The writer, an FT contribution editor, is the managing director of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist at Bank of England
The World Snooker Championship completed this week in the Crucible Theater in Sheffield, which has been at home for 48 years. This year’s greatest of all time and attracted almost 200 million spectators worldwide to see the first Chinese world champion Zhao Xintong. At the beginning of this century, the equivalent views were less than 5 million.
Despite his success, the next year could be the last one for the crucible as a host, as his existing agreement with the World Snooker Tour comes to an end. The WST wants a larger, state-of-the-art event location, perhaps with Saudi Arabia or China as a host and supporter. The commercial case is clear.
The global market for snookers is growing rapidly, led by a base explosion in China and in the Middle East, which fills great sports stadiums and with increasing prize money. The capacity of the melting climb with less than 1,000 is small and unchanged in half a century. The prize money for the world champion with £ 500,000 is modest according to modern sports standards.
The magnetic money attraction has already led several sports to the fact that the bags (financially, not snookers) are the deepest. The focus in Cricket has moved to India, with the Indian Premier League being the largest global cricket franchise company. Saudi Arabia is now the global hub for boxing. An alternative World Golf Tour supported by Saudi Arabia began three years ago.
This external migration is not limited to sport. Arm (semiconductor), Deepmind (AI) and Darkrace (Cyber Security) were all the world’s leading British companies that were recorded by international bidies and were brought up early. Great Britain now sells in a hurry and regret to promote the leisure company to promote superstar companies that are essential for the design of the industrial strategy and the kick-off growth.
These are crazy. Great Britain is difficult to shorten to lose such winners. With its history and its term of office, UK Sport is a sector that is rich in success stories. Football, which was invented here in the 19th century, is today the world’s greatest sport through popularity, participation and some income from metrics. Despite the country, which is less than 1 percent of the world population, the English Premier League is the leading football league everywhere after income.
Modern tennis, a further English invention of the 19th century, is one of the top 10 global sports. The first -class tennis tournament in the world is Wimbledon with a turnover of 400 million GBP last year.
They were officers of the British army who developed snookers in the same age. The growth rates in the areas of income and participation are equally smaller than football or tennis, since it enters into large -expanding markets in China, in the Middle East and prospective India, where it was played for the first time. Letting Snookers slip out of Sheffield at this point would be as myopic as the sale of an arm, a leg or a Deepmind.
The government will only achieve national growth by expanding Britain’s regions and nations. During the persecution, leaders in municipal areas and mayors were given more powers, but no longer handed over money. Strangely enough, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ growth speech either offered little for the regions or sports in January. (The announcement of A New football stadium for Manchester United Doesn’t count – the followers mostly live in London.)
However, sport is on a scale that is sporty, one of the most effective drivers of local growth. There is no better example than Stratford in East London, the home of the 2012 Olympics in London. The transformation from the glossy for gentrification was a GBP 9.3 billion in public money and a focus from the start on inheritance. The All England Club, in which Wimbledon takes place, has invested more than half a billion pounds to expand its estate and state support for the basic tennis runs to ten million.
The comparison with Sheffield and Snooker is healing. As a fan of both, I am fully invested. Unfortunately, the government is not. The investment per capita in the city of Sheffield is less than half of Manchester and a tenth of the Westminster district of London. The investment in Sheffield’s Tiegeltheater has changed.
As a sport, Snooker has never received a Penny public money. If we are serious about growth outside the southeast, the field must be recorded. The chancellor’s expenditure check in June is an opportunity to do this. Investing in Snooker in Sheffield would anchor it as a global center and enter into private financing, which achieves broader growth advantages that are enjoyed by Stratford and Wimbledon. And an investment in the base of Snooker would create the talent pipeline, which is necessary for success. China only has 300,000 snookers clubs, Great Britain. But Chinese world champion Zhao Xintong trains in Sheffield.
Wimbledon and Sheffield “14 days” could become the north and south poles of sport in England. If an increasing sports star is more of catching than selling, he could introduce the growth on site and at the same time increase the worldwide standing. In this century, Sheffield and Snooker could be recognized as synonymous and internationally, as did Sheffield and Steel in the previous ones.
The industrial strategy is not about selecting winners, but staying with them. Snookers and Sheffield are a winning team and an emerging star for the British economy. An investment here would provide the holy grail of local growth in order to achieve national destinations with global ambition. With the words of the best philosophers of the 20th century, Chas and Dave, the best philosophers of the 20th century, it would not be “Snooker Loopy”.
