How come snooker and not pool?

[Cameron Smith]

BH had nothing to do with running World Snooker and the prize funds, he was a player manager, the original post was about prize money.

Exactly, he did a great job of getting sponsorships for his players in '80s and helped to expand the profile of snooker through exhibitions around the world but he did not manage the WPBSA until very recently. If you weren't under the Matchroom stable you weren't benefitting nearly as much. Alex Higgins was famously left out in the cold.

There are a few things that contributed to snookers success. Colour tv was a huge factor because the BBC launched BBC2 which was specifically intended to broadcast in colour. They needed the programming which took advantage of the colour broadcast and snooker was a good candidate. They created Pot Black to fill this need, which was a one frame tournament. It was a great idea because the one frame tournament was a digestible introduction to the game.

Alex Higgins was also the right player at the right time during the '70s. He was exciting and charismatic. He was also perfect for tabloids. But Alex and other pros did a lot of exhibitions to pay the bills. This promoted the game and from these players became as many entertainers as they were competitors.

This wouldn't have really amounted much unless there was a governing body that was developing the game and building the tour. Originally, only the World Championships was a ranking tournament but they slowly built from there. The popularity of the World Championships on the BBC was a crucial moment because without that you wouldn't have seen more networks picking up snooker, along with the sponsorships that came with it.

Pool, on the other hand, doesn't have any real national profile at the professional level. There also isn't a unified national tour currently. There are a few groups that could replicate the efforts of the WPBSA, but the first step would be to increase visibility. Pool is essentially where snooker was in the mid 60's. People play it, they know of it, but don't really follow it.

It's important to keep in mind that although there were some fortuitous things that happened for snooker, it was not as overnight as it seemed. It was about a decade of work in the '70s that laid the foundation. A billionaire investor is not going to make pool a big sport. It also can't be one person that makes it happen. It's a group effort by multiple people who promote the game and get sponsors and tv contracts.

 

[Cameron Smith]

Exactly right. NONE of them would have made that kind of money if BH didn't get involved. BTW, in 1975 the WORLD CHAMPION won 7,500(Australian dollars) about 5,600 US. By 1980 it was 20,000 and has skyrocketed ever since. You want to tell me that BH and Steve Davis had nothing to do with this? Don't think so.

Neither was really on the map in 1980. At that time Davis was ranked 18th and had only made a few quarterfinals. Steve Davis winning the UK and World Championships, in December 1980 and spring 1981 respectively, was important for Hearn because those accomplishments gave him a player to promote and from there he build his Matchroom stable. He had done some work in amateur snooker prior to the 80's and owned a billiard room, but he was a beneficiary of the snooker boom and not the catalyst. He certainly was important in terms of driving things forward during the 80's, but it was other people that set the foundations.

 

[trophycue]

BH had nothing to do with running World Snooker and the prize funds, he was a player manager, the original post was about prize money.

Didnt say he had anything to do with running snooker back then.............I said he was heavily involved with snooker. Look at it anyway you want............BH and his work forming the matchroom stable created huge interest , and huge prize funds .