World Grand Prix move to Hong Kong part of plan to reduce UK's snooker dominance

07/11/2024 10:22 AM

The World Grand Prix is likely to leave the UK for the first time since it arrived on the World Snooker Tour calendar in 2015 and that looks set to be a sign of things to come in the coming years.

Talks are at an advanced stage for the tournament to be held in Hong Kong this season, in the new 10,000 seat indoor arena at Kai Tak Sports Park, which is still under construction.

Official confirmation of the move to the new venue is yet to arrive, but WST are ‘very confident’ that it will happen, in what would be a big step for the event which has been held in Leicester, Cheltenham, Coventry and Milton Keynes in recent years.

This is part of a plan to spread the sport across the globe a little more fairly as the World Snooker Tour is still mainly based in the UK.

Last season there were 23 professional tournaments held in the UK, with just seven abroad across China, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

This season there are 20 events currently on the calendar, although with more to be added in the near future including the Grand Prix and World Masters of Snooker, with 13 in the UK and seven elsewhere.

This is getting closer to a 50-50 split, which WST say is the target in the short-term, with the potential for more events to be abroad than in the UK in future.

A WST spokesperson told Metro: ‘You’ll see going forward, the Grand Prix being a great example, less events in the UK at smaller venues. There’s no room for us now to keep doing stuff in smaller places.

‘We’re looking to shift to a 50-50 model in the near future. By 2026/27 it should be 50-50 and it might even go beyond that, which is what it should be really. So there will be fewer UK events but they’ll be world class.’

New events overseas have joined the calendar this season, with the Xi’an Grand Prix in China and the big-money Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters coming up next month, both for the first time.

Where there has been decline, though, is in Europe where there is only the German Masters on the calendar this season, one event down from last season which saw the European Masters also hosted in Germany.

With the 2023 world champion being Belgian and hugely popular exhibition events held in the likes of Finland and Bulgaria, the presence in Europe is disappointing.

However, WST insist they are ‘always looking at Europe’ and ‘desperately trying’ to expand the tour across the continent, suggesting that the current Home Nations series could be expanded internationally in the coming years.

‘It could be, hypothetically, that the Home Nations could become a European series with perhaps Edinburgh, Belfast, Finland, Poland and it becomes a completely different event,’ said a WST spokesperson. ‘We need to move away from relying on the UK market.’

As for the World Grand Prix, confirmation is expected in the coming weeks on the venue, dates and TV coverage, with talks ongoing on all fronts.

Hong Kong is the likeliest destination, but dates in January and March are possible and whether ITV4 will continue to televise the event is still being discussed.

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