2016/17 season Preview

Well, after my 2015/16 season Review, now I'm gonna look forward for what is going to happen in the next season of Snooker, one that I'm so excited for... I'll show you why.


No more PC's

Of course we all loved the European Tour and Asian Tour events, but the fact we won't have more of it this season doesn't mean the calendar will be "less busy" or that it's a step backwards the Sport is taking. In fact, that's a step forward, the tournaments will be seen as Ranking Events now and they'll be independent, I'd say they'll be more respected. Some of them will keep, some of them simply won't be played anymore. We all knew how big the Paul Hunter Classic was, felt like a Major Event inside the European Tour series, but there's no need to worry about it, it will still be played but now orginally called Paul Hunter Classic instead of European Tour - something.
The "Players Championship Grand Final" will keep to be played and now will be named only "Players Championship". It was based on an Order of Merit list from the PC events, but now it will be like a shortened version of the World Grand Prix, with 16 instead of 32 places, it will count with the best positioned players in a Ranking List that counts only the events played in the ongoing season till then. It reamains a Ranking Event, played on ITV screens.
And as I've said before the end of the PC's doesn't mean a fresher schedule, the calendar for next season actually have 27 events, not counting the Championship League, which we don't know a lot about it's format and venue for this season.


Shoot-Out will be a Ranking Event

Recently, World Snooker announced the Shoot-Out will be a Ranking Event for the first time next year. The ITV televised event is played under a format where the - knock-out - matches last one frame or a maximum of 10 minutes, with a 15 seconds shot-clock in the first five minutes, and a 10 seconds shot-clock for the last five.
The reaction from the players was very negative, and I agree with most of them. The event involves too much luck, you can't think properly when under a Shot-Clock and the crowd is noisy, also if someone makes a 20 break it's simply so heavy, you'll have just a few minutes to turn this around having only 10 seconds to decide what to play. Also we have many flukes, because the players play more aggressive shots as they don't have much of time to think about it, and then the chance of a fluke when you play a powerful shot is bigger; And of course, as I've said before if you can manage to make 20 points out of the fluke you're big favourite for the match. You can also simply play someone who makes a winning break off your break-off and go out after playing one shot. It have different rules as well, like every shot you play a ball must hit a cushion or drop in a pocket, otherwise it's a foul, and any foul results in ball-in-hand. So you can play a shot quickly and unluckly go in off and then your opponent will have a ball-in-hand that if he manages to make 16 points from he's got the match pretty much under his belt.
Don't get me wrong, the Shoot-Out is great fun and good for the sport as it attracts new fans, but it's just too many points given to a tournament that is at least 95% all about lucky. Even in best-of-9 matches people say anyone can win, what about a 10-minute shoot-out? The proof that luck is the crucial part of the Shoot-Out is that never a player from the Top 16 have won it, and I can't even say you can change your game and "prepare" for the Shoot-Out, as no player ever made the Final twice.
Of course that's a big confidence booster, Michael White won the Indian Open in 2015 one week after winning the Shoot-Out, but every frame/match is 50/50. I think the reason for it becoming a Ranking Event is that now that it's on free-to-air television they want more Top Players playing it, but Barry Hearn's argument is that if every player is eligible, then it's worth Ranking Points (next year all 128 players will be eligible, different from the previous years with 64 invites). But I think it's just too many points on it, the winner this year received £32k (Must increase for next year), that's 1k less than John Higgins received for reaching the Quarter-Finals of the World Championship this year, something he achieved not relying on luck at any point and had to win win 23 frames to do so (The Ranking is based on £ earned). Also, if it's a Ranking Event because everybody has a chance, the Champion of Champions should be a Ranking Event as well, because although only 16 players are invited, tournaments that have a CoC place up for grabs are open to everyone. Fair to say as well that it's unfair calling the Shoot-Out champion a Ranking Event winner considering the image that a Ranking Event in Snooker has.


Home Nation Series

The Home Nation Series will be a fantastic addition to the calendar, it'll be a combination of 4 events, 1 tournament in each of UK's countries. The already existing Welsh Open will join the new Irish Open, English Open and Scottish Open, the Welsh Open keeping on the BBC and the new ones on EuroSport.
They'll all be Ranking Events, and a fantastic thing for Scotland and Northern Ireland, countries that love Snooker but haven't seen much of it in the flesh throughout the last few years. It's great that Snooker is coming back there and will be rediscovering their appreciation for the Sport.
An interest point about this Series is that if a player wins all them 4 tournaments he'll receive a £1m bonus apart from the prize money he would have received in each of them. We all know it's highly unlikely for a player to win 3 events in one single season, so talking about winning 4 and these 4 being all the events of the Series, with a small extra pressure of a £1m prize, it's as close as it can get off the "Impossible".
It's going to be intriguing though. Will be interesting to see if Ronnie O`Sullivan will play them, I don't think anyone else have a chance to win them all, and even Ronnie's chances are microscopical. Anyway this £1m bonus won't count in the World Ranking, which is based on the Prize Money list.


Selby as Reigning World Champion

It's a fact that for the last two years our World Champions haven't had a dream post-World Title season. But I think it's gonna be different now, Selby knows what it's like and this time will be able to cope with the high expectations. Plus he's a very difficult player to beat, his safety game is very strong and his attitude is sort of "annoying" for his opponents, he's the kind of a "Grinder". So if he's not in full flow, he'll be making the later stages of tournaments, and if he's in full flow he probably is going to win them. He's not in great form and he wasn't scoring very well at the Crucible this year, he'll be the first to admit that. But winning the World Championship fixes it all, he'll delete whatever is going wrong inside his mind and will practice with immense happiness knowing that it all pays off in the end.


