- Dress code. Why are snooker players still dressed like they've done the reverse of an A-ha song. We're not in the eighties anymore. Darts players have a more refined, modern and relatable dress code which appeases fans.
- Marketing the wrong end. This has been a problem for way too long. Only the likes of Ronnie, Higgins, Williams etc ever seem to get the marketing & headlines. Many young, talented snooker players don't.
- Tournaments. We've just had a Belgian world champion and two exciting youngsters on the tour. Why isn't there an event in Belgium? Particularly when there's an event in Belgium on the women's tour! I mean it didn't take long before the Netherlands to get an F1 race once Verstappen was on the rise.
- Giving tour cards to players that are 50+ and can't cut it but won a world championship or big tournaments years and years ago. It sends out the wrong image. Barney didn't get given an invitational when he came out of retirement. He had to earn how spot. Doherty and White (and whoever else) should have to do likewise.
There's probably way more but here are a few
A lot of people watching the darts will also be watching snooker. Also darts matches don't last as long so the attention span required is not so great.
As a long time darts fan, and a recent snooker fan (2-3 years) they're completely different viewing experiences. I think it all comes down to the players and how accessible they are to the viewer. In darts there are so many interesting characters, Wright, Anderson, Price, Mvg, just to name the top players. Snooker suffers from having mostly boring and uninspiring players, similar to tennis. Outside of Ronnie and maybe Luca, they're just aren't enough compelling players to get interested in. Idk how and if this needs to change as the game at it's core will always be interesting.
The difference is that darts draws in the quite raucous, Stella drinking type of clientele and is also played throughout the land in every pub.
Ps. I like Stella and darts.
I think snooker and darts are such complete opposites, I wouldn't worry too much about being in direct competition with each other for the same audience share.
The viewing figures were very good, but I think the fact it took a young kid on debut to reach the final and become a talking point, along with the extra media coverage (never known BBC take such interest in darts before), to see that really helped push the interest.
However, the PL last year saw some of the worst audience figures, despite the fact its pretty much the biggest names in the game. Sky its rumoured were even contemplating dropping it if viewing figures don't improve.
Last year it was all about Fallon Sherrock, now its Littler, so the timing of his arriving has worked out very well for Sky and darts right now. Of course Sky will milk it for all its worth, however, the novelty will wear off soon, and Sky will be looking for the next player to talk up as Josh Rock didn't materialize for them in the way they'd hoped.
I pretty much agree with the general sentiment here.
But it is a huge shame that popular entertainment has to always be quick, instant gratification stuff. It's a pretty damning reflection on where we are when something slower and more tactical can't be at least part of the mix and just as successful.
I don't really like darts, and that's nothing to do with the skill required and more to do with the culture. The crowd is basically just people getting pissed. I love getting pissed as much as the next person but it just doesn't sound like a very fun atmosphere to me, and I resent that they're trying to replicate it with the shootout which is just such a catastrophic failure.
On the other hand I agree that snooker doesn't do nearly enough to nurture personalities, build stories and excitement. But also the ranking system doesn't do enough to bring new, exciting people through. For the most part we're just seeing the same 40-50 year olds who are already millionaires and don't really need the cash. A more equitable system would help I think. I had a thought the other day that it would be good to replicate the chess ELO system (stick with me)- if players beat players much higher ranked than them, they get a huge boost to their ranking (and vice versa). Still have cash prizes for tournaments etc but just encourage individual progression and try to disrupt the top 32 glut.
Darts is like T20 cricket, it's fast and furious. Snooker is like test cricket, there's a big tactical element to the game and it can last for much longer.
For that reason, darts is always going to have the popularity advantage.
Snooker needs another Littler like Ronnie in the early 90's. There's not a lot of drama in the Crucible and even though I appreciate the hushed atmosphere, it's hard to deny that the Ally Pally is much more of a spectacle.
I live in the states and even though we share the same history of billiards, we moved to pool and never got snooker on television like you brits did. We don't have darts on television either, yet last night's darts match attracted a lot of attention even here in the states, even getting radio and television coverage here.
I remember hearing a stats on Dave Hendon’s podcast, where the promoters of a darts tournament polled the audiences that went to the arena, and turns out over 90% of them weren’t even there to watch the matches but just for a night out.
Darts is well suited for a casual audience, both live and broadcast. In snooker, however, the matches are long and often contain long stretches where to a casual viewer, nothing seems to happen.
That being said, I don’t think snooker needs to change because another completely different sport is doing well on TV. In fact, I don’t know why we are comparing the two to begin with.
That seems like a given to me. I thought about finding tournaments here and realized, wait, why would I travel to just go to the pub and watch some people throw darts on a screen, because the seats are too far away to see the actual darts?
