WHY DOES THE CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS LOOK "CHEAPER"?
If you're active on X (fka Twitter) and you interact with snooker fans in there, you're aware that the Champion of Champions is being played this week, but you've also read several comments on how the event looks "cheap", with its old prestige gone. I am, of course, loving the tournament and the snooker played in it, but I tend to agree with that and was wondering how that has happened to a tournament once described as "the fourth major" in snooker.
I believe that it can't be down to one reason alone, and in order to understand what changed I think we have to look back at what was working years ago when its prestige was at its highest.
Format: the tournament's format hasn't changed, but there have been people saying that some events shouldn't qualify their winners to the Champion of Champions (for instance the Shoot-Out, World Seniors, and Women's World Championship). Although I understand the argument, I wouldn't change it. I think it's what makes the event different from everything else even if one or two players aren't fancied to win their matches. Bear in mind that those "lower tier" event winners only get in because most of the "higher tier" events have repeated winners - and I like that better than simply filling up the draw based on the rankings. Again, it differs itself from tournaments that would, otherwise, be very similar to it plus it makes justice to its name.
Broadcast: ITV has continuously done an excellent job of covering the event, but the context right now is very different to 2013. Back then, it was snooker's big return to ITV after several years apart, and the coverage was so good that, when BBC was losing most of its sporting rights, snooker fans were mostly "happy" if the Triple Crown moved to ITV.
Now, the Champion of Champions is all that is left of snooker on ITV. The rights to the other four events they had until last year were lost to Channel 5.
Crowds / Venue: honestly, I can't have anything to say about the current venue in Leicester, where it's being played for the first time. But clearly the atmosphere hasn't felt the same since it left Coventry, where it was played (at the Ricoh Arena) for its first seven editions.
I've said before that the amount of tournaments in England naturally causes a problem in attendance for events outside the Triple Crown, because if given the choice fans will obviously choose to go to the bigger ones. Yet, with such a star-studded field you'd expect better, but it never found a new home away from Coventry.
Organisation: Understandably it usually gets overlooked, especially because Matchroom owns most of WST, but the organisation of the Champion of Champions is actually made by Matchroom, unlike most of the other events on tour held by World Snooker itself.
It shouldn't make much of a difference, but might help explain why some things feel "cheaper" in this event. Different table, different dress code and even different global streaming services worldwide are examples of what's different in this.
For example, in Brazil WST events are live on WST Play (a streaming app miles better than the old Matchroom TV we had to use previously). For the Matchroom events (like this one and the Championship League), the streaming is on YouTube. Although it's free, it has the inconvenience of ads and sometimes someone simply forgets to press a button and the broadcast won't start until the match is already underway.
It's not something that has effectively "spoiled" the tournament to me, but does help make it feel "not professional enough" for such an event.
Prize Money: Fans don't usually care for prize money, they don't take a penny, and that's why I left it for last. But it has to be mentioned.
When the tournament first started, the winner's share was £100k. It has increased significantly, to £150k, but the context has once again changed.
In the first edition the tournament's prize money was very relevant when compared to the rest of the season, whereas now there are loads of events - new and old - that pay as much as that or even more.
In 2013, the Champion of Champions' total prize money (£270k) was a share of approx. 3.38% of the season's total prize money (£8m). In 2026, that percentage is down to 2.62% (CoC: £440k; Season: £16.8m). That means that, proportionally to the rest of the season, the prize money for the Champion of Champions has decreased 22.5%.
With more tournaments on the calendar and increasing prize money in general, it's natural (and good) that single events' share in the season total will decrease, of course. But it's yet another thing that once made this event more special than it is today.
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