Ronnie O'Sullivan talks retirement

Dan-cat wrote:What he talks about though... it already exists. It's called the seniors tour, and in the last few years it has grown, with new events being added.

Dan-cat wrote:What he talks about though... it already exists. It's called the seniors tour, and in the last few years it has grown, with new events being added.

HappyCamper wrote:wattana is retired i think.

marco fu intends to continue if given a card.

Dan-cat wrote:Boxing isn't a sport anymore? What are you on about.

Holden Chinaski wrote:Good post, SnookerFan.

Dan-cat wrote:Isn't all sport business?

SnookerFan wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:Isn't all sport business?

It's hard to explain.

Imagine there were four major governing bodies within snooker. Meaning that there were up to four World Champions at any time. There were also dozens of smaller ones. The smaller ones are not taken seriously by the big names. So you had players like Simon Lichtenberg defend a version of the world championship against Sean Maddocks.
Though this is clearly nonsense, technically it counts as a World Title fight.

On top of that, every player has a promoter who decides who his player faces. There are no competions, and only minimal rules about who they should face. Which can often be gotten around if you try hard enough.

Ronnie has one version of the World Title. As does Ali Carter. They won't unify against each other because they hate each other. And there's no rules in place saying that they have to. They have no obligation to fight each other, even though they both have major versions of the World Title.

The mandatory number one contender to Ali Carter's World Title is Mark Selby, but nobody wants to watch that. So, his promoter offers Mark Selby some money to go away for a few months and not take the title shot. Selby accepts. This is allowed and publicly known. No rules have been broken.

Ali Carter's promoter wants to face Jimmy White, because he is low ranked but can draw a crowd. The governing body for whom Ali Carter is World Champion likes the sound of it because it'll make money. So Jimmy plays somebody who has never picked up a cue before, and told that if he wins he suddenly becomes number one contender to Carter's World Title. Sky Sports charge you £15 on top of what you're already paying to watch the match.

The following week World Champion Judd Trump plays World Champion Ding Juhnui in a unification match. It's in China. The commentators talk about how the judges won't give it to Judd if it goes the distance, as they always favour the home fighter. This is a problem that's known about in the sport to the point that pundits avlno6 it, but nobody does anything about it because getting popular results that can draw money is more important than fair results. This match also comes with a fee to watch on your own TV, despite starting over here at 6am.

See how long you'd be watching this circus circus, and still maintain the opinion that snooker is being run like a proper sport.

It works in boxing, because there's enough people who'll buy into the hype even if the fight is crap.

When I say boxing doesn't resemble a sport, what I really mean is it's not run like one.

Dan-cat wrote:There is a boxing thread...

SnookerFan wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:Isn't all sport business?

It's hard to explain.

Imagine there were four major governing bodies within snooker. Meaning that there were up to four World Champions at any time. There were also dozens of smaller ones. The smaller ones are not taken seriously by the big names. So you had players like Simon Lichtenberg defend a version of the world championship against Sean Maddocks.
Though this is clearly nonsense, technically it counts as a World Title fight.

On top of that, every player has a promoter who decides who his player faces. There are no competions, and only minimal rules about who they should face. Which can often be gotten around if you try hard enough.

Ronnie has one version of the World Title. As does Ali Carter. They won't unify against each other because they hate each other. And there's no rules in place saying that they have to. They have no obligation to fight each other, even though they both have major versions of the World Title.

The mandatory number one contender to Ali Carter's World Title is Mark Selby, but nobody wants to watch that. So, his promoter offers Mark Selby some money to go away for a few months and not take the title shot. Selby accepts. This is allowed and publicly known. No rules have been broken.

Ali Carter's promoter wants to face Jimmy White, because he is low ranked but can draw a crowd. The governing body for whom Ali Carter is World Champion likes the sound of it because it'll make money. So Jimmy plays somebody who has never picked up a cue before, and told that if he wins he suddenly becomes number one contender to Carter's World Title. Sky Sports charge you £15 on top of what you're already paying to watch the match.

The following week World Champion Judd Trump plays World Champion Ding Juhnui in a unification match. It's in China. The commentators talk about how the judges won't give it to Judd if it goes the distance, as they always favour the home fighter. This is a problem that's known about in the sport to the point that pundits avlno6 it, but nobody does anything about it because getting popular results that can draw money is more important than fair results. This match also comes with a fee to watch on your own TV, despite starting over here at 6am.

See how long you'd be watching this circus circus, and still maintain the opinion that snooker is being run like a proper sport.

