SnookerFan wrote:This reminds me of the 2016 Northern Ireland Open where Mark King won. He was talking about how he'd been close to retiring because he'd been having such trouble making money at the sport at the time. And that's from somebody who had previously been in the top-16.
Saying that, according to wikipedia his career earnings was £1,648,630. I don't know how accurate that is, and also point out that he's been playing since 1991. But still, he's must've been doing alright at some point in his career.
The subject of a snooker player's earning's worth is quite misleading in association to assessing their actual worth.
Bear in mind that the average 'decent' wage for basic professional work of any kind in the UK is about £33.3k per year. So if you worked for 30 years at £33.3k you have earned £1m in your basic professional job. However, regular joes don't have their career earning displayed in wikipedia as one single lump sum.
And there's tax to come out of that, like any regular wage. But snooker players will have the additional disadvantage of having to pay additional 'manager and promoter' tax.
The bigger names in the game will off-set and increase their wages by making celebrity appearances, book deals, commentating, exhibitions and the like, but you don't have to go too far down the rankings before you're name isn't quite so valuable to such avenues, someone like Mark King being the perfect example.
And then when you look at house prices nowadays, £1m doesn't even buy you much with regards to 'keeping up with my celebrity friend jones'.
And if there's been a divorce as well... & etc.
There's no doubt Mark King has had a good run of it compared to many & I doubt he would claim he's lived a life beset by money worries, but it is feasible that he could have made more actual income by being a whole raft other professional occupations, particularly as he's so big and has such a naturally charismatic personality.