Wild wrote:to start with snookerfan is not alone regarding buying tickets matt (pro snooker blog) is also thinking along those lines because that what as snooker fans we used to.
in may 2011 we would have known the seeds for the 2012 World championship and in early to mid march everything was sorted to qualifiers,draw and order of play.
so it will take time for them to adjust to it because they had a routine but everyone from players,refs and fans will have to adjust to things.
Bear in mind, though, I like attending live snooker events enough, that I will adjust if I had to. The reason I think it's a more important point then some are making out, is that if I've thought about, Matt has thought about it. Do you think we're the only two?
Despite thinking twice, we'll probably still go. But will everybody? What about people who aren't part of the internet snooker discussing community. People who attended sometimes, but weren't massive fans. If it makes hardcore fans think twice, what's it going to do to people like that? Some people will be discouraged if the matches aren't announced until a couple of weeks before the event, especially people who might book a day or two off to visit a tournament due to travelling and staying over.
Let's not get carried away. I'm not dead against monthly rolling rankings, nor am I suggesting everybody will stop going. But to suggest everybody who buys tickets will go; "Oh well, I don't care who I see, I'm buying tickets anyway" is misguided. I'd probably cave and buy the tickets anyway, but would everybody?
Look as The Masters, tickets are already on sale for the one-table set-up, matches aren't announced, and they are selling tickets have half-price. Conveniently the deal is ending shortly before rankings are ammended. This leads me to believe ticket sales are slow when matches aren't announced. That's why I can't see World Snooker making it a tournament-by-tournament deal. Whether we like it or not, snooker doesn't sell well as it is outside of The Crucible, and Hearn the businessman will see that.
The tournament by tournament Rolling Ranking system would be brilliant from a televisual standpoint don't get me wrong, but I bet World Snooker don't see the lack of tickets sales as a small problem. That's before we've even got to working out the qualifiers. Where you are in the rankings are decides how many matches you play in qualifiers. It's conceivable you wouldn't know what stage you were entering a qualifying tournament until a week or so before it started, so there's that problem.
Again, from a television spectators standpoint this means little. If you have no intention of buying tickets to any events in the calendar, then you don't care the issues with who is playing when in either rankers or qualifying events.
If somebody could come up with a way of solving these problems, then I will turn round and actually say the updating the rankings after every tournament is a great idea. I think from a televisual standpoint it's brilliant. A few seasons ago we had people do feck-all all season, have a good run at The Crucible then stay in the top-16. I'm against that. Also you got Grame Dott ranked provisionally 40-odd in the world, but appear in The Masters. This also seems ridiculous. My only point is changing them every couple of weeks/month is difficult to do.
If it's do-able, I say do it. I'll still say it'll make buying tickets a pain in the bottom, but I can find ways round that. What I'm saying is I think it's difficult to do. If we can find away, without it bringing in huge administration worries, and huge loss of ticket sales, then fine. But, as yet, people seem to have Seifer's ability to ignore my points and pretend I don't want the sport to evolve.