Zhao Xintong’s historic triumph at the Halo World Championship earlier this month generated record figures across television and social media audiences in China.
Beating Mark Williams 18-12 in the final, 28-year-old Zhao became the first player from China to conquer the Crucible and lift snooker’s most famous trophy.
The tournament had a cumulative audience of 180 million on national broadcaster CCTV5, the highest figure since 2022. The third session of the final alone was watched by 24.59 million unique viewers across China.
Across the 17 days, the event had 1.5 billion social media impressions. After the final, the hashtag #ZhaoXintongWinsWorldChampionship had over 170 million impressions on Weibo and was the number one trending topic for several hours.
Chinese media ran 10,600 articles during the event, on national outlets including CCTV, People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency.
Across Huya, Douyin and WeChat there were 424 million streams of the World Championship, an increase of 112% on last year. In total over the 2024/25 season, WST events achieved 1.1 billion live streams in China, up 63% on the previous season.
Tom Rowell, WST’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, said: “Zhao has instantly become a national hero in China and an inspiration to many millions of young fans and players, with his flamboyant style and incredible skills on the table. The images of him draped in a Chinese flag holding aloft the World Championship trophy clearly had a huge impact in his homeland.
“The astonishing numbers from CCTV5’s broadcast and across social media in China show the extent of snooker’s popularity and the fact that a whole nation was getting behind Zhao’s success.
“We have built snooker over the past 20 years in China, from small beginnings to become one of the most successful sports. We have ambitious plans to continue this growth and we are talking to our partners in China about further opportunities. It will be fascinating to see how Zhao fares in his first season as World Champion, and to see new superstars emerge in his slipstream.”