CAIRO - Winning his world title in three cushion, Dutch billiard player Dick Jaspers earned 20.000 euro last Saturday night. That brings him to the top three of best paid billiard players in 2018, the year in which the prize money increased hugely. Belgian Frédéric Caudron, who won the McCreery tournament in New York and earned 135.000 euros, tops the ranking of best paid billiard players in 2018 so far with 221.000 euros, followed by Eddy Merckx with 155.800 and Dick Jaspers with a total of 115.00 euros.
The Dutch billiard journalist Bert van Manen keeps the ranking this year, in which he only counts the prize money in the big championships and tournaments. The world top of three cushion, which can foster the wealth of the new era, has finally reached the status of professional sportsman after many years of amateurism. Raymond Ceulemans, the 81-year-old billiard legend, who was appointed honorary member of the world federation UMB this week at the World championship in Cairo, has won 35 world titles in his fabulous career (21 in three cushion), but was only rewarded in those early years by cups and trophies. The grand master and best billiard player ever unfortunately was not part of the transition to the big money events.
The Belgians Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx were the best-payed players this summer with victories in the McCreery tournament (Caudron), the 3CC Masters in Seoul (Merckx) and the Verhoeven Open in New York (Merckx). Vietnamese Quyet Chien Tran won the LGU Cup (60.000) and received approximately the salary, for which normal workers in his country need some 25 years. The total amounts for players in Bert van Manen's ranking are from the big international tournaments. The world top, of course, also has substantial income from sponsor money, contracts, exhibitions and attractive agreements with producers of billiard tables, cues etcetera.
Dick Jaspers, for example, extended his contract with Longoni for three years during the World championship in Cairo, the brand for which he's playing for 28 years. Korean billiard companies, like Kimchi (Caudron, Merckx, Bury), DS Billiards (Sánchez, Sayginer) and others like Molinari (Blomdahl, Tran, Choi), Gabriels (Blomdahl), Verhoeven (Caudron, Merckx, Leppens), Simonis (Caudron, Jaspers, Kim), Aura (Nguyen), Longoni (Jaspers, Zanetti), Hanbat (Kim) have lots of international players under contract.
The big money-makers in the new era in billiards, of course, are not comparable to the world class players in other sports. Brazilian football star Neymar is paid 36 million per year by Paris St. Germain (4.000 euros per hour), Lionel Messi 29 million euros by Barcelona, but is estimated 87 million with bonuses and sponsor money. Tennis phenomenon Roger Federer is paid 65 million per year, Serena Williams 16 million and Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton at 30 million dollars.
The world's best billiard players are looking forward to the first catching-up they make in 2018. The world federation UMB, led by Mr. Farouk Barki and Kozoom International (Xavier Carrer, William Oh) initiated the major innovations in the billiards world. The calendar with all the traditional World Cups and international championships, is enriched by the 3CC Masters tournaments, the Ceulemans Cup and this year with the McCreery tournament in New York, where the biggest prize money ever was paid.
The top fifteen of salaries so far in 2018 (only prize money in the major tournaments):
1 Frédéric Caudron 221.000 euro
2 Eddy Merckx 155.800
3 Dick Jaspers 115.000
4 Dani Sánchez 111.000
5 Semih Sayginer 107.000
6 Quyet Chien Tran 102.500
7 Marco Zanetti 102.500
8 Sung-Won Choi 78.500
9 HaengJik Kim 67.000
10 Murat Naci Coklu 66.500
11 Torbjörn Blomdahl 48.000
12 Tayfun Tasdemir 45.000
13 Eddy Leppens 38.500
14 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 37.500
15 Jérémy Bury 32.000.