Snooker Making a Comeback in Poland

Snooker has had a surge in popularity in Poland in the last decade and particularly since the country was the host of two professional tournaments in the last few years. In 2011 the Warsaw Classic was held in the capital city and in 2012 the Gdynia Open took place in Gdynia. The world champion, Neil Robertson, won both tournaments and is expected to win again when he returns to Gdynia this February.

Poland’s first “golden era” of snooker was in the mid-90’s, explains Przemek Kruk, a Eurosport commentator. “I was around 15 when I first played at a club in Warsaw. I remember that I used to have 10 zloty with me every time I went to the club. It was enough to pay for two hours of snooker for 9 zloty and get one Snickers candy bar with the change! These days there are over 350 people on the official ranking list in Poland, but I'd say no more than 50 are regular players.

"Amazingly people still love watching snooker on TV, which tells me there's a huge potential. I would expect snooker to be the sport with the biggest discrepancy when comparing the number of people involved in playing and people following the game on TV. This year's World Championship final had 164,000 viewers on Eurosport, and in 2011 it had a bigger audience than the Wimbledon final. Generally in 2013, top snooker events rated three times higher than the channel's average.

“Since 2003, together with my co-commentator Rafał Jewtuch, I've been involved in virtually every tournament that has been broadcast. Aside from being a top player, it's the best job I could imagine,” said Kruk, who was an under-21 snooker champion and a member of the national team before becoming a commentator. 

“We have a lot of fun during commentary, and keep a good relationship with our viewers through forums and Facebook, with a lot of jokes and stories to tell. I guess it makes us a common 'voice of snooker' in Poland. When the pro tournaments are staged here, we sign more autographs than most of the players!"

Currently, snooker is not among the list of most popular sports in Poland. That list is dominated by speedway, tennis, volleyball, football, ski-jumping, and basketball. Kruk is hoping that if a Polish player can become successful in snooker, the interest may come back. In 2011, Kacper Filipiak won the European Under-21 tournament at only 15 years of age. He went on to have his story covered by the Polish media and the Przeglad Sporowy, the premier sports newspaper. Ronnie O’Sullivan even suggested that Filipiak could one day be a contender for the World Championship. Kruk hoped this would signal a new beginning for the sport but Filipiak later struggled to produce results during his debut season.

"Kacper had his chance, it's gone now. Fingers crossed for him to get another one," said Kruk. "I'm sure interest in snooker here would be huge if we only had one performing player on the tour. The most popular players here are obviously the likes of Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson and Mark Selby, as well as Jack Lisowski because of his fast style and his surname that sounds familiar to fans in the country.”

Agi Czerwińska, a professional tournament organizer for World Snooker, noted that, "Staging tournaments in Poland, including the exhibition events we had in Warsaw in 2007 and 2008, has accelerated the increase in the popularity of snooker here. The professional events have attracted more public to the venues and 'revved up' the interest snooker. It is becoming a well-recognised sport in Eastern Europe.

"People seem to be very excited before and during the tournaments. They keep asking me when we are holding the next European Tour event. The atmosphere in Gdynia was electric. Both audience and players loved it."

There seems to be a burgeoning younger audience for the sport in Poland. Agi reported that at the 2012 Gydnia Open, a quarter of attendees were children or students. The event’s Facebook page has also gotten a lot of attention from a younger audience with 47% of fans being under the age of 24. Hopefully this trend shows a bright future for snooker in Poland as new generations get involved.