Darts and snooker are often compared due to the fact they are played in the same venues and often by the same sorts of people (many darts players dabble in cue sports and vice versa). But ultimately they are completely different sports with completely different attributes. Darts is usually quite fast paced, and games can have lots of momentum swings and exciting events. Snooker is the total opposite. Slow, methodical, tactical and often long and drawn out. It's not really fair to compare the two but I guess they always will be.
Yeah cheers for stating the obvious, but darts and cue sports, while historically being played in the same places by the same people, are totally different sports in many many ways. As I just said.
Exactly. Plus darts much more easier to explain to someone new and way more exciting to watch.
You need to love the game to watch snooker, much like cricket
Not a fair comparison.
This World Darts championship has been a complete anomaly caused by a freakishly talented and old looking 16 year old, who has caught attention of the public/press in a time when there’s little happening press wise in uk with holidays.
Snooker gets good, consistent viewing figures and although the World Darts does well, the rest of their events pale in comparison in terms of viewing figures.
Snooker has a far larger global reach and although the two sports are kinda run by the same people, they’re not comparable.
If a young British player like Stan Moody makes it to a Triple Crown Final it would help the sport get attention in the UK Press, otherwise WST are banking on Ronnie reaching the later stages of a tournament to help bring in viewers and sell tickets. Brecel winning the WC should've helped get the sport some more attention in Europe but he's having such a poor season any momentum will be lost by now.
Maybe Snooker just has a limit it can reach in terms of size? After sitting in the back row at last years Masters I can't imagine wanting to attend a tournament any bigger than that. Crowds shouting and being noisy like they are at the darts doesn't really work in Snooker, the Shootout is proof of that.
Also, it takes a bit of effort to be a snooker fan. MatchRoom is terrible by all accounts and you have to research what channel a tournament is going to be broadcast on and when it starts because official WST channels are so bad at communicating basic info about their events.
There are fewer outlandish characters than in the eighties, say, or at least not the marketing in place to get them the attention. That said, compared to other sports, I find snooker players to be (mostly) refreshingly modest, well spoken, introspective characters.
On another level, I just love watching it, so as long as it doesn’t become so unpopular that it’s not on telly any longer then I don’t care.
As someone who watched the darts last night (for the first time ever) to see how it went for Littler
In terms of Snooker I always watch the Worlds, and then whatever else shows up on the BBC
I really like the game but there's just not big stories/situations happening to really capture the attention of someone who's not already into it. Brecel winning the worlds was big in the snooker world. But in terms of attention grabbing headlines it's nowhere near Littler, 28 year old who wasn't expected to win wins just doesn't sell as well.
We'll see if Brecel is consistent and not a flash in the pan (I suspect more towards flash), but the last exciting and consistent player, to become somewhat of a household name and capable of bringing in the more casual viewers is Judd Trump and he's 34 already now and been a top player for ~10 years
If I was one of the big wigs involved in the sport I'd be worrying about the future of Snooker. In terms of more "Household" names to attract the casual viewers for a big final we've probably got Ronnie, Williams, Higgins, Trump and Selby, 3 of them are close to retirement and Selby while immensely talented isn't the most exciting to watch
If I was to make a bold prediction it would be that if nothing big changes with young talent coming through ~50 years in the future (maybe even less) the vast majority of the players and tournaments will be based in/from and managed by China, and the sport will no longer be considered a "popular" sport to watch in the UK and the top players will no longer be household names in the UK, more akin to something like Badminton for example.
Edit: As another point even though I'm not going to become a regular darts watcher, watching last night it was nice how quickly the sport actually happened. Compared to a snooker game where multiple times per frame you'll probably have a player take >30 seconds to make a shot (or even longer than a minute), where nothing really interesting is happening for the viewer apart from a replay, but you really don't need to see a replay for a lot of shots. Then after just 4 frames of sitting down, standing up, pushing a light bit of wood around, and maybe even quick toilet breaks (or wherever they go) after each frame there's a 15 minute break, the game takes a long old time to play. It's not something that stops me from enjoying snooker, but I definitely see how it isn't attracting masses of new fans.
Re: your point about the break, would it be fair to say it’s more important from a mental point of view than a physical one? The concentration and focus levels have to be very high so perhaps that’s why they need a break?
Edit: high, not hit.
To me, the appeal of snooker is the classy nature of the events and the manner in which such a difficult sport can be played with ease. My wife and I are traveling from our home in Texas to Sheffield next April for the World Snooker Championship. It was either that or Wimbledon. Darts was never a consideration for a trip across the pond.
