The World Nineball Tour has secured a significant streaming partnership with ESPN, bringing the US Open and Mosconi Cup to the broadcasting giant for the first time. The US Open in Texas this August will debut on ESPN+, followed by the Mosconi Cup from Orlando, Florida in November.
ESPN Deal Marks Turning Point for Nineball
Emily Frazer, CEO of Matchroom Multi Sport, expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration. “We’re super excited to get the news out to the pool fans, but also show ESPN our viewership for the pool,” she told Metro. “Obviously I see it with our own subscription platform, WNT TV, I see it with our social media. I know that there is huge potential for Nineball pool over here. I want to move the needle for them and this collaboration is really big news for the sport.”
Frazer contextualized the deal for UK audiences: “I see what it does when we do snooker events with coverage on a major broadcaster. This would be like the Mosconi and UK Open, going live on a BBC or ITV sport. That’s how big it feels.”
Challenges in Professionalizing Nineball
Matchroom Sport launched the World Nineball Tour in 2023, aiming to replicate the success of the Professional Darts Corporation. However, the project faces hurdles in a crowded sporting landscape and within pool itself, where multiple disciplines compete for attention. Frazer explained: “One of the main things that we’re doing at Matchroom Pool is trying to showcase to the world that nineball can be a professional sport. It has that image that’s not considered as professional as snooker, for example. But darts had that image years ago and it’s really turned around. Nineball is the way forward and us partnering with ESPN, it puts more eyeballs on it as an actual professional sport. And I want to showcase my best two events, basically ESPN now has those two.”
She highlighted broadcast and sponsorship as key challenges: “I would say broadcast and sponsorship are the real challenges when it comes to nineball and the growth towards being a mainstream sport. Recent collaborations we’ve had, for instance, with talkSPORT, they’ve been taking one exclusive table at the UK Open, and they had some great numbers. TalkSPORT were never showing any pool before on their channels. Broadcast has always been something that’s held us back in trying to get pool out there as a proper professional sport. But ESPN will open the doors to a lot more people.”
Building Demand Through Strategic Events
Frazer hopes the ESPN exposure will drive fan engagement: “I hope they will tune in to the Mosconi Cup this year. It’ll be an incredible atmosphere, and they’ll go, ‘Oh, my gosh, I need to get there! How do I get there?’ But it will be in Europe the following year. So then all of a sudden, it builds up the demand for when we head back to America in 2028. You need to create a demand for these events and that is what is happening.”
Drawing inspiration from darts, which has seen massive growth under Matchroom’s management, Frazer attended the US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden last month, where Luke Humphries defeated Luke Littler in front of 5,000 fans. “I was sat at MSG, Thursday and Friday for the US Darts Masters and I sat in that arena looking around,” she said. “I’m looking at every single person in there: what age they are, who they’re with, is it a couple that’s come in? Is it a group of friends? Are they in fancy dress? How long are they there for? How tanked up they are? Who’s queuing up for the bar? I look around at 5,000 people in there. The next morning, I wake up and I go, ‘How the hell do I do this with the pool? How do I imitate this?’ I just find it exciting.”
US Market Key to Nineball’s Future
Frazer emphasized the strategic importance of the United States: “Something like this, partnering with ESPN gets us on the map and that’s even more motivation. It wakes you up, it excites you. And it’s fun being here on the ground in America whilst it’s happening, because you’re thinking so much bigger picture, which really excites me, because we know the US is our market. Nineball originated here, it’s got the history here. This is our market.”
