What’s behind snooker’s 147 boom?

When does a 147 become a 180?

When Ronnie O’Sullivan is creating more history. When did that happen?

O’Sullivan was hired to demonstrate that no one else’s snooker game could have done it better, in a year when the game’s maximum break, once regarded as being as suprising as the Himalayan Yeti, has been shown for the cameras on numerous occasions.

O’Sullivan won a record £180, 333 in bonuses when he sank his second maximum at the Saudi Arabia Masters in August, scoring just two hours after.

O’Sullivan maintains an audacious streak that sets him apart as his 50th birthday approaches in December. He maintains his pure box office despite almost three decades since his famous five-minute 147 at the Crucible.

O’Sullivan, who begins his quest for a ninth title with a record-extending debut on Tuesday, is not the only one to know the best way to go. The calendar year-best of 14-2024’s tally has been wiped out by the 25 already on the professional tour in 2025.

In a Wigan qualifier for the UK Championship, Chang Bingyu scored 147 in November. The tour’s 2025-26 season total, which started in June and continues until May, reached a record 16th.

Shaun Murphy, the 2005 world champion and the Masters winner of this year, has made two maximums in 2025.

If you’re wondering “who’s Aaron Hill”?, you’re probably not the only one who has two 147s in 2025. Ireland’s Aaron Hill has also had two of those.

Although he is the 43th overall, he has triumphed over O’Sullivan and Judd Trump. Keep in mind the name.

Murphy and Hill have been in touch with BBC Sport regarding this maximum-rush.

What’s going on, then, given the recipe, which calls for 15 reds and blacks followed by the colors in order, is left unaltered?

“You can picture Moira Stuart telling the nation Cliff Thorburn’s had a 147 at the Crucible in 1983,” Moira Stuart said. Because it’s just like, “Oh, there’s been another 147,” it would now be missed.

That is Murphy’s opinion, which sits fourth with ten maximums among all time.

He is correct in every way. Thorburn’s maximum, along with Daley Thompson and Steve Cram, won gold at the 1983 World Athletics Championship in Helsinki, was a defining moment for the armchair sports fan of that year.

Steve Davis set the record-breaking previous highest at the Lada Classic in Oldham 15 months later, but this was only the second official maximum. Davis’ reward One of the vehicles of the sponsor.

In the 1980s, a decade full of soap opera drama and powerful characters, there were only eight 147s.

Nothing compares to the present era in terms of quality.

One long-time Crucible fan who also attended the early 1980s World Championship qualifiers in Stockport once once said, “You were lucky if you saw a fifty break all day. Although some people believe it to be the past, the standards are still poor.

Jackson Page of Wales became the first player to score two 147s in a single tour match during the World Championship qualifiers this year.

Page did not win the Crucible, but she did so with £167, 000 in bonuses and £15,000 in prize money for making it to the final qualifying round, which is only £18, 000 short of Mark Williams’ prize as the tournament’s runner-up.

The tour is providing incentives for players who are pursuing their career records, according to Murphy.

“These challenges are more widely known. They are getting ready for them.

On tour, Alex Higgins never had more than one break. Ray Reardon, Terry Griffiths, Dennis Taylor, Joe Johnson, John Spencer, and other world champions didn’t do it.

Davis was out of one.

Hill managed to score two in four weeks. The Cork resident’s 23-year-old cannot believe Higgins never had a maximum.

However, Hill claims that “many players will have never had one.” My name should always be visible on the board of those who have. Great buzz there.

“Everyone on the tour could now arrange one.” One in every tournament is almost always what we anticipate. Everyone is making an egg on each other.

Does Hill now appear to be wealthy? Not entirely.

His highests were at the English Open in September and the Xi’an Grand Prix in October, both events with no bonuses and high-break prizes in the sum of £5,000. The money was split three ways in China after being racked in and there were additional maximums, so Ali Carter had to share it with him at the English Open.

Is a 147 society on tour? A WhatsApp group’s first maximum unlocking rate?

If there is a knack to it, it’s seeing it early, like when you score a 59 on the first few holes and think, “I’m on for something good here,” in golf.

We all think, “Hold on, there’s a 147 on here,” if you arrive early and take a few reds and a few blacks and find that the reds are in both pockets and aren’t on the cushions.

I tried to make it from the very beginning, so I’ve always been happy with the one I made in the Shoot Out a few seasons ago.

It was pretty unique to have the personal challenge of “let’s see how far down the 147 journey you can get” before being given the opportunity to do so in the Shoot Out’s cauldron.

I believe I had three or four double gin and tonics as a result of it. The hospitality was being effectively used, and it wasn’t quite as serious as some events.

Everyone in the room is aware of it when you’re on a maximum, which increases their concentration.

Everyone’s attention is on you in a jumble. The entire Ally Pally room went silent when I made one at the Masters this year.

Murphy suggests that explanations for the maximum surge are straightforward.

He says, “I just think everyone is getting better.” Some of the players in the bottom of the rankings can defeat anyone on their day.

The World Snooker Tour credits table-fitting teams and suppliers with improving “quality and consistency of playing conditions.”

However, the players are the ones who sink the balls.

Hill has two maximums. O’Sullivan currently has 17 records.

Ronnie, be prepared for you.

Hill enjoys the jest when it is said in jest.

I believe I’ll have the best breaks possible at the end of my career, he says.

Hill will at least think that the next frame has a lot of promise while going about his daily business, which Murphy does exactly.