The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters won’t be returning after just two editions, and while that might not come as a huge shock, it does leave the sport with a few awkward questions to answer.
The World Snooker Tour confirmed the controversial tournament’s cancellation in a statement on Saturday, saying: “It has been mutually agreed not to proceed with future editions of the World Pool Championship and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.”
The usual positives were highlighted – new audiences and opportunities for local players – but the reality is that this was a venture that arrived with plenty of noise and has disappeared just as quickly.
While, from a political and moral standpoint, many people took umbrage with the engagement in the first place, taking snooker to Saudi Arabia wasn’t really the main issue in a sporting sense.
Snooker needs to grow internationally and new markets should be explored where possible – especially lucrative destinations that other sports have already successfully tapped into.
But elevating the event to “fourth major” status always seemed disingenuous and made a mockery of the storied history of the game.
It came across as a requirement that had been pushed – or essentially bought on the back of its mega prize fund – rather than something special that had earned its place.
That decision looks even more questionable now that the tournament is gone, and the feeling is only reinforced by the fact that this was initially presented as a long-term agreement spanning a decade.
Just two editions later, that commitment has already fallen away in an embarrassing blow to snooker’s hierarchy.
So what now becomes of a “major” that lasted only two years?
Judd Trump and Neil Robertson won the titles in 2024 and 2025 respectively, each picking up a £500,000 cheque that mirrors the one offered at the World Championship.
But it’s hard to know how those victories will be viewed in the years ahead when the event itself has already fallen off the calendar.
It’s not just the historical debate either. There’s a very real, present-day impact as well.
As things stand, Trump and Robertson are battling to finish the season as world number one at the World Snooker Championship, and both have been heavily boosted by the prize money earned in Saudi Arabia.
That alone highlights a wider issue in the sport.
When rankings are based on prize money, a single event with a prize fund on the scale of the World Championship can tilt the landscape in a way that doesn’t really reflect the rest of the season.
For many further down the official two-year list, being unable to defend the ranking points they earned at those two editions in Saudi could eventually have important implications on their tour survival aspirations.
For two years, the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters had that kind of influence. Now it’s gone, but the effect of it hasn’t yet gone with it.
Of course, there were plenty of early signs that it was all going to end badly anyway.
For all the investment and the promise of development, the crowds in Riyadh and Jeddah always looked thin.
Most of the atmosphere that was generated came across as manufactured, with the presentation forced and very little scrutiny delivered from any of the broadcasts.
It was always more about optics than authenticity.
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, another event staged in Saudi Arabia since 2024, additionally introduced its controversial “golden ball” worth 20 points – meaning a maximum break could theoretically reach 167.
Whether that invitational tournament continues is unclear, but it was another example of how easily the sport’s traditional structure was bent in order to accommodate the demands of a new market.
The return of the China Open – conveniently announced as a positive news story by WST just before this reveal – is undoubtedly a welcome boost for the sport in a country that does, in fact, take snooker very seriously.
It doesn’t really change the bigger picture, however.
A system so heavily tied to prize money is always going to be vulnerable to this kind of rise-and-fall cycle, where one event can reshape everything and then vanish just as quickly.
And in a desperate attempt to grow the sport at any cost, the World Snooker Tour allowed something to be positioned as a major alongside its biggest events without the foundation to support it.
Now that it’s already gone, that decision looks difficult to justify.
Featured image credit: WST
Boom and bust in a 2 year cycle. The Saudis might be trying to buy everything before the Emirates do, and before their oil eventually runs out, but this looked doomed to fail from the outset. The contrast with China says it all. What a mess, giving it equal status with the world championship seemed like it only made sense as a preliminary step to taking the world’s to Saudi Arabia and it’s interesting that this tournament has collapsed and the deal to keep the worlds in Sheffield have been announced so close together. I suspect that that’s the timing coincidence that really matters.
Now if we could just take the 2034 World Cup away from them.
What lessens the embarrassment for World Snooker is the Saudi regime have pulled the plug on other sporting events. The WTA FInals won’t continue there after this year. While the LIV golf nonsense is reportedly close to collapse.
Why not have it next in Philippines?
Leaving aside Saudi Arabia, the biggest problem in snooker is the complete lack of any vision for the future of the game from WST. Their strategy is just to wait for promoters to come along with a business plan for a 128-player tournament. Of course, that’s a huge undertaking, so the only promoters who are likely to scale up to that must have very deep pockets of up-front capital. It’s not difficult to see why only China and Saudi (for different reasons) have been staging international WST events.
