Seven-time world champion’s needling of authorities makes a difference and other sports could learn from his example
The next time Ronnie O’Sullivan turns up at Alexandra Palace, Freuds, Edelman and the other big PR firms should send their graduate trainees and tell them to take copious notes. Because, over a few otherwise unremarkable soot-grey January days, the most compelling man in British sport gave yet another masterclass in controlling the narrative as well as the cue ball.
Nearly 100 years ago, the British Independent Labour party MP James Maxton said: “If you can’t ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus.” Last week O’Sullivan, snooker’s ultimate ringmaster, grabbed the harnesses of at least three. Not for him a single-minded focus on chasing down a record‑breaking eighth Masters title. At every press conference he also made a headline. While, for good measure, he reignited his guerilla campaign against World Snooker, which threatens to make the Thirty Years’ War look like a brief skirmish.