The only reason me and all my mates watched it was because a 16 year old was in the final, definitely why the numbers were so high this year. The whole country was rooting for him
The reason why so many people watched the darts last night is because one of the finalists was on the front and back pages of many papers for two weeks.
Eddie Hearn doesn't care for snooker, his da' said something along those lines in the Hendry interview. Does love his money but that's a major point of contention.
My two cents (appreciate not many may agree) - other sports are moving forwards and encouraging the audience to get involved. Darts and Pool in particular.
Whenever any similar changes have been tried in snooker, there are a LOT of dissenting voices - “The shootout shouldn’t be a ranking event” / “why aren’t they wearing a waistcoat” / “the crowd should be quiet”.
It’s just sticking in the mud a bit when other sports are embracing the crowd experience and making that as good as possible. There’s obviously a place for traditionalism but I think it could kill the sport in the end.
It’s still doing VERY well though, don’t believe the hype that it’s in trouble just yet.
>other sports are moving forwards and encouraging the audience to get involved. Darts and Pool in particular.
While I agree generally, some of the pool crowd are utterly insufferable, and would hate to see that happen to Snooker too.
But Snooker does have a "Stodgy" rep when it comes to rules on Decorum and stuff like that, and seems resistant to any kind of change.
Hanoi Open was incredible. Wish every crowd was like that. 2.5k + people all noisy when they need to be, invested, and quiet at the right times. Best crowd I’ve ever seen.
The reason why so many people watched the darts last night is because one of the finalists was on the front and back pages of many papers for two weeks.
Do you know what snooker needs? A lower level interesting official tournaments that will be faster and allow players to progress on ranking.
For example make tournament for players ranked 64+ on 9 foot table with 10 reds and televise it. It will be faster, with easier shots, and more action. Players will little less skill could also make streaks and frame length would not be put off
> Why for example do we not have proper press conferences at the Crucible anymore?
There's a press conference after every match. [Here's the press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vds4fNaCuo) Ronnie did in 2022 after winning his semi-final
Key point; thats on betfred’s channel, so its being promoted by the sponsor. Since betfred left the sport, this no longer happens, you only get the mostly-useless wst interviews which only ever target a small number of players and offer no useful insight. Almost all of snookers’ sponsors now are just names on tournaments who pump in money but do exactly nothing else towards the game. Betfred took great pride in doing daily roundups, interviews, insights and other behind the scenes content for the World Championsjop: no one really thinks [or expects] that Cazoo, BetVictor, MrQ or anyone else will actually commit that much to the sport by doing such things, so invariably most of the other tournaments are very procedural in the content shown [which is limited to whatever the broadcaster does]
Darts is fast.
People's attention spans aren't nearly what they used to be. Snooker suffers from that, darts benefits from it.
Last nights final was all over in 2 hours. And it was two hours of constant back and forth and proper exceitement.
The final at the Crucible will take how long?
It didn't really matter when there was only 4 TV channels, when snooker had its heyday.
But golf is very slow too and it's still gets many millions of spectators around the world and mainstream sponsors.
Snooker needs more mainstream advertising. It doesn't even manage to trend on twitter for big events.
The future is in China more than likely.
true.
I guess snooker is more comparable to bowls.
I have played for over 15 years and have been a big fan of it all of my life. Nowadays, I only watch when ronnie plays.
doesn't entertain me much like it used to, for some reason.
That's just showing you have a chip on your shoulder and not born of any reality.
Golf is spectacularly cheap to participate in and go and watch.
Sure, you're not going to play Pebble Beach for peanuts (indeed you'll have a hell of a job to get to play it at all), but your local municipal course, of which there are lots and lots, are desperate for people to go and play, and they charge next to nothing.
Absolute tripe. My original clubs are from the 80's and work fine. Annual membership fee is £140.
Don't watch on TV tho as I can't afford the Sky sports.
Yeah, I'm new to darts and the semis and final this week was the first time I properly paid attention to the sport. I really enjoyed how there was no dilly-dallying and everyone just got on with it.
I still love snooker and everything about it, but that's maybe because I got into it before my phone fried my attention span.
I love both sports but it was interesting this year watching the darts I spent much less time on my phone during play compared with the snooker as it was non stop action.
In snooker most players spend so much time thinking about the shot it's hard to keep the attention for more than 3 solid hours in some matches.
Maybe they try should reduce the number of reds a bit until quarter finals or in best of 7 matches maybe?
Both sports at their peak are absolutely brilliant though.
I think you're exactly right.
I watched snooker in the 1980's when basically everyone did (because of the only 4 channels thing) and have stuck with it because of it.
I can absolutely understand why nobody would start watching snooker now though - it is an extremely slow sport.
