After spending over 15 years living in different parts of America, I realized that snooker definitely has plenty of room to grow in this country.    It does have a national association as well as a national championship, however, the amount of players and activity has never really taken off.  Hopefully this will change in the near future.

A few major cities do have some snooker clubs including Los Angeles, Las Vegas  and New York.  Aside from that, most other places have 10 foot tables and the game that people play on it is called “golf”.

Just like many other industries, the internet can play a major role in helping boost the game in America.  Since snooker is one of those sports that are very compatible with television viewing, people like Marcus Norwood have used that avenue to get the game more out there on line.

Marcus, also known as force follow on the internet, is an educator who lives in Pearland Texas.   His passion for education is equaled by his love of cue sports and in 2007 began posting instructional videos for billiards on Youtube. To date Marcus has over 5 million views on 14 different video sites and has over 4900 subscribers.

Marcus has used his exposure on Youtube to promote multiple disciplines in the world of cue sports and in 2008 broadcasted a live snooker stream featuring U.S. pool champion Jeremy Jones and a Houston area snooker player known as Dr. Snooker. Marcus hopes to use his Youtube channel and affiliation with various billiards online communities to help develop snooker as a major sport in the United States.

Marcus also created an after school program for billiards in the school district for which he works and one day dreams of establishing snooker as a high school sport in the state of Texas. Marcus’s website is http:www.forcefollow.com and his videos can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/forcefollow

There are also plans to have some Can-Am tournaments in which players from America and players from Canada will create teams and compete against each other.  Also, with the rise in popularity of snooker in South America, perhaps we are one step closer to have snooker become a participating sport in the Pan American Games.  This would, of course, add some value and credibility for cue sports to eventually become part of the Olympic Games.

The United States Snooker Association (USSA) has entered it’s the third season of the USSA Tour.  The 2011 Tour season will consist of six events played over the first half of the year, with additional events anticipated to be added to the schedule which demonstrates the growing interest in competitive organized snooker in the United States.

The Tour is open to any player worldwide who is not a professional member of the World Snooker Main Tour, however a player must be a member of their respective national snooker governing body.

The United States Snooker Association (USSA) has also recently adopted a program to train snooker referees to an international standard as officially recognized by the International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF).  Successful completion of the course offers the award of an officially recognized IBSF “Class 3” international standard referee.

For more information, visit. www.snookerusa.com