It works in boxing, because there's enough people who'll buy into the hype even if the fight is crap.

When I say boxing doesn't resemble a sport, what I really mean is it's not run like one.

chengdufan wrote:I'm interested in this idea of judges deciding who wins the match between Judd and Ding. I wonder what the criteria would be

Loving that a Ronnie thread has been derailed. The irony!

Scooper wrote:Ronnie hasn’t mentioned retirement at all since last year.

SnookerFan wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:Boxing isn't a sport anymore? What are you on about.

If you followed boxing, you'd know exactly what I meant. It's something that's complained about quite often among boxing fans.

It's more of a business than a sport. It's all politics. People with popularity that can draw a crowd get title shots that they don't necessarily deserves, people with decent resumes who don't have big fan-bases or who can't draw money are more likely to be ignored. There have been cases of a person who is #1 contender being paid to stand aside for a while, because the governing bodies or the promoters want to set up a fight that would sell more than one featuring the number one contender to the title.

There's countless boxers out there, who have spent most of their careers fighting journeymen, or just flat out fight garbage fighters, just to build up an undefeated record in the hope a big name will fight them and they'll be able to cash in. Often the bigger a name, the more risk averse they are. More interested in fighting people with positive records, than take any real risks at losing. (Or at least their promoters think that way.) I'm generalising, not everybody is like that. But there's far too much of it about these days, to the point it barely resembles an actual sport any more.

In short, it started becoming less of a sport and more of a business when they started to expand the amount of governing bodies there are. If there's several governing bodies, and consequently, several world titles per weight, nobody is governing with the sport's best interest at heart. They're governing the sport based on how much money can be made for their organisation.

Boxing is a funny one in that it aims itself at casual fans and not hardcore fans. A casual fan is more likely to buy a PPV because Sky tells them it's a good fight. A knowledgeable fan will be able to determine whether a PPV is worthy watching or not. Sky don't like that. They like people who can be persuaded to watch/pay for boxing irrespective of the quality of the fight. And let's not forget governing bodies bringing out things like silver titles, platinum titles, diamond titles. Basically brand new titles that had never existed before. They then ask if any promoters want to pay the fees to the governing bodies, so they can promote the young lad they look after vs a journeyman as being for 'a vacant title'. It sounds impressive, even if the title didn't exist last week and will often get vacated a few days after somebody wins it. As long as the majority fall for it, it won't stop.

It's not all like that. But a sport with several governing bodies, basically stops acting in the interest of the sport and starts acting in the interest of lining their pockets.

Sorry, that's a Zebra post. But, the discussion of why boxing is more of a business/con trick for casual fans than an actual sport could probably fill a book.

SnookerFan wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:What he talks about though... it already exists. It's called the seniors tour, and in the last few years it has grown, with new events being added.

He acknowledged that the Seniors tour exists. But says he wants something "in between". He seems to want the older players who are still on the tour to form their own little gang to play each other, but less often with less travel involved. Which isn't going to happen.

Though I get what he's saying about age catching up with everyone, especially with the frequency of tournaments. And with the travel involved, under normal circumstances. Though, if anything, the travel isn't something he's had to worry about this season.

Ronnie basically wants to be a snooker player, but only under his own conditions. A few years ago, he was complaining about playing 'numpties', he prefers it when playing big names. Well, sport doesn't work like that. (Well, except maybe boxing. But that barely qualifies as a sport any more, and isn't something to be aspired to.) Sometimes you'll be drawn against lower-ranked players, or have to play against a player who has a style you don't like playing. That's just what tournament sports are. You don't get to pick who you play next. It's not having a laugh with your mates down the club, it's top-level sport.

Also, he only wants to play in big arenas etc, which is fairer enough. But sadly, snooker isn't a popular enough sport to always be like that these days. At least in the UK. It probably is in certain other countries like Germany or China. Though China will always have the small crowd issues. (And he'd have to travel for those, which he seems to be saying he's not enjoying as much.)

Instead of always chatting about break-away tours, or whatever, the closest thing to a solution for Ronnie (that doesn't involve going onto the Seniors) is to pick and chose what tournaments he wants to enter. But even then, he was moaning that he has to play a certain amount of ranking tournaments to maintain his ranking in The Masters and The Coral series. But again, there's no way out of that.

There's just no way of turning up, and only playing the top-players whenever he wants. There has to be a certain amount of grind. Sadly, Barry Hearn can't build the tour around Ronnie's schedule.

Probably the best thing for him is to limit when he plays, but also enter the odd Seniors or set up some exhibition matches also.