The 2024/25 snooker season has already commenced with Ali Carter rising with the primary title final week in Leicester.
The Captain triumphed within the rating occasion model of Championship League Snooker with a 3-1 defeat of Jackson Web page within the remaining.
It was Carter’s sixth profession rating success, taking him into equal fifteenth on the all-time winners checklist alongside the likes of reigning world champion Kyren Wilson.
Whereas it was a superb achievement and a tremendous begin to the brand new time period, there will likely be a giant part of snooker followers who wouldn’t have paid a lot discover.
With a monotonous, repetitive, and admittedly boring format, Championship League Snooker took 21 days to finish (over a 24-day interval).
There have been moments of pleasure, together with David Gilbert’s magnificent escape from his group in Stage One.
However by and huge, the match doesn’t supply a lot in the best way of leisure and is an uninspiring solution to start a contemporary marketing campaign.
It’s curious that it has successfully change into a practice to launch a brand new season with this occasion, given the way it hardly generates any publicity in any respect.
Okay, there’s a hole in the summertime schedule and the Championship League can simply fill that void – particularly when it’s so troublesome to organise venues and broadcasters.
But it appears unusual {that a} sport would readily select to start issues with a whimper, fairly than with a bang.
Right here then, in no specific order, are 5 doable tournaments that could possibly be higher suited to stirring up an instantaneous frenzy with followers.
Champion of Champions
Maybe the obvious higher choice to launch a brand new snooker season is the Champion of Champions.
The Champion of Champions has been a terrific match on the annual schedule since 2013, with Ronnie O’Sullivan a report four-time champion.
The invitation occasion boasts all the most important trophy winners from the earlier 12 months on the calendar.
Staging it firstly of the season, fairly than in its regular mid-campaign slot round November, would assure a lineup of all the prior season’s extra vital winners.
The lineup would comprise many of the finest gamers on the planet, which may be a more practical solution to entice supporters again following the post-World Championship break.
Tour Championship
As issues stand, the Tour Championship has change into the common penultimate rating occasion on the schedule.
Nevertheless, the truth that it’s staged simply earlier than the World Championship does go away it open to an anomaly of types.
The Tour Championship’s lineup is predicated on the one-year rankings, with the highest 12 from that checklist having certified for an absorbing version in Manchester in early-April.
However with the one-year rankings commencing firstly of a season, it implies that the large factors which might be on supply in Sheffield for the World Championship by no means depend.
One potential solution to repair this problem is to maneuver the Tour Championship to after the World Championship, the place it may act as an ideal solution to begin a brand new season.
Just like the Champion of Champions, it additionally ensures the involvement of a number of marquee names.
Shanghai Masters
This season, the Shanghai Masters has been moved from its acquainted slot in September to the center of July.
That makes it the second match of the 2024/25 snooker season, and there will likely be many supporters who ignored Championship League Snooker however will likely be returning to observe this competitors.
The Chinese language non-ranking occasion options the highest 16 from the official two-year world rankings checklist, plus the following 4 highest-ranked Chinese language gamers and 4 extra wildcards.
The Shanghai Masters is arguably China’s most interesting match – boasting a hefty prize fund, a superb ambiance, and all the time a tremendous lineup.
British Open
One constructive facet of Championship League Snooker is it ensures that each participant on the World Snooker Tour has the chance to enter.
That, in fact, is the case with all rating occasions, however with the reintroduction of the tiered qualifying system at loads of tournaments this season, the chance for these additional down the rankings to function on the venue levels has doubtlessly change into much more restricted.
That doesn’t essentially must be the case with the British Open.
This match is considered one of solely two on the calendar – the opposite being the Shoot Out – that comes with a random, FA Cup-style, draw for every spherical.
An occasion that doesn’t depend on rating lists and which most gamers and followers already get pleasure from, this could possibly be an attractive opener.
A world staff occasion
There hasn’t been a World Cup in snooker since 2019, when the Scottish pairing of John Higgins and Stephen Maguire secured glory in Wuxi.
The reality is that the newer codecs for the World Cup weren’t significantly pleasant, however that doesn’t imply {that a} new association couldn’t be.
The prospect of gamers representing their nations is usually passion-inducing, and that is an occasion that could possibly be staged in numerous nations with quite a few choices in mainland Europe particularly.
Don’t need a World Cup yearly? No downside. Flip it right into a biennial match with a unique worldwide occasion within the alternating years.
How about including a Ryder Cup impressed occasion between the UK and the Remainder of the World?
That actually could be a extra exhilarating solution to a begin a brand new snooker season.
Featured photograph credit score: WST
