WST has today announced the main sponsor for the 2023 UK Championship
MrQ To Bring The Fun To Snooker’s UK Championship
The World Snooker Tour is delighted to announce MrQ as the Lead Partner of the UK Championship. As one of the biggest and most historic events on snooker’s global calendar, The MrQ UK Championship will ensure we mark the start of this season’s Triple Crown Series in style.
The popular UK-based online casino launched in 2018 and established a modern, easy to use platform to provide a fun and transparent customer experience.
Having already put their own spin on the PDC’s UK Open earlier this year, MrQ will bring the UK Championship to life in their own unique way and provide a best-in-class fan experience through a range of innovative and exciting new fan activations.
With 12,000 people expected to descend on the York Barbican from November 25th to December 3rd, fans can expect to see MrQ ever present across the tournament.
Fans will first experience MrQ during the qualifying rounds that will run from November 18th to 23rd in Leicester, culminating in ‘Judgement Day’ when 16 winners will go through to join the top 16 seeded players in York. Fans from all over the world will be able to follow the Judgement Day production, on Facebook and YouTube, as well as WST’s streaming partners including discovery+.
The UK Championship has been ever present on the WST calendar since 1977. Mark Allen won the title for the first-time last year, beating China’s Ding Junhui in the final. In recent years the trophy has also been lifted by the likes of Ding, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, John Higgins, Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy.
WST’s Chief Commercial Officer Peter Wright said: “It’s crucial that the World Snooker Tour works with likeminded and ambitious brands who have the same desire as we do to develop the sport and create the best possible fan experiences. That’s why we are delighted to align one of our most prestigious tournaments with MrQ, a UK based organisation that shares its name with part of our sport.
“York is a fabulous venue and the atmosphere inside the arena is electric when the best players on the planet compete for the famous trophy. We’re looking forward to working with James Booth and the wider team at MrQ to deliver a fun and engaging partnership.”
MrQ’s Head of Acquisition James Booth added: “We’re delighted to bring MrQ to the table of such a prestigious event and build a relationship with WST’s global snooker audience. There is a clear and obvious synergy between snooker and the MrQ brand, so we’re super excited to see the partnership come to life”.
As ever, The MrQ UK Championship will be televised by BBC, Eurosport, discovery+, CCTV5, Matchroom Live and many other broadcasters across the globe.
It’s not a bookie … it’s an online casino. That makes no difference in my eyes. Both type of “businesses” essentially exploit people’s naïvety, appetite for easy money and often addictions, to make huge profits … and ruin many lives.
And in this particular instance it’s even worse as this particular business has recently be fined for money laundering and failing to fulfill their social responsibilities . Here is my source: https://www.moneylaunderingbulletin.com/industries/casinos/mr-q-operator-fined-690947-by-uk-gambling-commission-for-aml-and-social-responsibility-breaches–1.htm#:~:text=Curator%20–%20June
Recently in comments, Grump was about golf and LIV, and players responsibilities. This is not any better. And let’s not forget the plans to bring snooker to Saudi Arabia as well, a country known for its sports-washing practices and total contempt for basic human rights. WST has no moral compass whatsoever. As such, I find it pretty hypocrite that they expect the players to be 100% devoted to the main tour and turn away good earning opportunities. Who here is “selling their souls” for money, big time? Seriously.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
oh damn just drop the wokeness on this. every major sport is going to Saudi Arabia, sorry, that’s just the reality, snooker would be absolutely foolish to stay out. also, let’s be honest, if the tobacco sponsorship hadn’t been axed snooker would be in a far better shape and that’s not me saying that, that’s Ronnie, Hendry and many more. so everybody can drop the virtue signalling.
what I would rather read about on this blog is why the hell Ronnie’s Netflix documentary is still not out. fuming.
