Barry Hearn feels the ‘signs are good’ for the growth and expansion of Matchroom’s World Nineball Tour, while he sees snooker at a point of ‘quantum change’.
The WNT was unveiled in 2023 as Hearn hoped to replicate the success of darts in taking a widely-played sport into a global, commercial, televised hit.
The UK Open in Telford comes to a climax this weekend, but the UK is not where pool is booming especially, with the WNT attracting big crowds in hotbeds like Vietnam, where the sport is a huge hit.
Asked if the venture into Nineball is going as planned, Hearn was typically bullish, telling Metro: ‘It’s always going as planned because we plan so well.
‘We’re trying to make a global sport into a true commercial global sport. It’s a bit like darts, the same sort of job we’ve done on darts, where we’re taking a game that everyone has played at one time or another but perhaps more socially.
‘What we’re finding is we’re inundated with tournaments around the world, I think we’re organising 12 or 13 tournaments, but we’ve got over 50 tournaments on the WNT rankings now, it’s a global game.
‘[Matchroom Multi Sport CEO] Emily Frazer is going to retire on her air miles! It’s difficult to make an appointment just to see her. The signs are good. It’s not going to be a short term thing, this is a long term development.
‘The Mosconi in December. That’s a sell out every year, the biggest event in pool. Then we’ve got the World Pool Championships in Saudi, we’ve got some decent prize money and money is what attracts the players to sacrifice their lives to get better.’
Hearn says he has turned down approaches to get involved in a number of sports as he does not have the passion for them.
Pool has attracted him and he expects success to come as it has done with other Matchroom ventures.
‘We’ve seen massive increases in Matchroom events over the last few years and I don’t think pool will be any different,’ he said. ‘I think it will just grow and grow. It is more international than probably any other sport we do. It’s massive all over the world.
‘But tournaments and getting them streamed and televised around the world, it’s what we do at Matchroom, we grow sports, we take our time, we do it well. We pay everyone, we take the risk and sometimes we get the reward.
‘A reward like darts has been staggering and who’s to say that Nineball won’t be the next one.’
Luke Littler has shown recently that a boom in sport can be lead by a single person and Hearn says it is something that makes his life as a promoter a whole lot easier, if characters emerge.
Snooker has long had recognisable, familiar faces but he sees a huge change coming with the coming Chinese talent, led by new world champion Zhao Xintong.
He recognises that a string of Chinese players at the top of the game could be a challenge to create stars of them in Britain, but also accepts that it is an international sport and ability on the table is the only real yardstick to measure any player by.
‘It’s a narrative that we need in any sport, it’s got to be more than just a game,’ he said.
‘I think we need character, that’s for sure. We’ve got them in abundance in pool. Snooker is dominated by people that have been around for a few years, although I think we’re at a quantum changing point with the Chinese development, some of their younger players are sensational.
‘That’s how sport progresses. We invented football and haven’t won the World Cup since 1966. We’ve got to expect that as a sport gets bigger, we’ve got to accept that it’s not our domain, it’s about ability and that’s how it should be, but characters sell tickets and attract ratings.
‘Whether you’re Earl Strickland on the pool table or Ronnie O’Sullivan on the snooker table, I think it’s an ingredient we need.’
On the difficulty for Chinese players getting across their personality, he said: ‘Totally. Very, very hard and it’s going to take a long time.
‘But of course we must not be insular. In their own country they’re massive. The numbers coming out of China make European numbers look insignificant. That’s ok. That’s the way of the world.
‘We’ve got to work hard and they’ve got to adjust to a British media, but at the same time it’s all on the table really. It makes it more exciting if there’s a little bit of character flowing from both sides of the table. But the excellence…they’re looking very dangerous.
‘I’d expect in five years time at least eight of the top 16 to be Chinese.’