Prize Money Increases

It's just as it is, you don't have a big Sport in your hands if you don't offer your players money, a good amount of it. I'm not saying they're mercenaries, but nobody is going to incentivate anyone to do something that you won't be able to make a living from it. And if you can be rich, then better!
And once again Barry Hearn and the World Snooker team got to be congratulated, they're increasing the Prize Money every year and this year we've had significant jumps.
The World Championship's prize money not long ago was £250k (nothing bad anyway), this year it was £330k and next year it will be £375k, growing for a fantastic £500k in 2018. The overall season prize money will be the the £10m Barry Hearn promised when he took charge of World Snooker. Snooker is one of the biggest Sports of the World now, talking about Global reach, and it's fantastic that so many more players and people working on Media are being capable of earning good money with it now.
Most of our players come from a generation where Snooker was a forgotten Sport in the UK - and I don't blame them, but maybe they aren't professionals enough sometimes, and don't take it as serious as it is. That's why most of them still struggle with our new formats and keep moaning. But that's changing for the next generation, we can already see this in Kyren WIlson for example, they know they're getting into a huge global Sport.


New Contracts

This is the most excting part of this Preview post in my opinion, Barry Hearn had some fantastic announcements for us during his 2-parts press conference at the Crucible.
Firstly, he announced a 10-year deal with EuroSport, which is fantastic, they've been so helpful for the word wide growth of Snooker in the past few years, it helps a lot when your events are on a famous TV channel every week for a whole continent. And I'm sure Snooker is not the only winner in this deal, TV Channels don't usually make long deals what means for me that Snooker is giving EuroSport an amazing feedback. The 10-year contract includes not just the Home Nation Series events, but cameras in every table to watch whichever match you want online, and the Qualifiers, which is a great news, how many other sports have Qualifying events on TV? And it's fair to say the World Championship Qualifiers in the great Arena of Ponds Forge is one of the most exciting events on the Snooker circuit.
Then our Chairman announced a new 2-year deal with BBC (until at least 2019); Which is fantastic as well, because it's great to have our biggest events under the brand of BBC, World's second biggest TV channel, and I also find their Snooker broadcast superb. It's not flawless, but I love their studio action and commentary team, plus all the segments and stuff. Their Snooker footage as well is something special. And obviously that comes in a time where BBC is leaving many Sports because they want to "save money", what shows Snooker's value.
Hearn also announced a new 10-year deal for the World Championship to keep in Sheffield (until at least 2027), which is the best news of them all. The Crucible is where the World Championship belongs, you might move it for a bigger place but you'll never have the atmosphere you have at the Crucible neither you can't buy history. The city of Sheffiled earns a lot with tourism during the World Championship, and watched by +350 million people, it's already one of the World's biggest events, so many other major cities and countries, principally China, wanted to "steal" the World Championship so I'm glad those speculations will be over. The World Championship isn't a transitory event, it's established at the Crucible and people must know it.
Betfred sponsorship of the World Snooke Championship have also been extended, until at least 2019. I must admit I'm careless about sponsors, but it's good that Betfred has renewed the sponsorship deal with World Snooker, beacause they do a great job with the World Championship, they help in it's divulgation and give it the importance it deserves, differently from some of the title sponsors we had in the last few years.
Back talking about TV coverage, BBC and EuroSport aren't the only channels broadcasting Snooker, quite a few others do it in China and a few other countries. But I wonder about Sky Sports, which only coveraged the World Seniors Championsip last season and reached the end of their contract. I haven't heard anything on a new deal with Sky and the World Seniors don't feature in the 2016/17 season calendar so I think for now Sky Sports is quitting Snooker. We're also losing Fox Sports by the looks of it, they used to broadcast the Australian Open, another event excluded from the Calendar for this season, and I also haven't heard anything on a new deal with them. Of course as many channels showing Snooker, better; But I'm not sure if it was a loss for Snooker or for Sky and Fox, I mean, with the new multi-millionaire deals Snooker have made with the BBC and EuroSport it must have been a loss to Sky and Fox, maybe Snooker rights aren't as "cheap" as it used to be. Well I can say I'll agree with every deal Barry Hearn or Jason Ferguson make, they've given me reasons enough for it; And however, another prove that Snooker's audiences have been very big is ITV, a free-to-air channel that didn't broadcast any Snooker event in 2012 and now have 4 events included to their programme.



Suggestion

Well I've said before that there are few things I can argue against World Snooker or WPBSA, Snooker has advanced so much globally in the last few years, this year only in China 210 Million people watched the World Championhip, and of course this Blog is written by a Brazilian 😄.
But maybe it's time to rethink about the Final of the World Championship being played on a Monday. I know the World Championship is played in England and the first Monday of May (when the Final takes place) is a Bank Holiday there, if it was the UK Championship I'd understand but the WORLD Championship, a global event, is something that should be in a good time for everyone to be able to watch. The World Championship Final haven't always been played on Monday, it used to be on Sunday and I think it was fine, it's okay if the World Championship begins on a Friday evening, fill the free mornings we have in a few days and then finish on a Sunday, it could well be considered as the Sport is viewing new horizons. However I don't know how much influence BBC has on that, maybe they have better audiences on Monday. It might not be easy to change but in my opinion to have the Final on a Sunday is something every Global event must have.

Happy New Season!

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