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How much coverage does pool get on US TV? Is there any snooker coverage?

B

BMR

After soccer, snooker is probably my favourite TV sport. In the UK, Snooker is still a pretty big part of the TV schedules, although nothing like what it was in the mid 80s, when both BBC and ITV covered several tournements a year. The world championships in April/May still get a lot of coverage on BBC 2 and there is full live coverage of the semis and the final match. I don't think we'll ever see 18 million people tuning in again like we had for the 1985 final frame, but audiences still go into 7 figures.

Which got me wondering. How much coverage does pool get over there? Is in on the main networks at all, or tucked away on cable? Do any channels show snooker? I don't think we've ever had a US Snooker professional, although there have been a few Canadians.

If anyones interested, here are a few youtube links of UK snooker coverage.

The final frame in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78rgfQYDjxo
'When snooker ruled the world' BBC doc about the sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYMEwHPtOo
13 hours(!) long, the 2017 final to dip into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV4eQaVnv3c&t=155s
 
At this point cushion billiards, Pool, Duplet and Snooker are only seen on Youtube if you live in the USA. Various Youtube Channels are airing Billiards but its true in the past that here in the USA that ESPN 2 used to air Billiards before they got replaced by various sports/talk shows. 9-Ball Billiards especially once had lots of attention on ESPN2 in the late 1990's to 2005 approx.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XqlFfXyunQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKxb1lRw1gI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVxj6YQ1XIo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhGHrajRydg
 
BMR said:
After soccer, snooker is probably my favourite TV sport. In the UK, Snooker is still a pretty big part of the TV schedules, although nothing like what it was in the mid 80s, when both BBC and ITV covered several tournements a year. The world championships in April/May still get a lot of coverage on BBC 2 and there is full live coverage of the semis and the final match. I don't think we'll ever see 18 million people tuning in again like we had for the 1985 final frame, but audiences still go into 7 figures.

Which got me wondering. How much coverage does pool get over there? Is in on the main networks at all, or tucked away on cable? Do any channels show snooker? I don't think we've ever had a US Snooker professional, although there have been a few Canadians.

If anyones interested, here are a few youtube links of UK snooker coverage.

The final frame in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78rgfQYDjxo
'When snooker ruled the world' BBC doc about the sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYMEwHPtOo
13 hours(!) long, the 2017 final to dip into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV4eQaVnv3c&t=155s
Click to expand...

I stumbled upon snooker on an offshore streaming site several years ago and was hooked immediately. I had a subscription ($6 a month) to World Snooker's streaming service for a couple of years, but they sold the internet rights to EuroSport two seasons back and North American fans were not allowed to subscribe, So I now watch YouTube for delayed coverage and one of those dodgy offshore sites for live action.
 
Well if snooker were to start in the USA they would have to have a startup league in the country with few players like less than 100 people for the first years. Then they will have to aggressively have to form meet up groups in the area that has the most players, then marketing and producing top rated YouTube videos would have to come into play to gain some traction though.


Its also going to need its own version of Comic-con festival if snooker is to survive in the USA.
 
RadioPatrol said:
Well if snooker were to start in the USA they would have to have a startup league in the country with few players like less than 100 people for the first years. Then they will have to aggressively have to form meet up groups in the area that has the most players, then marketing and producing top rated YouTube videos would have to come into play to gain some traction though.


Its also going to need its own version of Comic-con festival if snooker is to survive in the USA.
Click to expand...

It is becoming very big in China, which has a star player and several very good ones on the World Snooker tour. That's probably where an American snooker movement would start, in the Chinese-American community. I don't think there are enough British expats in this country to make a go of it, and in most of the places that have had lots of people immigrate here (Latin America, Japan, Russia, Southeast Asia), snooker is virtually unknown.

Two major problems here: The tables are 12 feet long and take up far too much space for inclusion in pool halls, let alone home basements. And matches between beginners or other less-skilled players can be interminable. Even the pros play marathon matches, but that is mainly due to their superior defensive skills, whereas a match between amateurs with little training would be a quagmire of missed shots and fouls.
 
BMR said:
After soccer, snooker is probably my favourite TV sport. In the UK, Snooker is still a pretty big part of the TV schedules, although nothing like what it was in the mid 80s, when both BBC and ITV covered several tournements a year. The world championships in April/May still get a lot of coverage on BBC 2 and there is full live coverage of the semis and the final match. I don't think we'll ever see 18 million people tuning in again like we had for the 1985 final frame, but audiences still go into 7 figures.