There’s very limited scope for smaller events, because under WST’s points-based ranking system, those events can’t be ‘Ranking Tournaments’ and therefore suffer in status, which in turn affects sponsors’ and broadcasters’ willingness to support the event.
We know there needs to be a change in the ranking system, but there’s no detail in the debate (other than the usual: “go back to the old system”, which wouldn’t address the problem). I suspect the media are just too scared of exploring the rich variety of options, for fear of going over the heads of their target audience. Am I right about that?
WST are basically just a minor revenue stream for Matchroom, not an organisation to look after the future of the game.
I suspect heavily that there will be a breakaway tour in the next 3 years, with the class of 92 leading the way from the WST along with many other big names.
Other sports have gone down that route, and I’m always horrified when there is a split such as rival World Championships. The question would be which way the CBSA would lean. WST have basically committed to a fixed tour structure for the next 25 years, an absurd amount of time. Will we really see 50 or 60 Chinese players living in student flats in Sheffield? At some point the current generation of young players will get married, start families, and want to be true international sportsmen, not second-class citizens on a UK-based tour. If the WST can’t see that coming and make changes, then yes, they will indeed be overthrown.
No they won’t
You should email these thoughts to Snooker Scene Podcast. It would give them a bigger platform, and it would be interesting to hear what Dave Hendon thought of them.
Sadly, I have. The only response I ever get from any media is “it’s not going to change”, if I get a response at all.
Nobody wants to talk about the future of snooker – it scares people to contemplate any kind of radical departure from what we’ve grown up with. My preference would be to have a media that openly discusses different approaches with a progressive debate, and to have a governing body that anticipates changes in the world and responds with measures to deal with them, and exploit any new opportunities.
We don’t have any of that.
I hate the idea of a breakaway as much as you do.
There’s no way Dave Hendon wouldn’t read it out. He’s even read an email out recommending scrapping the World Championship!
Oh he read out 3 e-mails from me. But dismissed any new ideas in one sentence. He’s not someone for debating things, or encouraging continued correspondence. I guess that’s not the purpose of his channel.
I am never happy to see people lose the opportunity to make money. That said, aside from people like myself, the WST refused to deal with the elephant in the room. How can a tournament with little to no interest locally (Saudi Arabia), be arguably the pinnacle for ranking points. Suddenly now everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone is an expert 20/20 (hindsight). Let’s move on and hopefully learn from our mistakes. As far as Saudi goes, they have said they were going to reduce their sport’s portfolio in 2026, this may not be the only change, we’ll have to wait and see.
Oh, bye the way, don’t think for a moment that the China Open announcement timing was just a coincidence. It is called deviate from the real story.
I never seen it as a fourth major
I think the Tour Chsmpuonships in Manchester Central should be the fourth major
The Saudi masters just was a big money spinner but crowds were bleak,
Love to know why though? The Calender us still packed and i never agreed with the prize money bring the Same as the work d championships for short matches
It seems the Saudi Arabia has been busy ‘buying’ or making a lot of various sporting tournaments lately. Trying to up their image with vast amounts of dosh. It shows the power of money. It never felt right. It’s a pity we can’t popularise the game in the USA or North America, having said that, we seem to have forgotten about Canada. Potential there, as there is in Australia and other European or Asian countries. There are too many UK events tbh, it will never grow globally as one poster said with ’50 or 60 Chinese players living in student flats in Sheffield’ (great comment btw!). It needs to expand away from the UK.
Overall, snooker now is in a great place – the best it’s ever been for players. I remember going to snooker events in the 70s – no ranking points at all with only the World Championship counting as a ranking event. Not good! The current ranking system based on money is good – keeps it interesting too (the rankings). I suppose we could go back to set ranking points but that would feel a little stale. As said, snooker is in a great place now, but the WST needs younger members who have new ideas & are able to keep things fresh & modern (fouls – ball in hand, anyone?). 😊
Money lists can be used for various races – such as the Players’ Series. The problem with any points-based system is that it forces a closed tour (currently 128 players) with all players expected to play in all events. It means we effectively have to carry all of them around the world, and only 128-player events are suitable. That leads to what we have now – a UK-based tour, to save the travelling overheads. Only tournaments which can scale up to 128 players are viable, which is why we don’t have any tournaments in Europe (apart from the German Masters), India, Thailand, Australia, etc.
But other ranking systems are possible! They would fit a global game much better. Players could travel to events that were local to them, and occasionally further afield (e.g. the World Championship). We could have 100’s of tournaments around the world: some big, some small.
It’s not difficult to change the ranking system. They could do it in time for next season! My demo took about a week to implement:
http://snookerlewis.com/elo_ratings
Lewis you should be a consultant for WST. Lots of work put into your report.