World Snooker Tour official on Crucible speculation: "I don't know why there is talk. It's just a bit wild"

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Speculation surrounding the future home of the World Snooker Championship continues to rumble on, but it appears that rumours of Saudi Arabia or China having already bid for the rights of the sport’s blue riband event are just hearsay.

Tom Rowell, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the World Snooker Tour, was recently a guest on the Snooker Scene Podcast which is presented by esteemed snooker commentator and broadcaster Dave Hendon.

During the insightful hour-plus-long episode, Rowell - who is also a World Snooker Tour board member - chatted about several topics within the sport whilst answering questions from fans who had emailed in.

The subject of the Crucible Theatre and its future relationship with the World Snooker Championship was inevitably asked about by one listener.

There is currently a contract with the Crucible and the Sheffield City Council to host snooker’s number one event up to and including 2027. This date will mark the 50-year anniversary from when the World Snooker Championship was first held there in 1977, and a century on from when Joe Davis became snooker’s first champion of the world in 1927 when he defeated Tom Dennis in the final at Camkin’s Hall in Birmingham.

The discussion around the Crucible’s future was fired up during last year’s Championship when snooker supremo and Matchroom founder Barry Hearn talked about it to multiple television stations. It has remained a red-hot topic ever since, even outside of ‘Crucible Season’.

However, in response to a question asking why there is so much talk of the competition moving when there have been no offers as yet, Rowell feels the narrative and speculation has been out of proportion.

Rowell said: “There hasn't been offers, so I don't know why there is talk, really.

“Obviously Barry has talked about stuff; we have an end date with the Crucible as it stands, that’s not to say it’s a definitive end date, but the reason why the conversation is coming up is because that is coming closer and closer.

“I think we’ve made our views and strategy clear where we want to be long-term in terms of the sales of that venue, the arena, the size of it - how big we want the World Championship to feel and become.

“Our position hasn’t changed. We’re still talking to Sheffield, we really want to make that work, and hope to find a solution where both sides kind of get what they need out of it and until that’s changed that’s basically our stance really.”

Since Ding Junhui won the 2005 China Open title on home soil as a teenager, China has been a serious, game-changing snooker force with huge television audiences, a location for several big professional events every season, massive numbers playing the sport, and providing a conveyor belt of new emerging talent to the pro tour.

At times throughout the past two decades, there has been gossip about China wanting to host the World Championship, but there has been no real substance or evidence to this, as yet.

2024 was the year that Saudi Arabia introduced itself to the top tier snooker scene, with the Middle East country hosting its first professional events, the Riyadh Season Championship and Saudi Arabia Masters, both with huge prize funds. The Saudi Arabia Masters - for which there is a 10-year contract to stage - carried a first prize of £500,000, the same amount Kyren Wilson received for winning the world title at the Crucible a few months before.

Some fans may still remain ‘suspicious’ about a new country wanting to hold the World Snooker Championship, but Rowell feels that those aforementioned territories are currently happy with building on the events they already have.

“There definitely hasn’t been offers from Saudi and China. There’s been a misconception that the Saudis want to buy the World Championship - it’s just a bit wild.

“That’s never really been the case. They’re very happy with the events they’ve got - they’re fantastic events - there’s no real reason for them to want the world champs when they’ve already got a major event, so to allay those fears in particular, I would say that if the World Championship was to move - that’s not to say it won’t move within the UK - but the chance of it going to Saudi or China I don’t think are as high as people’s perception that’s going to happen.”

On the show, Rowell initially spoke about the exciting new ‘WST Play’ live and on-demand service that is now live to fans around the world. He also talked about television contracts with potential new and existing broadcasters:

“There are some deals coming up. We are in some very deep conversations with parties to renew them. We have a really good roster of partners.

“We are very advanced in the BBC renewal conversation and that’s going very well. We are hoping to announce that within the next few weeks or months. Hopefully that one should be done very soon.”

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