‘Majors’ in snooker

Angles is clearly not bottom of the barrel. If he’s on the beeb, things are already looking up. (as are Virgo, Taylor, Parrott et al, at the soles of Alan’s brogues)

I stand corrected.

I think the whole Triple Crown thing was a bit more organic than the BBC just inventing it one day. During the 80's there were only six ranking events, all shown on either BBC or ITV. These were all major events as even the lesser events on ITV were capable of gigantic TV audiences. The Masters would have been a big tournament but it wasn't as exceptional as it would be later.

During the 90's ITV ended their snooker coverage with SKY Sports filling the hole left. But it wasn't the same as the tournaments were now on a niche channel and were never going to have the same status as the ITV events in the 80's. By this point there were ranking events in Asia and Europe but they were secondary events as the WPSBA only paid lip service to Snooker in those continents. So a big divide between the BBC events and the rest opened up.

The Grand Prix lost sponsors and had a venue change which lessened it's prestige while The Masters had a huge surge in Prize Money, moving well past the UK Championship. The Masters having a long run of memorable finals would have have also established it alongside the two long format tournaments. The BBC I think jumped on that especially as the Grand Prix was gone and the UK needed a credibility boost after the format change in 2011.