five framers. I haven't physically got the time to watch longer matches as for taylor v davies the ending was classic but all for the wrong reasons a good fightback by taylor but won in the end by c division shots, davies face at the end told it all. There's too much choice on tv for snooker to compete it has to produce results in a watchable period. Snooker diehards will not sustain televised snooker it must be interesting to a lot of people to attract sponsors and joe public

[itsnoteasy]

Point taken, i have actually played 72 hole comps scarborough swing every year hated it only went for the beer. Dig at twenty twenty was a joke hoped you would get that. I didnt advocate five framers. I haven't physically got the time to watch longer matches as for taylor v davies the ending was classic but all for the wrong reasons a good fightback by taylor but won in the end by c division shots, davies face at the end told it all. There's too much choice on tv for snooker to compete it has to produce results in a watchable period. Snooker diehards will not sustain televised snooker it must be interesting to a lot of people to attract sponsors and joe public

Unfortunately I agree with that Golferson, I know things have moved on and people want instant results, then move on to the next game, even the Davis, Taylor final, yes at the end it was poor, but that was because of what had gone on in the previous sessions, Davis had gone mentally , Taylor was a bag of nerves because he had fought with all his might to get back and that winning line was so close but he was only one shot from losing it all, you just can't get that in the short format, it was more than snooker, it was a battle of character and will, this is what I watch it for, that to me is a great sporting occasion .
I do agree snooker is struggling to find its place ,especially on TV, as you say folk won't or can't sit down and watch it for hours on end, the TV stations won't fill ten or twelve hours of their schedule with it, it was different when there were only a few channels, and no real competition .
I also agree the die hards won't keep it alive and it must get the next generation hooked on watching it or it will go completely from the TV and if that's shot clocks, and noisey crowds and best of 3,5 or 7 then so be it, but it's just not for me.

[JIMO96]

The sport just can't sell itself to sponsors, broadcasters and promoters. And that's because they all see the sport consisting of Ronnie O'Sullivan and a handful of others who can give him a match. I'm not saying that's the wrong attitude for them to have, I know as well as anyone the depth of talent in snooker, but sponsors/broadcasters/promoters are generally not snooker fans, and their number one priority is a return on their investment to the sport. I would put money on the huge majority of the snooker loving public thinking the same way, despite there being many 'purist' fans.

Until a way is found to bring young players to the top of our sport quicker, then this will always be the case. We've been waiting for the Luca Brecel breakthrough for years now. All the talented Chinese wildcards who've recorded fantastic wins in the past, are now having to travel to the UK to play the hardened match players who haven't been on TV for years, and suddenly their path to the top is blocked.

Anyone wondering why nobody wants to invest in the sport just had to watch this mornings Eurosport coverage. Mark Selby and Barry Pinches. Yes, I know Barry is a battler and he has a family and a mortgage, and that justifies his 40 seconds per shot average in his eyes.....and that Selby loves this kind of match and refuses to give an inch....all very tactically astute, but it shouldn't be on TV in my eyes. Right now Mark Davis and Dominic Dale are fighting it out on TV....I wondered which big seed one of them had knocked out to justify this TV choice, then realised there wasn't one and that this match was actually chosen for TV(!)

2 40+ players who undoubtedly have fantastic talent, but again, it's not what the people investing in the sport want to see. Baird-Brecel should have been on; McManus-Filipiak in hindsight would have been a great choice. Liang Wenbo-Lyu Haotian looks a cracker tomorrow but I bet they show Higgins or Trump against an amateur.

There needs to be a tweak to the qualifying system, plus a change in selection policy for TV matches to even begin to recreate interest. I would also encourage a rule change or 2 to discourage negative play (*awaits barrage from 'purists'*). Snooker is becoming more like lawn bowling than lawn bowling itself, at least in terms of average age, and arguably in number of 'personalities' too.

[golferson123]

God dont start me on the rule changes, rolls eyes, look at it this way tweak the format speed it up legistate the negative out and bring some cash into the game but dont abolish the old format let it run in tandem, look at american pool everyone plays and watches 9 ball but the better and harder game is 14 and 1 it still survives and it a far better game but fast 9 ball pulls in the money. Lets face it what have we to loose

[JIMO96]

God dont start me on the rule changes, rolls eyes, look at it this way tweak the format speed it up legistate the negative out and bring some cash into the game but dont abolish the old format let it run in tandem, look at american pool everyone plays and watches 9 ball but the better and harder game is 14 and 1 it still survives and it a far better game but fast 9 ball pulls in the money. Lets face it what have we to loose

Not sure what you mean by the bold part above, if it doesn't involve a change in the rules of some sort? Also, are you saying we should have 2 forms of snooker, one 'traditional' version and one 'speeded up' version? Haven't we already got that, albeit for a select few novelty events?

'Snooker Scene' ran a large article this month about rule changes to speed the sport up, one of which is a maximum of 5 consecutive misses, followed by 'ball in hand' for the opponent. Another is 'no snookering behind a nominated colour'. While both have merit, especially the latter, I think the negative players will still find a way to profit.

[JIMO96]

Deleted, double post

[golferson123]

is snooker dying out in uk?

meant legislate. by running in tandem I mean run it as a trial ie no roll ups and the miss rule needs serious common sense you could have a red on the rail that cannot be potted but a roll up can yeild too many points and many misses are the result of roll ups