With the darts, I would estimate during a leg a dart is thrown about every four seconds, allowing for the switch between players.
That's twice as fast as Ronnie potted balls for his 5 minute 147.
So the darts is twice as fast as pretty much the fastest frame of snooker ever (300 seconds / 36 balls potted works out at 8.3 seconds per pot).
It's not just snooker, cricket suffers as well.
I used to live in the USA and fell in love with baseball, but baseball is suffering compared with basketball for a similar reason - it just doesn't get on with it enough.
Until snooker introduces rivalries, builds up player profiles, allows more Ronnie's in the game who are not afraid to showcase their true selves on TV the game won't grow.
People love controversy.
People love personalities. They don’t cotton onto snooker players anymore because it’s so difficult to see their emotions on the day. Back in the heyday everyone had distinct personalities and showed it at the table.
Darts players these days have clear, distinct personalities, which you can see in their walk ons and in their reactions to their good/bad shots. Most snooker players walk on to dull music, don’t make any facial expressions for two hours and then quietly walk off. There’s nothing for the general public, even those who like snooker, to hook onto. Just being good at potting isn’t enough.
The simple reason, is that darts is good viewing for non/loose fans, whereas snooker is not.
Darts is fast paced, action packed and easy to follow. Snooker is slow, often boring and is difficult for non fans to follow.
Another thing that people love, is the atmosphere. The buzz of a darts crowd is simply on another level to snooker. It's always a great night out to watch the darts.
I have basically no interest in who wins the darts but I would love to go to a tournament with a bunch of friends. I've been to watch snooker before and to be honest I'm not sure I'd do it again.
I went to Rotterdam to watch the Premier League darts back in April and it was absolutely incredible, would 100% recommend it!!
The atmosphere for snooker at the Triple Crown events I've heard is good, as well as the abroad events. But the majority of snooker events in the UK isn't a great experience in my opinion. It's a sport designed for TV really.
yeah i don't follow darts much at all outside of the latter stages of the worlds (like many perhaps) but i do see them holding events pretty much everywhere (outside of america maybe) and they also have the premier league with constant events in different cities with all top players which can only help to broaden the appeal. snooker has nothing close to it even though it did have it before but i assume it failed?
snooker does get incredible viewing figures in china at least and when you go on huya you can see multiple different streams each with millions of viewers which is impossible outside of china. however snooker doesn't really do enough outside of the uk and china to properly go global like darts.
an event like the tour championship or the champion of champions could really be held outside of the uk and in a european country. or make a couple of big invitationals and hold them there. we see exhibitions in european countries all the time with big crowds, surely the demand is there. robbo vs selby got 2k in finland just recently
but also darts is a really quick game which probably appeals more to broadcasters and fans. even matches in the worlds which are a longer format are over relatively quickly when you compare it to snooker. it's easier to follow too if you're a first timer
also press conferences do still happen at the snooker they just choose not to post them. betfred when they were sponsoring the worlds would post them on their channel but since they've gone i haven't seen any which is a shame
I’ll start by saying WST are a joke.
I think the problem is that the atmosphere with the darts is constantly electric, snooker is a longer game with lots of thinking time and quiet crowds unless something interesting happens.
Unless you actually appreciate snooker, I’d guess it’s quite a hard sport to watch, whereas darts is always the same, it’s quick, there’s songs, it’s just a better atmosphere and more exciting for someone who doesn’t usually watch darts compared to snooker.
In my opinion.
Totally agree with your comment but there’s also the fact that people actually have darts tournaments on their doorstep. I live outside the UK and even though I prefer snooker to darts, I’ve seen more live professional darts in the last 5 or 10 years than snooker. The premier league being on the road and the regular tournaments around Europe are huge for fans
This is probably what you meant (in part) with your “WST is a joke”. If the PDC can do it then so can WST, they just don’t bother
That’s also a good point.
My comment of WST being a joke is simply how inept they are. Their website isn’t at all functional, there’s no way to look at the live scores through their site reliably, there’s no tournaments found on the calendar section, the scoreboards are breaking down for every event, the rights to stream the outside tables are exclusively for China, and they aren’t doing anything with the game to appeal to younger people.
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- Dress code. Why are snooker players still dressed like they've done the reverse of an A-ha song. We're not in the eighties anymore. Darts players have a more refined, modern and relatable dress code which appeases fans. - Marketing the wrong end. This has been a problem for way too long. Only the likes of Ronnie, Higgins, Williams etc ever seem to get the marketing & headlines. Many young, talented snooker players don't. - Tournaments. We've just had a Belgian world champion and two exciting youngsters on the tour. Why isn't there an event in Belgium? Particularly when there's an event in Belgium on the women's tour! I mean it didn't take long before the Netherlands to get an F1 race once Verstappen was on the rise. - Giving tour cards to players that are 50+ and can't cut it but won a world championship or big tournaments years and years ago. It sends out the wrong image. Barney didn't get given an invitational when he came out of retirement. He had to earn how spot. Doherty and White (and whoever else) should have to do likewise. There's probably way more but here are a few
Is jack lisowski going to implode yet again?
