LONDON (AFP) — Publicist Max Clifford believes he can save snooker from what world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan has identified as the sport's "downward spiral".
One of the most popular sports on British television during the 1980s - an audience of 18 million watched the 1985 world championship final - snooker has been on the decline for several years.
O'Sullivan apart, snooker's current generation of leading players, for all their technical excellence, have failed to capture the public imagination.
A ban on tobacco sponsorship and a decline in prize money hasn't helped either. For example, the ongoing Wembley Masters tournament has no sponsor.
O'Sullivan attacked snooker's administrators, saying only someone with the business nous of pop music guru and television personality Simon Cowell or Barry Hearn, who made his name as snooker great Steve Davis's manager before branching out into boxing, could save the sport
Clifford, best known for his work in placing stories favourable to his show-business clients in the British press, backed O'Sullivan's stance and contrasted snooker's plight with the recently-enhanced profile of darts.
"Snooker these days gets a lot less coverage than even darts," Clifford said. "Darts has been revitalised in terms of television and how it is presented, the whole bit. But I think what they need to do is build stars.
"There needs to be a PR campaign using the media to build awareness, build young stars, good looking young guys with attractive girlfriends who should be seen at big events and movie premieres to move the whole thing on and move it forward," he added.
Clifford said O'Sullivan had not done enough to help solve the problem he'd identified. "Ronnie has never played the media game.
"What he's saying is absolutely right but you couldn't say Ronnie O'Sullivan has done a PR campaign in recent years to build up awareness outside of snooker, to make him into a household name.
"Really, that's what it is about, working the media. Because the bigger the stars, the bigger the interest. Not just within the sport but outside it.
"It is about using the media, building it up, getting other people involved. When, at snooker tournaments, do you see big stars there? A movie star, a TV star? You don't get any of that.
"When do you see snooker stars at a film premiere? Ronnie O'Sullivan with Tom Cruise, or this one or that one? It just never happens."
Clifford said he was ready to help, if governing body World Snooker would call him: "It needs the board to come and say, 'Right, we're going to have a year's PR campaign' which will cost 250,000 pounds or something like that. But what you're going to get out of it is worth millions."
But Clifford, who counts Cowell among his clients, said he was unsure if the music impressario would get involved: "I don't know if he's a fan of snooker."
Hearn said O'Sullivan was "carrying snooker on his own shoulders" but insisted the sport was still far from finished as a commercial enterprise.
"Snooker still does decent business but it's not as dramatic as it used to be," Hearn told BBC Radio Five.
"Basically, we had a diet of fantastic characters in the sport and without criticising the other players, Ronnie O'Sullivan is sort of carrying the sport on his own shoulders."
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