• New shorter format to be trialled
• ‘Very positive response’ from players
Fewer balls, six-minute matches and moving its world championship around the world – snooker is about to undergo its own Twenty20-style revolution.
The sport’s governing body is going to launch a new short form of the game, provisionally called “Super6s”, at the world championship later this month. Each frame would have the same number of colours but only six red balls.
Sir Rodney Walker, the chairman of World Snooker, also revealed yesterday that he would consider moving the world championship from its traditional home at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre with Manchester or China a potential new host, and in a further move to increase the game’s popularity he also wants a major shake-up of its ranking system, with the creation of more less-important tournaments.
The Super6s will be trialled with a contest between a legends team of former players-turned-pundits and rising stars away from the main Crucible arena, where Ronnie O’Sullivan will be defending his title. It will be broadcast digitally by the BBC and viewers will be invited to offer feedback.
“As an observer of snooker you cannot churn out the same diet year after year,” Walker said. “Look at what Twenty20 has done for cricket. It brought in a whole new audience so what we have in mind we think would be appealing to a younger audience. We’ll ask them to tell us what they think of it via the red button. The working party who looked into this thought that a six-ball tournament with matches that take an average of six to seven minutes to play, with maybe the best of five, best of 10 frames [could work].
“We think it would give players other than top-rank players chances of winning because once you get on the snooker table with fewer balls, other people might have a chance.”
Walker added that many of the sport’s prominent players had been consulted and there had been “a very positive response”. There was also a similar reaction, he said, to the idea of revamping the ranking system through the creation of more minor tournaments which carry “less ranking points and lesser prize money” so that players could select when they compete.
“What I want to do is completely rehash the way it works – give much higher ranking points to competitions like the World Championships [and other] fully prized events, but then look at putting on low cost ones that carry fewer points and lower prize money,” he said.
“Having discussed it with a number of players there’s quite an appetite for that, providing we can put on tournaments with something to play for.” This, he said, would allow players greater flexibility. “Consider golf, where you can opt in and out because by not taking part the consequences are not that great. But you wouldn’t opt out of the tournament that carries five times as many ranking points.”