18 MONTHS OF DAWSON
It's been a year and a half since Barry Hearn stepped down as chairman of the World Snooker Tour. Hearn was, as I said back then, the most important businessperson in the history of snooker and one of the most impactful people in the game.
But time goes by, and the presidential role of the professional tour was taken by Steve Dawson. Dawson was Hearn's "right-hand" guy, and is part of the Matchroom team. But he's not Hearn, and after 18 months in charge we have found out more about him and the way he goes about his business.
One of the great differences I think is that WST has become, under Dawson's chairmanship, much more open to try out new things and listen to the general public. Lately, it's been discussed by people around the game how the sport could look more appealing to the younger audience, and WST has taken action.
Different dressing codes were tried out, for example. A more casual look was adopted at the 2021 Champion of Champions - although many thought it was too casual, and slight (more welcome) changes were made to the 2022 event.
There's also been new events, such as the World Mixed Doubles this season which had a totally different look about it as to what we usually have in most snooker tournaments.
But I think the most positive thing has been the enhanced fans' experience at events. Apart from the World Championship, where Sheffield really takes care of the "fan experience" bit, a lot had been said about lack of value in attending snooker events. There's clearly been a lot of work done to that and, although there's more work to be made in many places, the main tournaments do have a revitalised feel about them. The UK Championship in York, for instance, had been suffering from critics as such and it was really losing its glory over the last few years, but the event felt totally different and rejuvenated this season. A lot of it, of course, was down to the return of the tiered system. Another thing that the public asked for and WST delivered, which paid off.
It's not all positives, though. There's been much concern about the World Championship potentially leaving the Crucible and that might be too much. I've written here before why I think the championship should never leave Sheffield, and preferentially it should stay at the Crucible Theatre. You can read it here if you like.
Some tour decisions are still not unanimous, either. Dawson has kept the Wildcard tour spots available for the "legends of the past" (in lack of a better description), for example.
The increasing amount of invitational events has also been criticised, and the qualifying structure for most ranking events still doesn't make much sense.
Playing qualifiers several weeks before the main event and normally in different cities, countries, or even continent to where the venue will be, has never made much sense to me. There's a lot of work to be done about that, and the adoption of the tiered system in most events could come as a nice solution.
The German Masters has been massively prejudiced by the current structure. The qualifiers back in England are held at a very bad timing, in between the UK Championship and Christmas. And although the Tempodrom in Berlin is one of the best snooker arenas in the World, it can only stage five rounds of the tournament, which creates the need of two previous qualifying rounds. As a result of that, there's been a "lack of stars" in the main event in Germany, which is a shame for they're such an enthusiastic audience and the tournament no longer feels as special as it once was.
Still on the topic of events, Judd Trump said recently on Stephen Hendry's YouTube Channel (which I highly recommend, by the way) that there are a lot of "pointless" events on tour. And although I think the main events have never looked better, I can't help but to agree with Trump on that.
I understand that the impossibility of holding tournaments in China at the moment has left many gaps on the calendar to be filled. But if you can't go there, you can't. However, WST should be focusing on enhancing and working properly on the tournaments that they can hold. As I write this text the Championship League is being played, and to me that's totally a pointless tournament to have.
Since lockdown many Championship Leagues were played before we filled the calendar again. And they certainly served their purpose. But this is already the second Championship League played this season and, as opposed to the first, this one doesn't carry any ranking point. It's not open to public either, it's not on TV, it's not very popular on the Internet, it's not open to all the tour players... it's hard to defend it, really. It would make more sense if the money and effort were spent elsewhere.
When the Championship League debuted on tour the calendar was very scarce, then it also served a purpose of being match practice to the top players for the Masters. But even the latter is not necessary anymore, since this season there's been other three events scheduled in between the UK Championship and the Masters.
If it's filling a temporary calendar gap as a Ranking Event it's alright, but the invitational version is the perfect definition of "pointless tournament".
Lastly, it can't go without saying that Dawson is having to work through one of snooker's biggest scandals ever, as former Masters champion Yan Bingtao was the seventh Chinese player suspended over match-fixing investigations. Very few details have been provided, and the rumours are many, so I think that to comment on that now would not do it any good. It's very sad for snooker to have young talent and high profile professionals being involved in such things, but it's impossible to completely erase such behaviour from the sport, so all the governing body can do is to investigate and take action.
When we see the end of it and get the knowledge of what really happened, we'll find out, however, if the disciplinary actions under WST's new management will be heavier or lighter than they used to be. There will be, though, a more appropriate time to approach this matter more accurately and fairer.
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