For the next week, televisions from Bremen to Bavaria will be tuned to events at Wembley. No, the Germany football team are not on British shores. Instead, the SAGA Insurance Masters is being contested and the ever-growing throng of German snooker addicts crave their first green-baize fix of 2008.

When the sport originally boomed on the small screen in the early 1980s, interest was overwhelmingly confined to the UK and its traditional Commonwealth outposts. A decade later the bug spread through Asia, but in recent years snooker has caught the imagination of continental Europe, with Germany leading the way.

Germany has no player on the professional tour or outstanding prospect, yet enthusiasm continues to grow. Next month John Higgins, Steve Davis and Shaun Murphy embark on an exhibition tour for which tickets have been bought quicker than hot pretzels. “Snooker is absolutely massive in mainland Europe and in Germany in particular,” Stephen Hendry, who has also performed in front of excited audiences there, said.

One overriding factor has led to a host of European nations initially becoming acquainted with, then entranced by, snooker, namely blanket television coverage of every world-ranking tournament, plus leading invitation events such as the Masters. It is the most watched sport on Eurosport in Germany and Rolf Kalb, the knowledgeable German language commentator, has developed into a celebrity, snowed under with e-mails.

This is the second season of a five-year deal between the WPBSA and Eurosport that means competitions are broadcast live to 60 countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Given snooker’s well-documented growth in China, the sport has never had a wider fan base.

When the top players travel to the Continent for pro-am events or exhibitions, capacity crowds, often paying high prices, are guaranteed. Indeed, a hardcore group of the sport’s devotees often journey to the UK. Fans from Germany, Russia and Japan will be among those at Wembley Arena.

Stroll down any street in Germany and the sport’s best are recognised. It is very different from 1996, when, on a trip to Osnabrück, Ronnie O’Sullivan was asked for an autograph only because he had been mistaken for Noel Gallagher, of Oasis. O’Sullivan has become an iconic figure on the Continent but if his defence of the Masters title falters against Stephen Maguire tomorrow, viewing numbers will not greatly suffer. For now, pure action is sufficient to retain a constituency newly introduced to a sport that, until recently, was off the radar.

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