“The people that have run snooker over the last 20 years have run it into the ground,” Higgins told Radio Five Live. “There’s no way back for the game now.”
The former world champion added: “Even darts is more popular with the public.”

There is the sponsorship crisis which threatens to split the Snooker Championships into two. Ken Owen writes:

Worst of all, it threatens the sorts of splits that can ruin a sport. Formula 1 seems to have perpetual crises with threats to form rival series. Darts is already split, so you have the anomaly of watching Sky and the BBC promote different “World Championships”.

If snooker tries to control the earnings of its players so closely, it risks a rival World Championship being created. And as Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Ken Doherty are rumoured to be among those most irritated, it is not as if such a tournament would lack credibility.

Snooker is followed seriously in a few countries in and around Britain. Countries like India and Pakistan have been gaining interest in the sport. However, to market itself solidly, snooker first needs to sort itself out.

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