Why Saudi Arabia’s record snooker jackpot is bad news for Crucible

The times they are a changing. When John Spencer defeated Cliff ‘The Grinder’ Thorburn 25-21 in 1977 – the first year of the modern televised World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield – the Englishman picked up a winner’s cheque of £6,000 from an overall prize fund of £17,000.

Some 47 years on, Kyren Wilson collected a whopping £500,000 for his 18-14 win over Jak Jones in the 48th Crucible final in May. Yet despite offering a significant total prize pot of £2,395,000, the sport’s greatest tournament can no longer boast about having the largest financial inducements to match its stature.

When the inaugural Saudi Arabia Masters concludes on September 7 in Riyadh, the winner will also earn a cheque for £500,000 with the runner-up handed £200,000, the same amount Jones wallowed in for his unheralded run to the world final.

The new competition also matches the World Championship for the rest of the field with semi-finalists (£100,000), quarter-finalists (£50,000), last 16 (£30,000) and last 32 (£20,000) earning record sums for a ranking event outside the Crucible.

Unlike the 32 men who reached the final stage of the Crucible, every competitor in the 144-player field will all begin their campaign at the finals venue at Green Halls in Riyadh. The top 16 seeds starting in the round of 32 will replicate the qualifying format for the World Championship.

The lower-ranked players are also guaranteed at least £2,000 for making the trip. And there is the added incentive of a tasty £50,000 bonus for producing a 147 in Saudi.

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There seems to be money everywhere you look when Saudi Arabia commits to sport as boxing, football and golf will testify. Which is a wonderful news for those who make their living off potting balls as a profession, but is hardly reassuring vibes for the game’s most celebrated venue.

With the World Championship’s contract at the Crucible due to expire in 2027, half a century after the great Spencer was adorned its maiden winner, there will be an unease about what the investment from Saudi means for the prospects of the green baize’s blue-chip event remaining in Sheffield.

Speculation has been rife in recent years about a possible move away from the Steel City to more lucrative climes, but with Saudi Arabia offering record prize money for any event on record beyond the World Championship, there is suddenly meat on the bone to go with the cue ball conjecture. And plenty to chew over.

“Common sense says I have a fiduciary duty to the players to provide the biggest prize money because they’re professional athletes,” said Hearn. “And there is no point in saying: ‘Oh, think of the history’. You can’t eat history.

“Sport, to be progressive, has got to provide bigger and bigger prize funds or it is not going to be competitive in today’s world, and will no longer be aspirational to young people that we want to see come into the sport.”

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The question you have to ask is obvious: If Saudi Arabia can offer this level of prize money for a ranking event, how much would they unearth if they had the opportunity to stage a bigger, more lucrative World Championship in 2028?

The chance for the world champion to play for a historic £1m winner’s cheque beyond the end of this decade sounds eminently possible, but this is unlikely to happen in the UK.

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Snooker’s boom period of the 1980s was very much an all-British affair with the era of Spencer, Thorburn, Ray Reardon, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins and Steve Davis, perfect for a 980-seater venue that for so long seemed sacrosanct, but may no longer may able to contain snooker’s growth beyond its traditional boundaries.

Even if a larger arena is found in Sheffield, will the prize money on offer be enough to satisfy the majority of the tour? Sentiment rarely wins out in such situations.

Amid such changing times, it feels like the landmark trip to Saudi Arabia for the country’s first ranking event is also symbolic of the sport’s future direction of travel.