Barry Hearn sets aim for snooker and darts prize money to overtake huge sport

Barry Hearn wants darts and snooker players to yet beryllium earning much than golfers, believing that the 2 sports person the commercialized worth to scope that stage.

While helium has partially retired, Hearn is inactive president of Matchroom and is firmly progressive successful the moving of the Professional Darts Corporation and World Snooker Tour.

The apical prize successful some sports is £500,000, claimed by the World Championship winners astatine the Alexandra Palace successful January and Crucible successful May.

That fig has present been matched successful snooker by the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters, which was held for the archetypal clip this play and saw Judd Trump triumph the £500,000 apical prize.

Hearn feels that the involvement successful the athletics successful the Middle East volition spot the prize wealth successful snooker proceed to turn and propulsion towards his wildly ambitious extremity of outdoing play financially.

‘The Middle East has present decided, specifically successful Saudi Arabia but besides successful Qatar and astir apt successful Bahrain and Abu Dhabi that snooker is really precise fashionable successful the Middle East. It’s had a rebirth,’ helium said connected The Barry Hearn Show.

‘Of people with Saudi, the magnitude of wealth they’re putting in, the rebirth is not a insignificant happening, it’s a large event.

‘Our archetypal [ranking] snooker lawsuit had prize wealth the aforesaid arsenic the World Championship.

‘This is conscionable the opening of the adjacent level of wherever snooker is going to spell to beforehand it’s prize money.

‘When I took implicit [in 2010] the prize wealth was £3.5m, the players agreed to merchantability maine the commercialized broadside of snooker, which I inactive own, and the prize wealth is present £20m.

‘That’s a measurement successful the close direction, but you mustn’t acceptable your sights excessively low.

‘For my mind, and I’ve got thing against golf, but I privation to spot darts and snooker person bigger prize wealth than play due to the fact that I judge it’s worthy much wealth than play successful today’s commercialized world.’

It is simply a typically ambitious people from the seasoned promoter, but some darts and snooker person an atrocious agelong mode to spell to vie with golf.

The PGA Tour wealth database shows Scottie Scheffler sitting apical having earned $29,228,357 (£22,233,280) successful 2024.

In comparison, Judd Trump tops snooker’s satellite rankings, which is simply a two-year wealth list, with £1,491,200, portion Luke Humphries is fig 1 connected the PDC Order of Merit with £1,681,750, won implicit a two-year period.

The WST and PDC rankings don’t screen net from non-ranking tournaments, but it is inactive a bully usher for the size of the spread betwixt golf’s apical earners and the stars of the baize and the oche.

Mark Hubbard is fig 70 connected the PGA Tour wealth database having earned $2,135,030 (£1,791,514) this year, much than the apical snooker and darts players person managed successful 2 years connected the authoritative rankings.

LIV Golf has besides poured adjacent much wealth into golf, with players who person signed up for the arguable task earning mind-boggling amounts of money.

Jon Rahm’s woody to articulation LIV, for example, is reportedly worthy ‘upwards of £450m,’ according to The Telegraph.

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