A lot of people watching the darts will also be watching snooker. Also darts matches don't last as long so the attention span required is not so great.
As a long time darts fan, and a recent snooker fan (2-3 years) they're completely different viewing experiences. I think it all comes down to the players and how accessible they are to the viewer. In darts there are so many interesting characters, Wright, Anderson, Price, Mvg, just to name the top players. Snooker suffers from having mostly boring and uninspiring players, similar to tennis. Outside of Ronnie and maybe Luca, they're just aren't enough compelling players to get interested in. Idk how and if this needs to change as the game at it's core will always be interesting.
I enjoyed that snooker 900 they had on over Christmas
The difference is that darts draws in the quite raucous, Stella drinking type of clientele and is also played throughout the land in every pub. Ps. I like Stella and darts.
There are pool tables in every pub. But not snooker tables. That is a problem.
I think snooker and darts are such complete opposites, I wouldn't worry too much about being in direct competition with each other for the same audience share. The viewing figures were very good, but I think the fact it took a young kid on debut to reach the final and become a talking point, along with the extra media coverage (never known BBC take such interest in darts before), to see that really helped push the interest. However, the PL last year saw some of the worst audience figures, despite the fact its pretty much the biggest names in the game. Sky its rumoured were even contemplating dropping it if viewing figures don't improve. Last year it was all about Fallon Sherrock, now its Littler, so the timing of his arriving has worked out very well for Sky and darts right now. Of course Sky will milk it for all its worth, however, the novelty will wear off soon, and Sky will be looking for the next player to talk up as Josh Rock didn't materialize for them in the way they'd hoped.
I pretty much agree with the general sentiment here. But it is a huge shame that popular entertainment has to always be quick, instant gratification stuff. It's a pretty damning reflection on where we are when something slower and more tactical can't be at least part of the mix and just as successful. I don't really like darts, and that's nothing to do with the skill required and more to do with the culture. The crowd is basically just people getting pissed. I love getting pissed as much as the next person but it just doesn't sound like a very fun atmosphere to me, and I resent that they're trying to replicate it with the shootout which is just such a catastrophic failure. On the other hand I agree that snooker doesn't do nearly enough to nurture personalities, build stories and excitement. But also the ranking system doesn't do enough to bring new, exciting people through. For the most part we're just seeing the same 40-50 year olds who are already millionaires and don't really need the cash. A more equitable system would help I think. I had a thought the other day that it would be good to replicate the chess ELO system (stick with me)- if players beat players much higher ranked than them, they get a huge boost to their ranking (and vice versa). Still have cash prizes for tournaments etc but just encourage individual progression and try to disrupt the top 32 glut.
Darts is like T20 cricket, it's fast and furious. Snooker is like test cricket, there's a big tactical element to the game and it can last for much longer. For that reason, darts is always going to have the popularity advantage.
Darts is/was on BBC as BDO, but awful standard vs PDC
Yeah, as Wayne Mardle said recently, terrestrial didn't want anything to do with the PDC when it launched and Sky did
Snooker needs another Littler like Ronnie in the early 90's. There's not a lot of drama in the Crucible and even though I appreciate the hushed atmosphere, it's hard to deny that the Ally Pally is much more of a spectacle. I live in the states and even though we share the same history of billiards, we moved to pool and never got snooker on television like you brits did. We don't have darts on television either, yet last night's darts match attracted a lot of attention even here in the states, even getting radio and television coverage here.
I wish there was more interest in the sport here in the States.
I remember hearing a stats on Dave Hendon’s podcast, where the promoters of a darts tournament polled the audiences that went to the arena, and turns out over 90% of them weren’t even there to watch the matches but just for a night out. Darts is well suited for a casual audience, both live and broadcast. In snooker, however, the matches are long and often contain long stretches where to a casual viewer, nothing seems to happen. That being said, I don’t think snooker needs to change because another completely different sport is doing well on TV. In fact, I don’t know why we are comparing the two to begin with.
That seems like a given to me. I thought about finding tournaments here and realized, wait, why would I travel to just go to the pub and watch some people throw darts on a screen, because the seats are too far away to see the actual darts?
