Ding v Zhao Could Shatter Snooker's All-Time TV Audience Record
A Match Unlike Any Other at the Crucible
It is not the last-16 clash between Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins. It does not feature world number one Judd Trump, nor three-time world champion Mark Williams. Yet according to WPBSA chairman Jason Ferguson, the most-watched match in snooker history could well be the meeting between Ding Junhui and Zhao Xintong at this year's World Championship in Sheffield.
The numbers that underpin that claim are staggering. According to World Snooker Tour figures, a cumulative audience of 180 million viewers watched the 2025 World Championship on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV5, with more than 24.5 million unique viewers tuning in for the third session of last year's final alone. The tournament also generated 1.5 billion social media impressions across China over its 17-day duration. Those are not figures you can easily contextualise against Western broadcasting metrics — they represent a sport that has fundamentally shifted its centre of gravity.
The Significance of the Fixture
To appreciate what this match represents, it is worth considering who these two players are within the story of Chinese snooker. Ding Junhui was the pioneer — the player who first demonstrated, when he won the UK Championship as a teenager in 2005, that a Chinese player could compete and win at the highest level of the professional game. He has since accumulated multiple ranking titles and spent considerable time ranked inside the world's top four, making him a recognisable figure to an entire generation of Chinese snooker fans.
Zhao Xintong arrived on a different trajectory. The 29-year-old from Xi'an became China's first World Champion when he defeated Mark Williams 18-12 in last year's final, a result that Ferguson describes as transformative for the sport's profile in the country. Zhao had come through four rounds of qualifying before beating Jak Jones, Lei Peifan and Chris Wakelin en route to the semi-finals, where he dismantled seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17-7 in arguably the most dominant Crucible semi-final performance in recent memory. The title win made him a national hero almost immediately.
"Since Zhao Xintong won, snooker has continued to grow and recently we went to the number one sport watched on state media, China Central TV," Ferguson told reporters at the Crucible. "We have a really popular world champion. He is popular, cool and funny — and funny in both languages. Him winning has had a huge impact on the sport and it has gone from strength to strength."
Record-Breaking Potential
Ferguson has been explicit about his expectations for this fixture. "It's a big clash and it could surpass all records — it could be hundreds of millions watching in China," he said, adding that snooker appears to be on a sustained upward trajectory in terms of audience figures. With the defending world champion facing the sport's original Chinese trailblazer, the narrative ingredients are self-evident.
Zhao himself has spoken candidly about the shift in his public profile since winning the title. "When I go to China I'm famous now and when I'm walking around the street lots of people want to take pictures of me," the 29-year-old said. "It's amazing and a big difference to before but I'm really happy to do it and I'm trying to become a great player."
The Broader Context for the Sport
Snooker's growth in China has been a long-term strategic priority for the WPBSA, and the results of that investment are now playing out at the Crucible in ways that would have seemed implausible two decades ago. The sport's professional ranks include a significant and growing cohort of Chinese players, several of whom are ranked inside the world's top 50. The production of a world champion in Zhao has accelerated interest at grassroots level, with participation figures rising sharply in the months following last year's final.
The O'Sullivan v Higgins match will draw considerable attention for its own reasons — two legends of the green baize meeting in the last 16 is never short of narrative weight. But in terms of raw audience numbers, the data suggests that the match the world will be watching most closely is the one taking place between China's past and China's present.
All television audience data cited in this article is sourced from World Snooker Tour official figures. Match records via CueTracker.