Which got me wondering. How much coverage does pool get over there? Is in on the main networks at all, or tucked away on cable? Do any channels show snooker? I don't think we've ever had a US Snooker professional, although there have been a few Canadians.

If anyones interested, here are a few youtube links of UK snooker coverage.

The final frame in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78rgfQYDjxo
'When snooker ruled the world' BBC doc about the sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYMEwHPtOo
13 hours(!) long, the 2017 final to dip into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV4eQaVnv3c&t=155s
Click to expand...

Well there's a Snooker talent named Judd Trump. He is viewed as one of the best stars though among fans if that sport though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zjIpL8QiK7E
 
CTListener said:
Two major problems here: The tables are 12 feet long and take up far too much space for inclusion in pool halls, let alone home basements.
Click to expand...

Yes the table size is an issue here, which is why the average run of the mill UK pub or bar will have a pool table rather than a snooker table.

To play snooker you need to visit a snooker club which you'll find in most medium and larger sized towns.

Despite this it's snooker that has become the televised sport. Or perhaps it's because of this. Snooker is seen as a sport, pool as an accompaniment to a night in the pub, something to do for fun after a few beers.
 
I seem to recall that pool enjoyed some popularity on TV back in the late 60s, early 70s. Minnesota Fats was a big deal in those days - Jackie Gleason played him in The Hustler (1961) with Paul Newman playing a young pool shark.
 
LKellerIII said:
I seem to recall that pool enjoyed some popularity on TV back in the late 60s, early 70s. Minnesota Fats was a big deal in those days - Jackie Gleason played him in The Hustler (1961) with Paul Newman playing a young pool shark.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he and Willie Mosconi had a rivalry that eventually played out on TV. I think Mosconi got the better of Fats -- who was a better showman than pool player -- over the long run.

Women's 9-ball got a lot of exposure on ESPN a couple of decades later, thanks to a talented (and attractive, which, whether you approve or not, has always been a factor in decisions to cover women's sports) player named Ewa Mataya. For a while, the women's game was pretty much all you saw on TV.
 
Efren Bata Reyes the 8-ball and 9-ball pool player in the Philippines has taken lots of fame in Billiards in that country. He's the most recognizable athlete in that country after Manny Pacquiao.
 
RadioPatrol said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4nmZdWPFvk

Update Judd Trump Vs Bingham are in the Snooker finals.
Click to expand...

Excellent match, some fine play by both. Even edited, that best-of-17 match went 4 1/2 hours and could easily have gone 6 had their play not been as crisp. I'm afraid this is a sport few Americans, and zero American networks, would have any stomach for. Matches in the World Championships -- which are a minimum of best-of-19 frames, with the final contested at best-of-37 -- can be split over two or (in the case of the final) three days. I find it fascinating, but by and large, a single sporting contest of that grotesque length is something only a patient people like the British could watch. We Yanks generally don't understand the appeal of waiting 90 minutes for a goal, or even a shot on goal, or taking five days -- at 8 hours a day -- to determine the outcome of a cricket match, either.
 
RadioPatrol said:
At this point cushion billiards, Pool, Duplet and Snooker are only seen on Youtube if you live in the USA. Various Youtube Channels are airing Billiards but its true in the past that here in the USA that ESPN 2 used to air Billiards before they got replaced by various sports/talk shows. 9-Ball Billiards especially once had lots of attention on ESPN2 in the late 1990's to 2005 approx.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XqlFfXyunQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKxb1lRw1gI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVxj6YQ1XIo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhGHrajRydg
Click to expand...
If you're lucky, you might find some stuff on Twitter as well (Yes, Twitter)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8rVu9GKZEs

Here's an interesting pool game though its called Blackball pool its when one team must pocket the red balls and the other team pockets the Yellow Balls and the 8 ball is last however this billiards game is a variation of 8-ball in the USA where one team gets the solid color balls in the pocket and the other team pockets the stripe color ball and 8 ball is last.
 
RadioPatrol said:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3cn-foKjoYc 9ball round

Yes Pan Xiaoting a 9ball legend takes on a Snooker champ Ronnie O'Sullivan in Billiards version of battle of the sexes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0SPNVuPvKIQ
Here's the Snooker round
Click to expand...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umCP0r5wcUs

Interesting to note Pan Xiaoting has done battles of the Sexes in Billiards before but in that case it was with the mens 9-ball and 8-ball champ Efren Reyes of the Philippines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v8agw-s19g

Efren Reyes did another of that too in a later date.
 
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