with Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, while Simons was co-producer of the film The Lawnmower Man. Boxing promoter Frank Warren, a longtime business partner of Simons, also has a non-controlling stake in Power Snooker. According to Simons, the pair had "liked snooker but wanted to create their own game a cue sport which was both fast and exciting". Gunner stated "It had struck me for some time that Power Snooker would be a new and exciting transfusion", and that he took his inspiration from "seeing how Twenty20 cricket had revitalised cricket". Power Snooker officially launched on 22 July 2010 with former World Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan as the main snooker player endorsement. O'Sullivan said of the new cue sport "the crowd will love it and the public will enjoy it". Relationship to World Snooker Power Snooker is independent of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, organisers of the World Snooker Championship and other ranking tournaments, and regulators of the professional game. This new cue sport format has however been officially sanctioned by the WPBSA's chief shareholder, Barry Hearn. Simons had stated that he sees Power Snooker as simply being one a new cue sport and he hoped Hearn would approve since he took control of World Snooker, rather than being a threat to the established format of the traditional game or a competitor to WPBSA tournaments. According to The Guardian, Hearn sees Power Snooker as "an element of [the WPBSA's] ongoing attempt to overhaul the sport and introduce it to new audiences". Hearn stated on the launch that "We are 100% behind Power Snooker. In this new time for World Snooker, it is important for us to embrace new formats and new ideas", stating that he believed it would bring new audiences and fans to snooker. The Guardian also stated that Hearn believes these new formats will hopefully draw new fans into the traditional form of the sport, and that he compared it to the Prizefighter series he had recently introduced to boxing, and his recent revamp of the Professional Darts Corporation. Hearn has not invested financially in the format, with Simons stating that "Our feeling is that he'll [Hearn] take a look at the [first tournament], see how it goes, and then we'll have another conversation". Format General play Power Snooker is played on traditional-sized snooker tables, but with a "modern design and a bespoke Power Snooker baize".