Most individual sports have four majors in a year. Golf has the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the Open. Tennis has the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the French Open, and the US Open. But snooker has just three – the UK Championship, the Masters, and the World Championship. A fourth major just feels the right way to go. Although the UCI may disagree.

One of snooker’s largest problems, of course, is that all of these major tournaments are held on UK shores. A major tournament has not been held overseas since the 1975 World Championship in Australia. The British problem is further demonstrated by the fact that 63 of the WPBSA’s top 100 at time of writing play under British flags.

The sport is crying out for international expansion and the offer made by Saudi Arabia was too good to turn down. There has been talk in some quarters already of a rebel tour and that would only have been exacerbated if World Snooker had declined the Saudi’s offer. Snooker needs to avoid a LIV situation – the sport in its current form doesn’t have the breadth of reach or the depth of expansion to survive such a separation. 

The prize money on offer for the victor in this week’s Saudi Masters almost demands that it is given equal weighting to the other majors. In fact, the total prize money exceeds both the UK Championship and the Masters. Given that prize money directly equates to world ranking points, the players will already see it as a major tournament.

In other sports, investment such as this has led to sportswashing questions. Senior professionals including Judd Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan would not be drawn into those conversations when pressed earlier in the week. The sad reality of the matter is that snooker and its players aren’t secure enough – financially - to decline the injection of cash. And I don’t blame them. If they don’t take the money, someone else will. These players are not set for life in the same way that a top 100 tennis player or golfer might be.

Snooker needs to continue its expansion. Perhaps the only surprise is that serious talk of a fourth major didn’t come first from China. I would go further – I would move the UK Championship to the tired but quirky Crucible Theatre - and I’d take the World Championship on tour. Shanghai, Sydney, Bangkok, Brussels. The game needs a refresh, particularly with the imminent retirements of some of the game’s greats. Now is the time.

The Triple Crown will need to be rebranded, of course, a Quadruple Crown just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

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By Leon Parrott