BARRY HEARN: LEGACY AND WORK LEFT TO DO

The last couple seasons have been tough for every sport, and the World Snooker Tour did a fantastic job on putting together so many snooker events and leading the way of sports resumption. However, things will be a little different when the next season begins - after the longest break between seasons we've had for some 10 years! Fact is that one of the biggest characters in the sport won't be around for as much as he used to be: Barry Hearn has retired (even though he'll keep an advisory role at WST) after 10 years as the president. 

He'll be replaced by his friend and long-time business partner, Steve Dawson. 

Barry Hearn's legacy

Firstly I would like to thank Hearn for all he did to snooker. Controversial at times, yes - but yet he was simply the most important person in the history of the sport's business, and even if you consider the actual players you'll hardly find anyone more impactful than him in the game.

In the late 70's, as so well pictured by BBB's Rack Pack film, Hearn managed Steve Davis' career and from the business standpoint he changed the way the sport was seen. Snooker became the UK's most popular sport in the 80's and Hearn was the man behind that.

Years went on, Barry became less active in the sport and snooker was brought to stagnation. That changed, again, when Barry Hearn became president of the World Snooker in 2010 and simply changed the game - 11 years on snooker has become one of the world's most popular sports, weekly on TV with hundreds of millions of viewers. In ten years snooker went from 7 events a year to nearly 30, season prize money went from around £ 4 million to £ 15 million and the sport is as popular as ever.

In the beginning of his job as World Snooker (name since changed to World Snooker Tour) chairman, players, journalists, fans and myself included had a lot of critics to his job. Shorter matches, worse playing conditions and even "too many" events are some of the arguments used. Now we see the result of his effort, we all feel more thankful to him. However, there's always work to do and here's what I think the new boss has to look after:

Resume Globalization Plan

No other sport grew as much as snooker did around the world in the past decade. However, in the last few years snooker has not visited new places as it was doing early in the Hearn era. Every new event added to the tour is either in the UK or China, what tells that World Snooker Tour has prioritized money over their work to spread the sport's popularity. Places like South America, Portugal, Australia are examples of where World Snooker Tour staged events before but no longer do.

There's already been announced a new event in Turkey for the next season (September-October), and that's somewhere snooker has never been before. I don't know how much Steve Dawson was involved in it, but that's a great start.

Also there's the World Cup, that had some three fantastic editions in 2015, 2017 and 2019. This year it was supposed to be held as well but it wasn't, maybe for it being in Wuxi (China) given the current situation. Nothing was said about it, but a 10-year deal was made in 2019, so I hope the event will resume in due time.

Online Streaming Deals

TV is the most important thing about a sport's popularity. Whether it's TV as we grew up knowing or online platforms. Snooker's 10-year deal with Eurosport made the game unavailable for anyone who was out of Europe or China for a couple years - until World Snooker Tour managed to get some of their own events' rights back to have it available on online platforms for other locations.

If you don't live in China or Europe, you can watch some events on Facebook, DAZN or Matchroom's streaming service. The latter though, is the worst paid streaming platform I know (lack of client support, constant website errors and usually not working). Unfortunately at the moment, the most reliable way of watching snooker online is via illeagal streaming.

It's not for nothing that major sports decide to make annual deals instead of long-term ones, so they can have more control of how and where they want their events to be broadcasted. The commitment to Eurosport is valid until 2026, so Steve Dawson might not even be able to touch that in his current mandate, but Barry Hearn's worst deal made as WST president will have to be looked at more carefully next time.

BBC Deal

World Snooker Tour's current deal with the BBC (which includes the Triple Crown events and the Welsh Open) expires in 2024. 

BBC have been with snooker since grassroots, and to have a brand as strong as their's with the sport I'm sure is very important. In terms of coverage, even though they're so big, you have more and more fans liking Eurosport's or ITV's job better. A decision will soon have to made.

I'm sure BBC will want to stick to snooker as they did last time. They lost too many sports and they won't want to lose snooker. There's the money side of things too of course, and I feel like BBC stuck with snooker mainly because the structure to broadcast snooker is much cheaper than other sports. However, the rights of snooker events are only getting more and more valuable, what means that maybe BBC decides to leave it. I feel like if they want to pay for it, they better have it - again, despite their finnancial struggles, their brand are great credentials for snooker events.

Modernization

Traditionalists fear this word, but I can't remeber this topic being so strong in the game. Judd Trump's latest remarks about how he feels the game should move forward has got people talking about all sorts of things. From dress codes to shot-clock.

Even though I consider myself a traditionalist for many things, dress code is an example of something I wouldn't mind changing. I agree that waistcoats doesn't look "cool" anymore as they did when they started being used by snooker players. I got used to them as everyone did, but I can remember that one of the first things that caught my attention when I had my first contact with the main tour was why players had to wear these clothes. 

I wouldn't mind a change in that, some events lately have had different dress codes, either not needing the waistcoat or players even having polo shirts on. Personally I would like to see the players looking cooler and more authentic in the arena. I understand this is not an urgent matter, but that would be a welcome change that wouldn't affect the game at all - it would just take a couple seasons and people would get used to it.

Olympic Bid

Football's g.o.a.t. Pelé is the latest big celebrity to ask for snooker to be included in the Olympics. The recent growth in investment on the women and paralympic tours are clear actions to increase Cue Sports' chances. That of course, is more a WPBSA's job than WST's, but taking care of the most popular cue sport makes WST's job crucial for the dream to be achieved. Globalization, amateur game and popularity are things that I'm sure Steve Dawson will look at and to me, these are the essential pieces of the puzzle. 

I wouldn't say it's a work to be done left by Hearn, but Dawson might be the man in charge of WST when cue sports get added to the Olympics so I couldn't not mention this.

This is it for now. I want to thank all the readers we had during the World Championship a couple months ago - and I tell you they were many (we hit nearly 60,000!!). I'm looking forward to the next season and watch this space because I have the pen ready!

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