World Snooker has broadened its association with social media platform Facebook by announcing that a number of its major events will this season be streamed free to fans in India via Facebook Live.
For the first time, extensive live coverage of a wide range of events on the World Snooker Tour will be available in India.
The Facebook Live coverage starts with the English Open, which takes place from October 14-20, and it will include the Home Nations and Triple Crown plus certain events from the Coral Series and BetVictor Series throughout the 2019-20 season.
World Snooker has previously partnered with Facebook to grant increased exposure for the World Championship. The showpiece event was broadcast on Facebook Live in the Indian subcontinent, as well as Central and South America, for the first time in 2017, with this initiative repeated over the past two years.
A spokesman for World Snooker said: “Snooker has a great connection to India of course as our sport was invented in Jabalpur in 1875. In more recent years we have staged the Indian Open world ranking event and seen some very talented players come out of the country.
“We know there is a great interest in snooker in India and with over a billion people it is a potential growth market for us.
“By providing more fans with the chance to watch the best players competing for the major titles live and free on Facebook, we hope to develop awareness and interest in our sport. We already have a global television audience of 500 million and we are constantly striving to bring snooker to new people across the planet.”
Englishman Stuart Bingham won last season’s English Open.