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Billiards Launch Campaign To Vie For Spot On #Paris2024 Olympic Sport Program @Billiards2024 @BoulesSport2024 @WorldSquash

A bid by Billiards to join the sports program at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was formally launched Friday during a ceremony at the Eiffel Tower in the French Capital.

World Snooker and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association launch campaign for inclusion at the Paris 2024 Games at the Eiffel Tower (WSF Photo)

The bid is supported by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker…

The excellent snooker photographer and Ronnie fan Monique Limbos usually writes about Ron’s latest adventures on her blog (often with photos and videos), but in this post she goes a bit further afield with a decently comprehensive collection of the effects of the 128 flat draw and other decisions that betray Bazza’s declarations of a “level playing field” as a priority motivation. I don’t necessarily agree with all of her hard-earned opinions, but I agree with many of them. She’s done a good job laying out what’s kind of a mess. 

I didn’t say anything here about this tweet from The Chairman, but I’m picking it up now based on revelations today that might un-skew the choice for players.

Let’s back up a sec. As you know from the previous post, I have thoughts about making the Snooker ShootOut a ranking event, and so have players and fans alike. The complaints became even louder after Dave Gilbert lost out on progress and valuable ranking points when cheering crowds were blamed for the red allowing Xiao Guodong to score a winning pot after the shot clock had run out. So Bazza made the announcement shown above on Twitter, with WPBSA head Jason Ferguson confirming the vote must be done by all 128 players. 

This choice is not one anyone wants. The overwhelming opinion in all the complaints is to keep the ShootOut, but remove its ranking status. Bazza has been strongly inferring, though, that this is the choice at least set up by the ShootOut broadcaster ITV (now through two years of a three-year contract). 

As well, there’s been some conflation with a demand ITV does seem to have made to begin the ShootOut on a Thursday and surrendering part of Saturday due to a scheduling conflict. 

Adding to the suspicion is his continued reference to the ranking ShootOut having greater commercial value, using recent ratings to back that up. (It’s worth noting Sky is cable/digital and ITV4 is free.) 

HOWEVER, this morning, in response to Snookerbacker talking about what many of us assumed from the choice, a fan revealed that ITV had denied to him that they had specified the ShootOut be a ranking event, and SB confirmed that with the ITV4 team of pundits.

(Update March 7: Here’s the email itself.)

Indeed, looking again through Bazza’s responses, he has not said that ITV “dictated” the move, but that it was a “partnership”.

(Yes, everyone wins except Dave Gilbert and people who respect the rules of snooker.) 

So where does this leave us? Bazza may not have been exactly lying in laying out the choice to players, but the players may have slightly more of a choice than they may have thought they had. That choice has not been established by the current broadcaster of the ShootOut, but by World Snooker itself. And they can be fueled by the knowledge of the rhetoric that set up the situation they thought they were in.

Hi, again! It’s Masters time! Since we’re all gathered around again for one of the major events on the snooker calendar, I thought I’d blather out a bunch of crap I wrote recently.

This week saw the debut of World Snooker Opinions, an official World Snooker site where anyone can register (please don’t be super-accurate with all your personal info - do you really trust WS with that stuff when they can’t do a decent draw?) for the privilege of being given surveys about the state of snooker. Evidently, there are points you can earn for prizes and exclusives and whatever, and WS is ultimately trying to build up a database to exploit however they see fit, but it is pretty impressive they’re actually asking fans and maybe those more involved in the sport for their opinions in an official capacity. For anyone vaguely interested in the sport, I recommend you give it a whirl - I suspect this will be like players attending the AGM, in that now if you spout off to Bazza and Jason, they’ll likely ask you if you’ve joined WSO to do something constructive with your opinions, and if you haven’t, they’ll dismiss it as idle moaning. 

So in this first survey, you get asked a lot of general questions about your experiences with snooker, like what three words come to mind to describe what snooker means to you 🤔, how you got involved, and particularly how you watch pro snooker and get news about it. But near the end, there’s this. 

Well well well. 😂 So with a little time on my hands at that moment, I decided this was an opportunity for me to lay out BASICALLY EVERYTHING I think World Snooker could do to help the sport. Not like I believe any of this stuff will get done anytime soon if ever, but if you follow me on Twitter, you know that aside from talking about players’ clothes and hair, I have a few basic themes of discussion - what has gotten my attention over the mere several years I’ve been a snooker fan and what issues get my passion going. So I thought I’d share what kind of ended up being a sort of manifesto of what matters to me about snooker. You don’t by any stretch have to agree with any of it (though I really don’t want to have debates about it either 😊) and it’s in no way more important than anyone else’s opinions about snooker (unless you’re an asshole), but this is just sort of me, snooker-wise, and take it as you will. 

Ready? Buckle up... So the question was, “Is there anything World Snooker could do to better support snooker?”

- Promote *internationally* every possible way to watch *every* professional tournament - all broadcasters, all (legal) online sources, all means of watching in-person - as early and consistently as possible.

- This includes promoting all WS/WPBSA tournaments more actively on a local basis, collaborating with local associations and media, giving fans information on getting to venues.

- Make deals with more broadcasters or narrowcasters, even if modest. Whether locally or around the world, when you do not give us options, we create our own.

- Stop hindering personal, non-commercial livestreams (Periscope, Facebook Live) of matches that are *not viewable through any other means* by people who are not attending (as long as the streaming does not interfere with play).

- Show respect for players not only with improving prize money and playing opportunities, as you have done, but by actively fostering better communication with them through whatever means they are most comfortable using, including social media. (Again, when people are not satisfied with the options you give them, they create their own.) They have given their lives for this sport, and they are your product. While you cannot cater to their every whim, be more understanding of issues they bring to you and each other seriously, especially regarding the quality of play and their livelihood - I think some of you can tell the difference. The Chairman's disrespect of players reflects as badly on the sport as anything negative the players may say.

- As players are your product, ramp up the progress you have shown getting people to know more about more of the players, particularly those who are less well-known, younger, lower in rankings, or from different countries. You have interesting people with interesting stories - let us learn more (while still respecting what the player would be comfortable with). Also keep commentators informed so they can do the same.

- Consider reducing the number of players on tour (not including wildcards and top-ups) from 128 to 64 at the least. A sport relying too much economically on its players paying for the privilege to be included is a snake eating its tail.

- By the same token, employ people who can work hard to acquire a greater variety of sponsorships. Learn tactics and strategies of people, like those in China and Europe, who have been successful in that regard. Relying too much on gaming companies is dangerous in various ways.

- Strongly consider a minor and/or amateur league/tour in the UK, to foster and encourage the next generations of players in a challenging 21st century environment. "Snookerbacker" and Shaun Murphy have presented you with the most comprehensive plan in this area in the past couple years. Take the initiative, though not entirely the credit.

- Remove the new Ranking status from the Shoot-Out, leaving it the fun (when you don't try so hard to make it seem fun) showcase for players that it is.

A blog comment believed to be made by Les Barton of the SPA about other comments made on The Snookerbacker Blog regarding Joe Jogia's withdrawal due to injury from this weekend's Shootout match versus Matthew Selt. "Unusual" betting patterns for the match are being investigated by the WPBSA Integrity Unit. Joe's side is here. Snookerbacker removed two of the comments "which may have been misconstrued".

The legal implications of perceived slander in blog comments are a perpetual source of debate which has not been settled. Also, it appears the SPA, like many other organisations, would do well to get advice on proofreading and presentation of a professional image in social media.