Ronnie O’Sullivan: Snooker’s Reluctant Global Icon and the Last Bullet in the Empire’s Cue
Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Last Rockstar of a Dying Empire’s Parlour Game
By A. J. “Sid” Siderov, International Desk, Dave’s Locker
Somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of TikTok, the British Empire quietly rebranded itself as a heritage theme park. The Union Jack is now a lifestyle accessory, afternoon tea is sold in Shanghai skyscrapers, and the Queen’s English is mostly spoken by voice-activated fridges. Yet one relic still tours the globe like a touring punk band that never learned the last chord: Ronnie O’Sullivan, cue in hand, eyes narrowed at six balls and the existential dread of a post-industrial island.
Snooker—let’s be honest—was invented so 19th-century colonels could feel superior while their colonies ran the actual economy. Today it’s broadcast from Riyadh to Riga, and the only man who still makes it look like rebellion rather than homework is a 48-year-old from Essex who chain-smokes during interviews and refers to the sport as “a bit of a laugh.” Last month in Riyadh, Ronnie lifted yet another trophy (the Saudis call it the “Masters,” because branding focus groups never met an absolutism they couldn’t monetise). The arena smelled of oud and desperation; the prize money could float a small Balkan state; and the assembled dignitaries applauded politely, as though watching a controlled substance in human form.
Global implications? Start with soft power. The UK exports two things successfully these days: financial loopholes and moody men with cues. When Ronnie clears the table in under five minutes—an act equal parts geometry and furious contempt—foreign viewers mistake it for national genius, the way we once mistook James Bond for plausible espionage. Broadcast rights ricochet across continents: CCTV in China, Eurosport from Warsaw to Marrakesh, illegal streams in every Brazilian favela that has Wi-Fi and a grudge. It’s the Commonwealth 2.0, except nobody has to salute.
Then there’s the economy of attention. While FIFA sells you human rights violations in HD, snooker offers a simpler morality tale: one gifted malcontent versus the entropy of green felt. Ronnie’s brand—restless genius, reluctant ambassador—is catnip for sponsors who like their rebellion pre-approved. A Chinese betting conglomerate reportedly pays him seven figures to wear a logo he once called “a sticker on a coffin.” The irony travels well; sarcasm is the only British dialect still untaxed.
Of course, the man himself appears terminally bored by the circus. During post-match pressers he channels Camus with a side of fried rice: “We’re all just passing time until the next frame, mate.” Journalists scribble furiously, mistaking nihilism for depth, then tweet it from verified accounts with crying-laughing emojis. Somewhere in the metaverse, a teenager in Lagos sets his avatar’s walk-on music to Ronnie’s 147 break at the Crucible, looped to infinity, because that is what passes for transcendence in 2024.
There is geopolitical poetry here, if you squint. The tables are still manufactured in Liverpool, but the cloth is woven in near-sweatshops outside Dhaka. The chalk comes from Taiwan, the tips from water-buffalo horn in Vietnam, and the prize money—well, that originates in sovereign wealth funds hedging against the day when oil is as quaint as coal. Ronnie, meanwhile, pockets his cheque and complains the lighting makes him look “like a haunted waxwork.” He is both product and critic, symptom and diagnosis.
What happens when he finally hangs up the cue? The sport will not collapse; empires never do, they just pivot to streaming. Already the Chinese federation trains prodigies who practise 12 hours a day on simulators that look like dystopian tanning beds. But something brittle will have snapped: the last living link between snooker and whatever authenticity we still agree to pretend exists. After Ronnie, the deluge—of data, of algorithms, of perfectly curated break-building AIs who never swear, never smoke, never tell a sheikh the tournament is “a glorified exhibition for people who hate sport.”
So here’s to Ronnie O’Sullivan, the reluctant gladiator of late capitalism’s parlour game. May his cue stay straight, his ennui stay photogenic, and his tax exile remain mercifully offshore. The world will keep turning, authoritarian arenas will keep springing up in deserts, and somewhere a commentator will whisper, “He makes it look easy,” which is exactly what we say about the collapse of civilisations—right up to the moment the last black ball drops.