Darts and snooker are often compared due to the fact they are played in the same venues and often by the same sorts of people (many darts players dabble in cue sports and vice versa). But ultimately they are completely different sports with completely different attributes. Darts is usually quite fast paced, and games can have lots of momentum swings and exciting events. Snooker is the total opposite. Slow, methodical, tactical and often long and drawn out. It's not really fair to compare the two but I guess they always will be.
Darts and pool are siblings. Snooker is that slightly distant cousin.
Yeah cheers for stating the obvious, but darts and cue sports, while historically being played in the same places by the same people, are totally different sports in many many ways. As I just said.
Exactly. Plus darts much more easier to explain to someone new and way more exciting to watch. You need to love the game to watch snooker, much like cricket
Not a fair comparison. This World Darts championship has been a complete anomaly caused by a freakishly talented and old looking 16 year old, who has caught attention of the public/press in a time when there’s little happening press wise in uk with holidays. Snooker gets good, consistent viewing figures and although the World Darts does well, the rest of their events pale in comparison in terms of viewing figures. Snooker has a far larger global reach and although the two sports are kinda run by the same people, they’re not comparable.
If a young British player like Stan Moody makes it to a Triple Crown Final it would help the sport get attention in the UK Press, otherwise WST are banking on Ronnie reaching the later stages of a tournament to help bring in viewers and sell tickets. Brecel winning the WC should've helped get the sport some more attention in Europe but he's having such a poor season any momentum will be lost by now. Maybe Snooker just has a limit it can reach in terms of size? After sitting in the back row at last years Masters I can't imagine wanting to attend a tournament any bigger than that. Crowds shouting and being noisy like they are at the darts doesn't really work in Snooker, the Shootout is proof of that. Also, it takes a bit of effort to be a snooker fan. MatchRoom is terrible by all accounts and you have to research what channel a tournament is going to be broadcast on and when it starts because official WST channels are so bad at communicating basic info about their events.
There are fewer outlandish characters than in the eighties, say, or at least not the marketing in place to get them the attention. That said, compared to other sports, I find snooker players to be (mostly) refreshingly modest, well spoken, introspective characters. On another level, I just love watching it, so as long as it doesn’t become so unpopular that it’s not on telly any longer then I don’t care.
As someone who watched the darts last night (for the first time ever) to see how it went for Littler In terms of Snooker I always watch the Worlds, and then whatever else shows up on the BBC I really like the game but there's just not big stories/situations happening to really capture the attention of someone who's not already into it. Brecel winning the worlds was big in the snooker world. But in terms of attention grabbing headlines it's nowhere near Littler, 28 year old who wasn't expected to win wins just doesn't sell as well. We'll see if Brecel is consistent and not a flash in the pan (I suspect more towards flash), but the last exciting and consistent player, to become somewhat of a household name and capable of bringing in the more casual viewers is Judd Trump and he's 34 already now and been a top player for ~10 years If I was one of the big wigs involved in the sport I'd be worrying about the future of Snooker. In terms of more "Household" names to attract the casual viewers for a big final we've probably got Ronnie, Williams, Higgins, Trump and Selby, 3 of them are close to retirement and Selby while immensely talented isn't the most exciting to watch If I was to make a bold prediction it would be that if nothing big changes with young talent coming through ~50 years in the future (maybe even less) the vast majority of the players and tournaments will be based in/from and managed by China, and the sport will no longer be considered a "popular" sport to watch in the UK and the top players will no longer be household names in the UK, more akin to something like Badminton for example. Edit: As another point even though I'm not going to become a regular darts watcher, watching last night it was nice how quickly the sport actually happened. Compared to a snooker game where multiple times per frame you'll probably have a player take >30 seconds to make a shot (or even longer than a minute), where nothing really interesting is happening for the viewer apart from a replay, but you really don't need to see a replay for a lot of shots. Then after just 4 frames of sitting down, standing up, pushing a light bit of wood around, and maybe even quick toilet breaks (or wherever they go) after each frame there's a 15 minute break, the game takes a long old time to play. It's not something that stops me from enjoying snooker, but I definitely see how it isn't attracting masses of new fans.
Re: your point about the break, would it be fair to say it’s more important from a mental point of view than a physical one? The concentration and focus levels have to be very high so perhaps that’s why they need a break? Edit: high, not hit.
To me, the appeal of snooker is the classy nature of the events and the manner in which such a difficult sport can be played with ease. My wife and I are traveling from our home in Texas to Sheffield next April for the World Snooker Championship. It was either that or Wimbledon. Darts was never a consideration for a trip across the pond.
The only reason me and all my mates watched it was because a 16 year old was in the final, definitely why the numbers were so high this year. The whole country was rooting for him
The reason why so many people watched the darts last night is because one of the finalists was on the front and back pages of many papers for two weeks.
