YOUNG AUDIENCE IN SNOOKER
"I don’t feel like the tour has really improved over the past few years and I am getting a bit too involved in it and maybe a bit down about where the game is heading [...]
“It’s just been a bit of slowdown of the growth of snooker over the last few years and more needs to be done to appeal to the whole crowd. More needs to be done to warrant the younger players coming through. Every year it’s getting older and older.”
That quote is from World #3 Judd Trump, who'll be playing the semifinal of the Champion of Champions against Mark Selby on Friday.
It is great that someone as high profile as Judd is speaking his mind out looking after the sport's growth and how it can reach a wider public. In the past couple years Trump has pointed out things that he'd like to see changed in the sport so that it could be more attractive, which were endorsed by many, and some real actions have been taken - for example, last year saw a dramatic change in the dress code for the Champion of Champions, which is one of the most prestigious events on tour.
I quite like the idea of playing around a bit more with dress codes, I've been saying for a long time that I don't like waistcoats very much. Most players don't like playing on them, and I don't think they have looked any cooler since the 80's. However, most of my friends that like snooker would disagree with me on that - it's not easy making changes, and it shouldn't be, lest we mess it up!
But would changing how the sport looks make such a big difference when it comes to reaching younger audience?
I look at snooker as a sport that's not "naturally" attractive to kids, like Football or Tennis for instance. And that's because people don't seem to be having fun while playing snooker, but that's just the nature of the game, you do actually have a lot of fun playing snooker (at least I do), but that's when you understand the rules and all the skills behind it. Answer it yourself, how did you get involved in snooker?
It's the same as Chess in a way, it's a quiet indoor environment that doesn't look like much fun to kids until they get involved and learn it. Most are brought in by their family or friends, like I was when I fell in love with it.
You can't simply "modernize" snooker around that, the sport has its essence and it's not struggling because of that. In snooker's fellow cue-sport, Pool, matches are shorter, music plays in the background, crowd is noisier, and yet it's nowhere near snooker in popularity.
We often hear there's less young talent coming out of the UK now, but numbers in junior events around England, Scotland and Wales are still great; in China millions of kids play snooker at school; and in Brazil where I can see it up close, kids do get involved too.
As Judd mentioned, there has been a "slowdown of the growth" for the past couple years, but there were greater circumstances in the World that led to that and, like I said, the sport's own nature doesn't appeal to the young crowd - and it never has, even in the 80's when the sport was the most popular in the UK the main reason for that was color TV (yes there was Pot Black, Alex Higgins and all that, but it was the arrival of color TV that boosted the sport).
In my view snooker has to be brought to kids, and of course there are ways to help that. Cue Zone into schools, exhibitions, coaching sessions for kids at the club... I know that WPBSA has done a lot of that throughout the years, but how wonderful would it be to see a star like Judd Trump taking part in a project like that?
Suggesting change is an important right of the players, and I'm sure Judd does it with the best intention at heart. But the star players could do much more than that - it's OK wanting to play in bigger arenas wearing comfortable clothes and featuring on TV shows, but we don't see the top snooker players promoting activities with kids such as the top footballers and tennis players do. I'm not blaming them and, again I must say that I truly believe Judd Trump is speaking out because he wants improvement, and we can take a lot from what he says, but reaching a younger audience is indeed a challenge for snooker and we could all do a bit more about that.
Comments
Post a Comment