When it comes to supporting winners, the UK is not Snooker Loopy enough

The writer, a FT, who is a chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts and former Economists at the Bank of England

The World Snooker Championship this week was concluded at the Crucible Theater in Sheffield, its habitat 48 years ago. This year was the largest ever, as it attracted nearly 200 million viewers globally to watch the first Chinese world champion, Zhao XINTong. At the beginning of this century, equivalent viewing numbers were less than 5 million.

Despite its success, the next year can be the last for Crucible as a host, as its current agreement with The World Snooker Tour ends. WST wants a larger and more common place for wind, perhaps with Saudi Arabia or China as hosts and supporters. Commercial status is clear.

Snooker’s global market is growing quickly, led by an explosion at the base level in China and the Middle East, and fills large sports stadiums and with emerging prize money. The ability in Crucible, in less than 1000, is small and unchanging in half a century. A prize for the world champion, at a price of 500,000 pounds, modestly according to modern sports standards.

The attractiveness of magnetic funds has already led to the transmission of many sports to where the pockets (financial, not cookies) are deeper. The center of gravity in the cricket game turned to India, where the Indian Premier League was the largest global Cricket franchise. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now the global boxing axis. The Saudi -backed golf tour began three years ago.

This external migration is not limited to sport. The ARM (semiconductor), DeepMind (AI) and Darktrace (cybersecurity) were all the leading UK companies in the world that bound international offers, and given subsequent growth, prematurely. The UK has been sold in a hurry, and is now in leisure because it seeks to care for the necessary stellar companies to form the industrial strategy and startup growth.

These are nuts. The UK cannot worse to lose the winners of such people. The United Kingdom, with its history and its work, is a sector rich in success stories. Football, which was invented here in the nineteenth century, is now the largest sport in the world through popularity and participation and on some measures of measures. Although the country, which represents less than 1 percent of the world’s population, the Premier League is the leading football league with revenue anywhere.

Modern tennis, another invention of English in the nineteenth century, ranks first among the 10 best international sports, with decades’ revenues and popularity growth. The world’s first tennis championship is Wimbledon, with revenues of 400 million pounds last year.

It was the British army officers who invented the Senoker during the same era. Smaller than football or tennis, the growth rates in revenue and participation are equally strong as they penetrate the large markets in China, the Middle East and future India, as they were played for the first time. Allowing the Snooker slides from the grip of Sheffield at this stage will be the nearsightedness like selling an arm, leg or leg.

The government will achieve national growth only through the development of regions and countries in the United Kingdom. In pursuit of this, leaders in the municipal areas and the mayor of more powers were delivered, but not more money. It is strange that the growth speech in Chancellor Rachel Reeves in January presented a few precious either to regions or sports. (Announcement a A new football field for Manchester United Not counted – the most likely supporters live in London.)

However, widely supported, exercise is one of the most effective engines for local growth. There is no better example than Stripford in East London, the home of the London 2012 Olympics. Its transformation came from jurisdiction to improvement from the door of courtesy 9.3 billion pounds in public funds, and from the beginning, focus on inheritance. The All England club, which hosts Wimbledon, has invested more than half a billion pounds in promotion and extending its government support for popular tennis to tens of millions.

Comparison with Sheffield and Snooker is useful. I admire both, I am completely invested. Unfortunately, the government is not. Investing per capita in Sheffield is less than half half of Manchester and ten tenths of the town in London and Sometimes. Investing in the Sheffield Boutef theater was a slight change.

As a sport, Snooker never received a single penny of public funds. If we are serious about growth outside the southeast, the stadium needs a settlement. Review of the consultant spending in June is an opportunity to do so. Investing in Snowker in Sheffield will prove it as the global axis, as special financing that generates wider growth benefits as well as Strivord and Weldon enjoyed. Investing in Snooker Grassroots will create a talent pipeline needed to maintain success. China has 300,000 clubs, UK only a few hundred. However, the Chinese world champion, Zhao XINTong, is trained in Sheffield.

Wimbledon and Chevild can become “two weeks” northern and southern poles of England. The rising sports star, instead of selling, can lead to growth and pride locally while strengthening the UK position worldwide. In this century, Sheffield and Snooker can become synonymous, internationally recognized, as well as Sheffield and Steel in the past.

The industrial strategy is not related to choosing the winners, but to adhere to them. For the British economy, Sport, Snooker and Sheffield are a winning team and a rising star. Investing here would present the Holy Just for the local growth to achieve national goals with global ambition. In the words of the finest philosophers of the twentieth century in England, Chas and Dave, “Snooker Loopy” will not.