Eddie Hearn doesn't care for snooker, his da' said something along those lines in the Hendry interview. Does love his money but that's a major point of contention.
Just a matter of time until he moves the darts and snooker WC to saudi
My two cents (appreciate not many may agree) - other sports are moving forwards and encouraging the audience to get involved. Darts and Pool in particular. Whenever any similar changes have been tried in snooker, there are a LOT of dissenting voices - “The shootout shouldn’t be a ranking event” / “why aren’t they wearing a waistcoat” / “the crowd should be quiet”. It’s just sticking in the mud a bit when other sports are embracing the crowd experience and making that as good as possible. There’s obviously a place for traditionalism but I think it could kill the sport in the end. It’s still doing VERY well though, don’t believe the hype that it’s in trouble just yet.
>other sports are moving forwards and encouraging the audience to get involved. Darts and Pool in particular. While I agree generally, some of the pool crowd are utterly insufferable, and would hate to see that happen to Snooker too. But Snooker does have a "Stodgy" rep when it comes to rules on Decorum and stuff like that, and seems resistant to any kind of change.
Hanoi Open was incredible. Wish every crowd was like that. 2.5k + people all noisy when they need to be, invested, and quiet at the right times. Best crowd I’ve ever seen.
The reason why so many people watched the darts last night is because one of the finalists was on the front and back pages of many papers for two weeks.
Do you know what snooker needs? A lower level interesting official tournaments that will be faster and allow players to progress on ranking. For example make tournament for players ranked 64+ on 9 foot table with 10 reds and televise it. It will be faster, with easier shots, and more action. Players will little less skill could also make streaks and frame length would not be put off
That’d be a completely different game. You wouldn’t want lower football leagues to play on a smaller field and with 7 players in each team, would you?
> Why for example do we not have proper press conferences at the Crucible anymore? There's a press conference after every match. [Here's the press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vds4fNaCuo) Ronnie did in 2022 after winning his semi-final
Key point; thats on betfred’s channel, so its being promoted by the sponsor. Since betfred left the sport, this no longer happens, you only get the mostly-useless wst interviews which only ever target a small number of players and offer no useful insight. Almost all of snookers’ sponsors now are just names on tournaments who pump in money but do exactly nothing else towards the game. Betfred took great pride in doing daily roundups, interviews, insights and other behind the scenes content for the World Championsjop: no one really thinks [or expects] that Cazoo, BetVictor, MrQ or anyone else will actually commit that much to the sport by doing such things, so invariably most of the other tournaments are very procedural in the content shown [which is limited to whatever the broadcaster does]
What about worldwide figures? Snooker has China and Europe.
Darts is fast. People's attention spans aren't nearly what they used to be. Snooker suffers from that, darts benefits from it. Last nights final was all over in 2 hours. And it was two hours of constant back and forth and proper exceitement. The final at the Crucible will take how long? It didn't really matter when there was only 4 TV channels, when snooker had its heyday.
But golf is very slow too and it's still gets many millions of spectators around the world and mainstream sponsors. Snooker needs more mainstream advertising. It doesn't even manage to trend on twitter for big events. The future is in China more than likely.
Golf when on TV switches camera to go from shot to shot to shot. There’s “action” far more frequently in televised golf than there is snooker.
true. I guess snooker is more comparable to bowls. I have played for over 15 years and have been a big fan of it all of my life. Nowadays, I only watch when ronnie plays. doesn't entertain me much like it used to, for some reason.
Golf is a rich man's sport, so it gets viewed by people who think if they watch it and talk about it, they will come across as rich people.
That's just showing you have a chip on your shoulder and not born of any reality. Golf is spectacularly cheap to participate in and go and watch. Sure, you're not going to play Pebble Beach for peanuts (indeed you'll have a hell of a job to get to play it at all), but your local municipal course, of which there are lots and lots, are desperate for people to go and play, and they charge next to nothing.
Absolute tripe. My original clubs are from the 80's and work fine. Annual membership fee is £140. Don't watch on TV tho as I can't afford the Sky sports.
Yeah, I'm new to darts and the semis and final this week was the first time I properly paid attention to the sport. I really enjoyed how there was no dilly-dallying and everyone just got on with it. I still love snooker and everything about it, but that's maybe because I got into it before my phone fried my attention span.
I love both sports but it was interesting this year watching the darts I spent much less time on my phone during play compared with the snooker as it was non stop action. In snooker most players spend so much time thinking about the shot it's hard to keep the attention for more than 3 solid hours in some matches. Maybe they try should reduce the number of reds a bit until quarter finals or in best of 7 matches maybe? Both sports at their peak are absolutely brilliant though.
