the World Snooker Championship, which has taken place as an annual event most years since 1927. Hosted since 1977 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the championship was sponsored by tobacco company Embassy from 1976 to 2005, and has since been sponsored by various betting companies after the introduction of an EU-wide ban on advertising tobacco products. The Triple Crown tournaments are televised in the UK by the BBC, while most other tournaments are broadcast on the Eurosport network, or ITV Sport, as well as numerous other broadcasters internationally. The World Championship is the most highly valued title in professional snooker, both in terms of financial reward (the tournament has carried a £500,000 winner's prize since 2019), ranking points, and prestige. The UK Championship, held annually since 1977, is considered to be the second most important ranking tournament, after the World Championship. These two events, and the annual non-ranking Masters tournament, make up the Triple Crown Series; being some of the oldest competitions on the professional circuit, the Triple Crown events are valued by many players as the most prestigious. Only eleven players have won all three Triple Crown events, as of 2022. Snooker has faced criticism for matches taking too long. In response, Matchroom Sport chairman Barry Hearn introduced a series of timed tournaments. The shot-timed Premier League Snooker was held between 1987 and 2012, with seven players invited to compete at regular United Kingdom venues, is televised on Sky Sports. Players had twenty-five seconds to take each shot, with five time-outs per player per match. Although some success was achieved with this format, it did not receive the same amount of press attention or status as the regular ranking tournaments. This event has been taken out of the tour since 2013, when the Champion of Champions was established. The event saw players qualify by virtue of winning other events in the season, with 16 champions competing. In 2015, the WPBSA submitted an unsuccessful bid for snooker to be played at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Another bid has been put forward for the 2024 Summer Olympics through the World Snooker Federation, founded in 2017. A trial for the format for cue sports to be played at the 2024 games was put forward at the 2019 World Team Trophy, also featuring nine-ball and carom billiards. Snooker has been contested at the World Games since 2001, and