Barry Hearn paints bleak future for poor old Crucible but it's not all about the money

05/22/2024 11:28 AM

Barry Hearn appeared to hammer another nail in the coffin of the Crucible as home of the World Snooker Championship, claiming the Sheffield theatre is ‘past its sell-by date’.

The debate over the future of the event raged during the recent World Championship, with Hearn sounding set on a move away from the Crucible to either a fictional, much bigger arena in Sheffield or to pastures new and bountiful elsewhere.

The current contract runs until 2027 so the World Championship will reach its 50th anniversary at the Crucible, but the way the President of Matchroom Sport is talking, it could be 50 and out for the iconic venue.

‘We’ve got to live in the real world. There comes a time where people, things, businesses become past their sell-by date,’ Hearn told talkSPORT, before making a pretty big claim.

‘The Crucible is past its sell-by date. We love Sheffield, we’ve brought billions and billions of pounds of investment into Sheffield via China etc. We’ve played our part. Not just the footfall, over 500 million people watched the World Championship this year globally. 40 per cent of those are Chinese.

‘What we’re saying is, for the sport to be bigger, we’re going to be judged by prize money so my job is to commercialise sport so players can see an escalating prize money level and have more chance to change their life through sport, which is the whole reasons why, in my professional opinion, people play sport.

‘The Crucible cannot cope with more than about 850 tickets, I could sell 5,000 tickets a session and I’ve got 40 sessions. All I’m saying is boys, it’s been fabulous, but it’s like the Olympics, I’m not a fan. I think it’s a wonderful achievement, but try and eat a medal. In all sport it does come down to money, whether we like it or not.’

No one is questioning that more tickets could be sold elsewhere if the World Championship moved from the 980-seat Crucible, but 5,000 for every session is fanciful stuff.

The final, sure. Any match Ronnie O’Sullivan is playing in, okay. A handful of other matches, yeah. But even the old master of promotion is not getting 5,000 through the door for Rob Milkins vs Pang Junxu or Tom Ford vs Ricky Walden, two examples of first round matches at this year’s World Championship.

The issue of the crowd is where some suggested moves really fall down. Saudi Arabia is being touted as a possible destination for the World Championship, but there is absolutely no way Hearn is getting in the same ballpark of his 5,000 tickets-per-session in the Kingdom.

The World Masters of Snooker, the sport’s first venture to Riyadh this year, was reportedly a sell out, but if everyone did turn up they were very convincingly dressed as empty seats.

The crowds did emerge for the O’Sullivan’s matches, as they do wherever the Rocket lands, but not so much for anyone else.

Hossein Vafaei, who was a memorable critic of the Crucible during this year’s event, is open to moving elsewhere but only if a good crowd is on the cards, which is not necessarily the case in Saudi.

‘They have lots of good facilities over there [The Middle East] and I’m sure if the tournament moved to somewhere around there everyone is going to enjoy it,’ Vafaei said in Sheffield.

‘But can you play in front of no fans? This is the problem as well. For me fans are important, I respect the fans, they are the reason I am playing this sport. I’m a performer, I love to perform in front of the good fans. If the tournament moved to Saudi Arabia and no one is watching it? I’m so sorry…’

Judd Trump has flipped and flopped on the subject, admitting he can’t come to a firm conclusion, but agrees that the claim on ticket sales would need to be followed through for the event to move elsewhere.

‘I’ve changed my mind about 10 times now,’ he admitted. ‘I think they either keep it as it is or move it. I don’t think they should knock the Crucible down or build something else. I think they move it to a different city or keep it as it is. It’s tough. I think there’s no right or wrong decision.

‘I’d like to maybe see it in London [if it did move]. You could get 5,000-10,000 people for the final in London. I’d like for it to go somewhere where you’d know there is going to be a good crowd.’

Hearn is keen to make the point that his only duty is to the players and that duty is to make them as much money as possible.

The biggest pot of gold available is in Saudi Arabia, with the country continuing to build itself as a sporting hub and Hearn saying: ‘The money they pay is something I've never seen in my lifetime.’

Certainly it is enough cash to convince the 75-year-old that money beats history, something that he was far from convinced about when in 2017 he said: ‘On my tombstone will not be written “this is the man that took the World Championships away from the Crucible”, it’s staying and it don’t matter how much is involved.’

Now with the vast riches on offer elsewhere, Hearn says of those who want the Crucible to remain the home of snooker: ‘Life’s not a level playing field, quite frankly. It’s just traditionalism. Everybody feels that what it is, it should stay.

‘Traditionalists who buy tickets to my events are five per cent, the casual people that buy tickets are 95 per cent. That 95 per cent are uncomplicated and want to watch the best in the world.

‘Traditionalists will stay at the Crucible even if there was one other person in the audience. Live in the real world!

‘My employers, if I have employers, are the sportsmen and women we promote. I’ve had these top 16 players in snooker saying they don’t want to leave the Crucible because of the history, but if I say I’ll make the prize money five times what it is now and ask if they want to go to Saudi, every single one of them would.

‘My sportsmen and women look at me and if I don’t supply the prize money that they want then someone else will.’

That final line from Hearn is of interest as it acknowledges threats of outside forces and current partners.

A running thread during the World Championship was the possibility of a breakaway tour and World Snooker Tour making changes to keep hold of their top stars.

There is, of course, also the possibility that not working with the mega-rich Saudis – and other powerful investors – could lead to them poaching the best players for their own events. Fans may resist a shift in power in snooker, but the alternative may be a more fractured and splintered game which would be much less to their liking.

Money does talk and maybe Hearn is right that players who remain dedicated to the Crucible would change their tune with a suitcase Riyals in front of them, but any suggestion that the top 16 are unanimously in favour of a Saudi switch right now is not accurate.

Certainly some are up for a new venue, notably O’Sullivan, but newly crowned world champion Kyren Wilson told Sky Sports he hopes the event ‘never moves’ and before his Crucible crowning said the same.

‘I get why people are saying go elsewhere. You could get more prize money elsewhere, you could get more fans in elsewhere, but I think it would lose its appeal a little bit.,’ Wilson told Metro.

‘The tightness, the compactness, the edginess of the Crucible, I think that adds to the test of being a world champion so for me, I hope it stays.’

His predecessor as world champion is of the same opinion, saying: ‘It's a difficult one because normally I love change. I love different formats, different locations, but I think the Crucible, it has to stay.

'I love change, new waves, but the Crucible is different, I think it has to stay. It's special, I think it should stay. It's magic to everyone, everyone knows about the Crucible.'

Maybe Hearn’s quest for maximum bunce will win out, but it is not just fans who are doe-eyed traditionalists, some players still see the value in sport outside of cold hard cash.

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