Lack of big stars devalues the German Masters!

This week we're seeing once again the German Masters taking place in the city of Berlin. The beautiful Tempodrom arena holds a capacity crowd of 2,000 people and you will often hear players saying that this is their dream venue to play at and is, even above the Crucible, the best arena to play Snooker in the World.

However I think the Arena, the City, the Eurosport broadcast (which is very good for this event in particular) and the passionate German fans deserve a lot more than what they're getting lately for the German Masters. The last years have seen a lack of big names attending the event for various reasons. Firstly, the Qualifiers take place in a part of the year where many of the big stars are taking a short break from the table - after the UK Championship, just before christmas. And even from the players that turn up, some don't really switch on during the Qualifiers, because whether these Qualifiers doesn't feel like a "proper tournament" for them or they're not really too bothered with Snooker that part of the year. And then, even the players that work hard to qualify have to come through two matches and it's normal to see some surprising results now that the standard is so high down the Rankings.

The result of that is a big part of the top 16-32 not taking part in the German Masters. This year, only 9 of the Top 16 came to Berlin (and only 4 got through to the last 16). John Higgins, Ding Junhui, Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy are amongst the absences and though I've never come to the Tempodrom myself, I slightly think that there's been less people attending the event in the last couple of years - anyway even if that is a fact, other things can be the reason for low numbers of tickets sold apart from the missing of some big names.
Last year, it was the first time that a non Top 16 player contested the Final (both finalists were non-top 16 players by the way) - with the Runner-Up Luca Brecel never playing a Top 16 on his way to the Final and even failing to qualify for this year's event. The highest Break of the championship was a modest 125 from Judd Trump, the lowest Break to earn a tournament's highest break prize for more than a decade; And the 18 Century Breaks made during the main event last year were the lowest mark since the event was first played at the Tempodrom.

I'm not saying it's a low quality event and that I've lost interest on it myself. Naturally not, but the general public want to see the best players in the World in action and it's such a shame we're losing that at the German Masters.
At first place I think the qualifying system must change. It should be closer to the main event and if possible, pre-qualify the Top 16 even if it loses it's Ranking event status for it - if it's not working, fix it!

Another idea, and that's a bit more controversial, is using the Tempodrom for another tournament.
It's a waste for me really not to have a more important event played at the huge German arena. It should easily host something like the World Grand Prix or the Players Championship - then it'd keep it's Ranking status and would be guaranteed the participation of the big names.
However I'd go even deeper myself. It's undeniable that Barry Hearn has brought Snooker too far and it's now a proper global sport, popular in many different countries with the Main Tour travelling all around the World. Anyway I still think the Final step is yet to be taken: To be a global sport your main events need to be held in different areas of the planet, like Tennis - they have 4 majors: one in North America, one in the United Kingdom, one in mainland Europe and one in the far east.
Snooker has 3 majors, the World Snooker Championship, the Masters and the UK Championship, and all of them are played in England. Obviously, I think the World Championship should never leave the Crucible because it has become synonymous with the venue and there's so much tradition and history around it. Anyway, the UK Championship is clearly not working at the Barbican in York after it's format changed to the "flat 128" and I think it should move to China. It'd take some name changing but I think they have arenas that can support 128 players with no problem and are up to invest whatever it takes to "steal" one Triple Crown event. As for The Masters, it's going very well indeed at the Alexandra Palace in London, but I believe a tournament like that would be perfect for the Tempodrom - the crowd is passionate, the arena is fantastic and a 16-men event is all it needs.
With that, Snooker would have it's three Triple Crown events split: one in the UK, one in mainland Europe and one in the far east. I can only see that as a step forward and a fair move considering how much China and Germany have given to the sport.
I know, of course, that BBC wouldn't be too happy about that and that their broadcast is one of the biggest factors that makes those 3 events be what they are. My first suggestion to that would be to try and make BBC establish a partnership with local channels (like Eurosport does with the Chinese events), but if they don't accept that - what I think would be the case - I then understand that some sacrifices are sometimes needed and we have quite a few other television channels interested in Snooker these days.


What do you think? Is my argument reasonable? Anyway, thanks for reading and be sure you follow us on Facebook to be aware of everything going on around the Snooker world! 😉