Tour Changes

There's been a lot of conjecture about fairness and prize money levels, especially for the lower ranked players. I'd implement the following changes to spread the wealth slightly lower, whilst still retaining the carrot for the top end players. Extremely unlikely to happen, but its worth a discussion nonetheless. The seeding structure at the UK Championship is a complete failure and promotes mismatches from the first round.

I'd bring back a "tiered lite" system, where rather players be grouped into sections of 16, this is changed into the top 32, with the exception of the World Championship and Masters. I'd also change the ranking list to a 1-year rolling order of merit.

Prize money based on £12.5m a year, which I'd estimate the tour would get to in 2020.

World Championship: £2m prize money, but only £350,000 to the winner, but back to a tiered "lite" structure. Top 16 seeded through to the Crucible (£20,000). Next 32 seeded through to Last 80 (£8,000); next 32 seeded through to Last 112 (£1,750). Three previous preliminary rounds (last of which £500 prize money) including other professionals, top 32 from Challenge Tour, next 8 Development Tour; around 25 international wildcards from countries not represented on the main tour and all previous world finalists.

The Masters (£700k): No changes.

UK Championship (£1m), China Championship (£850k), International Championship (£750k), World Open (£650k), Shanghai Masters (£600k), China Open (£600k): Tiered lite structure. Top 32 seeded through to venue, plus 4 matches held over from previous round, plus 4 wildcard matches. Last 96 and Last 128 (plus any additional prelims) to be played at qualifying venue.

Players Championship & World Grand Prix (both £400k): No format changes, but tweak in qualifying structure. Players Championship based on performance in unseeded flat 128 events.

Indian Open & Australian Open replacement (both £400k): Same structure, but only Last 32 onwards at venue

German Masters (£500k), European Championship (£400k), English Open, Irish Open, Scottish Open, Welsh Open (home nations all £350k), Riga Masters (£250k), Snooker Shootout (£150k), Paul Hunter Classic (£175k): Unseeded from Last 128 all matches played at venue, but money for 1st round losers.

Gibraltar Open, World Seniors & Champion of Champions: Scrapped.

Challenge Tour: 4 events of £50,000 each plus Challenge Tour Finals with prize money of £75,000.

Development Tour: 4 events of £25,000 each plus a World Youth Championship of £50,000.

Travel Costs
Local promoters should provide hotel accomodation, airport transfers and a per diem for all players participating, plus reasonable air travel where required.

i agree with a 1 year rolling ranking reason for that is the ranking points rewarding for winning a tournament as appose to runner up is too top heavy for a 2 year ranking.

Bingham was able to maintain his place as World no 2 for almost 2 years based on his 2015 WC Win despite 2015/2016 season saw him only 17th on the 1 year list.

There weren't the tournament numbers to justify a 1-year list previously. Now you've got 20 events a year, that is more than enough to make a determination on ranking.

That said, broadcasters will want the names on TV. As such, under this "tiered lite" system, that protection would remain, should a player win the WC one year and the next go out in the L32, they'll lose £330k of prize money on their order of merit!

I don't necessarily agree that players should get zero ranking "points." Versus a player who has won a match in the round before, they're playing a far more difficult opponent in the latter round. I'd go back to half prize money or maybe a third.

All players to begin on zero every season, and have a 'Race to the Crucible' where the top 16 for the season get in, this would mean players would have to play in, if not all events, the certainly most of them.

A separate two year rolling rankings can be used to determine seedings in other events if that what sponsors want.

Slightly unfair on the guy who won the last world championship! His £350k payday doesn't mean anything!