The Secret of China’s Snooker Success 

Last month we reported on the Chinese victory at the Snooker World Cup. That was the first time that players from the country have ever won the cup, and it could set a precedent. China is a country of vast population and almost unlimited economic potential if many commentators are right, but what about sports, and what about snooker in particular?

Earlier in the year the Snooker Masters final was played between two Chinese players. China seems to have taken to snooker like a (Mandarin) duck to water. It is now regarded as the third most popular sport in the country after basketball and table tennis, but why is this? Why not Party Poker or some other card game? Why not football, like the rest of the world?

Here are a few insights into why the 21st Century in Snooker will be a Chinese century.

Investment in snooker 
While the snooker across the rest of the world relies on private capital competing with other sports, in China the government has been ploughing money into the sport. The country might be a strange communist-capitalist hybrid, but it can still martial the machinery of state when it wants.

Inherent popularity of cue sports 
Snooker may have originated in India, but like Buddhism that left India two millennia ago, has had a huge impact in China. Cue sports, like pool and billiards, have been fantastically popular in China since the 1980s.

World Snooker Association marketing 
The prestigeous World Snooker Association has been marketing and promoting snooker in the Far East for some time. This has increased the popularity of the sport in China as much as other countries in the region.

Now watch as China gains supremacy in snooker and the Crucible in Sheffield becomes a historical artefact or perhaps the Wimbledon of snooker. This may upset the old school, but it is bound to make snooker a more exciting game in the long run.