Entertainment For Lively Minds
Snooker Is Dead - Official
If, like me, you were unfortunate enough to see any of the abomination that is 'Power Snooker' on ITV4 yesterday, I sympathise - if you managed not to see it, I deeply envy you.
I like snooker. It's a game of tactics and skill where, played at its best, a period of defensive cushion play can be as thrilling as a 147 break, if not more so - just like sometimes a game of football which finishes 0-0 can be more intriguing and captivating than a 3-0+ drubbing.
'Power Snooker', as far as I can tell, shares none of those attributes. It seems to be snooker for an audience which can neither appreciate nor understand snooker, a game which has been designed to obliterate the very element which gives the game proper its name - snooker for a Sky Sports darts-watching audience, if you will.
When Barry Hearn took over the sport, I immediately feared that he'd eventually ruin the game (favouring his 'boys'; crassly exploiting the commercial side of the sport; marginalising free-to-air broadcasters with an eventual aim of moving the prestigious tournaments to pay-TV, just like he did with darts) but the speed with which a previously classy and gentlemanly game is moving into the beery, loutish gutter both alarms and appals me.
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for an audience that doesn't appreciate snooker
Is that why Ronnie O Sullivan is so keen on it?
Read about it last week and went to the power snooker website and was confronted by the power babes or something. There appear to be scantily clad ladies shimmying about the tables and it made a point of stating that all the referees were female. Tragic indeed.
I sinncerely hope only the players and "babes" turned up at the O2
I just saw the final between
I just saw the final between Ronnie and Ding, after turning over by chance. It's certainly different, but it's worth a try. Got to move with the times here, people, and, as Ronnie said, they're in the entertainment business, so they have to give the people what they want. Power Snooker could be this generation's Pot Black. It doesn't really matter if it takes away from the dignity of the game if it brings in the punters. Anyway, it's only, what, one day a year?
Therefore, let's not start with the hand-wringing and wailing just yet, and give it a chance.
If you want a classy, gentlemanly game...
then you need to look at Billiards. My old Dad summed it up best when he said that snooker has always been a game for spivs and second-hand car salesmen. :-)
It's the equivalent of cricket's 20/20 game,
which is or isn't the end of the world, according to whether you think cricket is a strategic game played over a period of days or cricket is part of the entertainment industry and needs to put bums on seats to attract new fans.
20/20
has already peaked, thank God. With one or two exceptions, such as Somerset, attendances were way down this year.
Mark Wallace makes a good point..
Remember Pot Black.
The only exposure snooker had on TV in the 70's. On frame, one frame only. Apart from the final, which was best of three. Had to be in half an hour, no time for lengthy periods of tactical play, if they happened it was edited out. Maybe the Pot Black format should be re-introduced.
Proper tournament snooker is for the purists. Something with a bit of bang, crash and wallop is no bad thing. The 20/20 comparison is spot-on.