I will not stop about Saudi Arabia Santino. Consuming tobacco is a personal choice, being killed because your peaceful opinions differ from what a political regime imposes brutally or because you are from the “wrong” ethnic group, or the “wrong” gender will NEVER be ok with me and I will stand by that. I’m 68 and my own father survived the war as a “hidden child”, most of his family disappeared during WW2, likely in fumes and ashes (for some we never knew for sure). As long as my brain works, I WILL NOT FORGET and I WILL NOT ACCEPT intolerance. And that goes for China too but at least China has a strong active involvement in snooker. They have millions of people playing it. Saudi Arabia is ONLY about money. And, as a person who lived through the late 60th as a teenager, through the flower power years, through the big social changes, I don’t see “woke” as an insult.
see I’m no fan of Saudi Arabia and I don’t want to get political here either (although I love Tarantino’s revenge on the “flower power” people in Once upon a time in Hollywood) but as I say EVERY sport is going there and snooker cannot afford not to do it. let’s be honest, snooker is in a horrible shape. it needs any chance at exposure and most importantly, money. we may not like the Saudis but tough luck, they have the cash. also, what’s happening with Ronnie’s documentary? the silence is still deafening
I have no clue about the documentary. And because “everyone” is doing something doesn’t make it right.
right so what is the right solution then? how/where can snooker grow? where is the money gonna come from?
Growing snooker is not just a matter of money. It’s more a matter of departing from a structure where one rather small UK centric organisation tries to control every aspect of the “professional” game. That model can’t work in a global economy. There are far too many aspects to this for it to be put in a comment. In other global sports, professional sports, there always is a kernel central body, but that body doesn’t try to do everything. They collaborate and delegate to regional and national bodies.
Thanks. That was highly instructive. You are also perfectly right to urge all of us to give reality its due. We all should.
What you’re pointing to here…
… is the herd instinct that is such a pervasive feature of humanity. It allows folks to pick up and emulate the racism they see in their neighborhood, and it gives public officials license to let themselves be bribed or otherwise corrupted, because everybody does it, and it would be foolish not to.
The detrimental consequences of that herd instinct in mind, it turns out that it is highly important, or rather crucial, that we set an example we could actually hope others to follow. That would be the way to make the world a tiny bit better, rather than to be heading the rush to the bottom. The solution, as they say, has to come from us. Because, if it doesn’t, and we merely follow them, the others will in turn follow us, for the worse. And we cannot possibly hope they do that.
That doesn’t just mean the UK Championships, or tournaments in Saudi Arabia, but also the Macau Snooker Masters. That is because, quite obviously, Wynn Macau isn’t just part of a hotel chain, it also is (what else?) a casino operator. Acting in support of the Butcher of Riyadh, or of folks who make exploiting human failings and frailty their business model, just isn’t how humans with an intact moral compass act. That would be setting an example we cannot possibly hope others to follow.
ah right so now you also hate that Macau hotel because they run a casino. surprise, Macau is built around the casino business, just like Vegas is. can you relax and be pro-fun for a second? do you think that comedians and music acts shouldn’t play Vegas because there are casinos there? I can’t imagine being this degree of anti-fun
I never suggested such a thing. It’s one thing to go to the casino as an adult, in control of their emotions and aware of their limits, and another thing to promote casinos and betting to the general public, including kids and vulnerable people, without any caveats. And on top of it, this particular business has recently been fined for not doing their duty to protect vulnerable potential customers and for money laundering. Is it that kind of association you want if you are a sport priding themselves about their integrity?
I was replying to Grump, Monique
Oh, for pity’s sake!
I couldn’t agree more. And the optics of the placard fully confirms the trajectory: Players reduced to barely recognizable ornament, and the word “Snooker” doesn’t even show up.
MrQ failed to safeguard their operation and money streams against money laundering, and, on top of that, against financing terrorism, as their licence requires. But, as they say, “There is a clear and obvious synergy between snooker and the MrQ brand”. Given that, it’s hard to see why WST wouldn’t hop in bed with the House of Saud as well.
In an ideal world populated by folks with an intact moral compass, fans and players wouldn’t show up for any tournament in Saudi Arabia, and also not for any MrQ … Championship. Fat chance, eh?