BBC SPORT | Special Events | 2000 | UK Championship Snooker

Recent political wranglings have hampered the development of snooker but Clive Everton believes new personnel and technological advances could finally spark new life into the game.

Snooker has more players in more countries playing to a higher standard than ever before. Its television profile is high. Its Internet future is bright.

Critics of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association cannot therefore understand why the sport cannot attract more corporate support.

Liverpool Victoria, who are in the last year of their contract to support the UK Championship, are the circuit's only non-tobacco sponsor.

Tobacco sponsorship is set to end by government decree in 2003, except for the Embassy World Championship, which has an extension to 2006. Even that extension includes a 20% year on year reduction of tobacco money.

Fortune

A change of fortune appeared imminent during the summer.

A new Internet company, The Sportsmasters Network (TSN) offered a �3.3m three year deal which would have embraced title sponsorship of four events: the Champions Cup, the British Open, the Grand Prix and the Nations Cup.

In addition, TSN's proposal included setting up and maintaining a WPBSA website - for free - and investing time, technology and manpower in covering WBPSA tournaments live on the Internet. TSN were to have 55% of the profits and WPBSA 45%.

Marco Fu
Chinese viewers enjoyed Fu's maximum break

Akin to missing an open goal, WPBSA failed to conclude the deal.

This raised the possibility that TSN might throw its financial weight behind a complementary or even alternative circuit under the auspices of the International Billiards and Snooker Federation, the governing body of the amateur and semi-professional game, with whom TSN already has a �6m ten year contract.

The possibility of such a split receded last month with the appointment of Jim McKenzie as WPBSA's managing director.

It was McKenzie's dismissal three years ago from a similar post by a regime under the chairmanship of Rex Williams, which initiated a bitter civil war within the sport.

Bridges

Rebuilding bridges with TSN is a top McKenzie priority, not merely in terms of sponsorship but because WPBSA may otherwise by left behind in the Internet revolution.

TSN's information website received 3.245m hits last month, but the most significant glimpse of the future was the live coverage it offered of October's Regal Scottish Masters.

An agreement for internet transmission of BBC Scotland's pictures meant that the event was viewed not only in England, but in 89 other countries, including some rarely thought of as Snooker strongholds like Mongolia, Uruguay and Bulgaria.

There was a particularly strong response from China as the Hong Kong no.1, Marco Fu, registered a 147 maximum.

These pictures were available free but within a couple of years TSN is likely to be encrypting them not only from this event but from the others which will be necessary to give them primary product and ultimately major revenue.

The question now is whether TSN and WPBSA can work in harness.

If this proves impossible, there is to be an upheaval in which the governing body's authority is challenged. Too much money has been invested and too many futures are at stake for the situation to be allowed simply to drift on.