Monday, 25 April 2011

What Price Value?

The World Professional Snooker Championship is taking place in Sheffield at the moment. One of the leading players, Mark Williams, has criticised the organisers for dropping the £147,000 prize that used to be awarded for a maximum 147 break. He says that players won’t bother to attempt the feat now there’s no money at the end of it. This raises two disturbing questions.

Firstly, it throws into focus yet again the crazy value system that we apply to human activity. Why should a snooker player be paid £147,000 for ten minutes work, albeit skilful, while a deep sea fisherman gets paid a small fraction of that in a whole year for risking his life to provide food?

Secondly, it raises doubts about the value of sport now that it’s been almost entirely consumed by the dubious ethos of the entertainment industry. Players simply won’t bother if there’s no reward, says Williams. No reward? Whatever happened to doing it for fun, for pride, for kudos, for the sense of achievement?

2 comments:

Maria Sondule said...

My main concern is this: What is snookering??

JJ said...

Snooker (no 'ing') is a table game with hard balls, a bit like pool. But it uses a much bigger table, is played with different coloured balls, and is obviously played to different rules. It was brought from India by colonial army officers during the days of the Raj. Most of the top players are British/Irish, Australian and Canadian, with the Chinese up and coming.

But that isn't really the point of the post!