"You need a Luke Littler of snooker": Barry Hawkins on attracting new youngsters to snooker

Four-time world ranking event champion Hawkins - who first turned professional in 1996 - was interviewed by Eurosport Magyarország during his recent trip to Hungary where he competed in and won the 2025 Budapest Snooker Masters. Early on in the successful exhibition event, Hawkins compiled a maximum 147 break.

Englishman Hawkins talked about several topics in the sit-down interview that can be watched on YouTube. When asked if he felt that snooker was in a bit of a crisis in the UK - especially in terms of the younger generation getting involved with the sport - the world number 12 concurred that the current situation is not ideal.

"I do agree with that" said Hawkins. "Years ago when I first started playing and I was a junior, there just seemed to be an unlimited supply of UK, British youngsters coming through playing very good snooker; it seemed to be so popular, so many players. It seems to me now like in the UK there's not many at all."

Having been asked what he felt could be done to help solve this issue, Hawkins replied with an upbeat answer: "Maybe some investment is needed. There's more snooker clubs and pool clubs opening up again, so maybe that's a good thing.

"The money is getting a lot bigger in snooker - Saudi Arabia got involved this year, obviously China is huge. It could be more desirable for youngsters. This is a good career if you can do well, you can earn a lot of money and have a good career for yourself."

Recent UK Championship finalist Hawkins then responded to the question if he would change anything about snooker's rules or formats in order to make it more popular with youngsters. It was a question Hawkins was very engaged with, but found tricky to answer.

"It's difficult. I'm not sure how much you can change snooker. You either love it or you don't.

"I don't know the answer to that question; I wish I do! It's a tough question, I wish I did know the answer.

“You need a Luke Littler of snooker. You need someone to come along, another one to inspire a lot of the younger generation.

“Darts has gone through the roof now because of mostly down to Luke. It was popular anyway, but Luke’s come along now and now there is, I should imagine, a lot more younger people that want to play darts, so maybe we need something like that in the UK or some younger player like a Ronnie O’Sullivan to break onto the scene again and get youngsters involved. I think that would help tremendously.”

Last week, 17-year-old Luke Littler won the PDC World Darts Championship for the first time when he defeated three-time world champion Michael Van Gerwen 7-3 in the final at the Alexandra Palace in London - the same venue that will be hosting the upcoming 2025 Masters snooker invitational.

Littler sensationally burst into sporting stardom just over 12 months ago, when he made it to the final of the PDC World Darts Championship at his first attempt where he was denied the sport’s ultimate crown by world number one Luke Humphries.

Since then during his first season as a professional tour card holder, Littler won several televised events, including the Premier League and the Grand Slam before collecting £500,000 for going one step further than 2024 and winning the world title, becoming darts’ youngest ever world champion as he smashed the previous record by several years.

Many parallels have been made between Littler and exceptional young prodigies from other sports, including Ronnie O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan was only 17 when he won the 1993 UK Snooker Championship - the sport’s second biggest ranking event title - after memorably defeating reigning world champion and world number one Stephen Hendry in the final.

Although O’Sullivan picked up several other big professional titles after that - including his maiden Masters crown in 1995 when he was still a teenager - he had to wait until 2001 for his first World Championship final appearance, where at the Crucible Theatre he denied career contemporary John Higgins 18-14 in the final to secure snooker’s blue riband title for the first time. The Rocket has since conquered the Crucible a further six times across his illustrious career.

Whilst a teenager winning one of snooker’s most prestigious prizes seems like a long shot at the moment these days, there has been an influx of young rookie professionals this season on the World Snooker Tour - and from several different countries.

One of those is current World Snooker Federation Junior Champion Bulcsu Revesz from Hungary, who recently made the final of the aforementioned Budapest Snooker Masters on home soil.