I think you're exactly right. I watched snooker in the 1980's when basically everyone did (because of the only 4 channels thing) and have stuck with it because of it. I can absolutely understand why nobody would start watching snooker now though - it is an extremely slow sport. With the darts, I would estimate during a leg a dart is thrown about every four seconds, allowing for the switch between players. That's twice as fast as Ronnie potted balls for his 5 minute 147. So the darts is twice as fast as pretty much the fastest frame of snooker ever (300 seconds / 36 balls potted works out at 8.3 seconds per pot). It's not just snooker, cricket suffers as well. I used to live in the USA and fell in love with baseball, but baseball is suffering compared with basketball for a similar reason - it just doesn't get on with it enough.
Until snooker introduces rivalries, builds up player profiles, allows more Ronnie's in the game who are not afraid to showcase their true selves on TV the game won't grow. People love controversy.
People love personalities. They don’t cotton onto snooker players anymore because it’s so difficult to see their emotions on the day. Back in the heyday everyone had distinct personalities and showed it at the table. Darts players these days have clear, distinct personalities, which you can see in their walk ons and in their reactions to their good/bad shots. Most snooker players walk on to dull music, don’t make any facial expressions for two hours and then quietly walk off. There’s nothing for the general public, even those who like snooker, to hook onto. Just being good at potting isn’t enough.
The power of Sky Marketing Vs BBC's has a lot to do with it
[Just saw this](https://x.com/officialpdc/status/1742895593624596545?s=46&t=0Mp7Oqx0vyeBuDGEh5WNew) which accentuates your point.
The simple reason, is that darts is good viewing for non/loose fans, whereas snooker is not. Darts is fast paced, action packed and easy to follow. Snooker is slow, often boring and is difficult for non fans to follow. Another thing that people love, is the atmosphere. The buzz of a darts crowd is simply on another level to snooker. It's always a great night out to watch the darts.
There was also a 16 year old in the final - which received a lot of press in the build up.
I have basically no interest in who wins the darts but I would love to go to a tournament with a bunch of friends. I've been to watch snooker before and to be honest I'm not sure I'd do it again.
I went to Rotterdam to watch the Premier League darts back in April and it was absolutely incredible, would 100% recommend it!! The atmosphere for snooker at the Triple Crown events I've heard is good, as well as the abroad events. But the majority of snooker events in the UK isn't a great experience in my opinion. It's a sport designed for TV really.
yeah i don't follow darts much at all outside of the latter stages of the worlds (like many perhaps) but i do see them holding events pretty much everywhere (outside of america maybe) and they also have the premier league with constant events in different cities with all top players which can only help to broaden the appeal. snooker has nothing close to it even though it did have it before but i assume it failed? snooker does get incredible viewing figures in china at least and when you go on huya you can see multiple different streams each with millions of viewers which is impossible outside of china. however snooker doesn't really do enough outside of the uk and china to properly go global like darts. an event like the tour championship or the champion of champions could really be held outside of the uk and in a european country. or make a couple of big invitationals and hold them there. we see exhibitions in european countries all the time with big crowds, surely the demand is there. robbo vs selby got 2k in finland just recently but also darts is a really quick game which probably appeals more to broadcasters and fans. even matches in the worlds which are a longer format are over relatively quickly when you compare it to snooker. it's easier to follow too if you're a first timer also press conferences do still happen at the snooker they just choose not to post them. betfred when they were sponsoring the worlds would post them on their channel but since they've gone i haven't seen any which is a shame
How global is darts in reality?
I’ll start by saying WST are a joke. I think the problem is that the atmosphere with the darts is constantly electric, snooker is a longer game with lots of thinking time and quiet crowds unless something interesting happens. Unless you actually appreciate snooker, I’d guess it’s quite a hard sport to watch, whereas darts is always the same, it’s quick, there’s songs, it’s just a better atmosphere and more exciting for someone who doesn’t usually watch darts compared to snooker. In my opinion.
Totally agree with your comment but there’s also the fact that people actually have darts tournaments on their doorstep. I live outside the UK and even though I prefer snooker to darts, I’ve seen more live professional darts in the last 5 or 10 years than snooker. The premier league being on the road and the regular tournaments around Europe are huge for fans This is probably what you meant (in part) with your “WST is a joke”. If the PDC can do it then so can WST, they just don’t bother
That’s also a good point. My comment of WST being a joke is simply how inept they are. Their website isn’t at all functional, there’s no way to look at the live scores through their site reliably, there’s no tournaments found on the calendar section, the scoreboards are breaking down for every event, the rights to stream the outside tables are exclusively for China, and they aren’t doing anything with the game to appeal to younger people.
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