vodkadiet wrote:Alex Higgins was a far bigger draw than O'Sullivan, and snooker easily survived.
O'Sullivan is knocked out of many events early on and the venues are still packed out.
His presence in events is irrelevant.
You must be joking right ?!?
When Alex Higgins retired, he was by no means a top player anymore. Had he still been at the top of the game, the ratings would have dropped bigtime, the same way the will if Ronnie retires.
I remember when Ronnie first came to do an exhibition in my town. It was 2015 and he was joined by Stu, who was the world champion at that time.
People were literally fighting for tickets and most of them only knew one thing: Ronnie was gonna come to play and he'll be joined by some other player.
Nobody gave a buck who the other guy was, they just wanted to see Ronnie (that's a shame in a way cause Stu is a nice guy and a very good player).
Go to any country in the world and he's the main attraction when it comes to snooker. Take the reigning wc champ - Selbo and any other top player and put them to do an exhibition.
Then take Ronnie and any other guy and I guarantee you u'll get double the bums on seats, and/or in the audience.
Hearn likes to pretend all players are equal. Truth be told, they're not. Ronnie should receive special treatment in the same way Real Madrid and Barcelona get paid 10 times the amount of money from TV rights compared to a low ranked team, it's the natural order of things.
Snooker will survive even without him, but it won't be the same and anybody with an ounce of brain can see that.
When you take a major force out of the equation, unless you replace it with a force of similar magnitude, you can't maintain the same balance. Like Andre said, there are no new stars to take his place atm. Judd was the most likely to do so, but his failure to convert the natural talent he's got, plus his arrogance, have prevented him from doing so.
I know that some players feel that Ronnie shouldn't receive special treatment. but if he were to suddenly retire and the prize money would drop as a direct consequence, they'd reconsider in a heartbeat. That is a FACT !!!
Ronnie's the reason I fell in love with snooker. I also enjoy watching other top players, but it's not quite the same thing. I get that special tingling feeling inside when he plays, it's like I'm a kid inside a candy store. I know that people older than me have felt the same way about Alex Higgins and about Jimmy White.