The World Snooker Championship, the longest-running professional snooker tournament, is being played in Sheffield and has been broadcast on Sky TV until this year.
Former New Zealand No.1 Garry Hale has been watching the tournament for at least four years on Sky, but was disappointed it was now unavailable.
"All the ranking events have been live as well over a number of years and all of a sudden we're down to virtually nothing," Hale said.
"There’s only been two events that have been streamed ... since last year.
"If they’re going to screen anything at all, you’d prefer it to be the world champs."
The Dunedin player knew of several players throughout the country who were frustrated about the omission.
He felt it was "no coincidence" international football was regularly broadcast as the sport gained in popularity.
"They’re obviously appealing to the masses, because in all honesty, snooker’s a minority sport compared to football.
"All the Premier League games in football now are all streamed live.
"They’re going to get more subscriptions through football fans than they are through snooker fans.
"It is what it is — [but it] doesn’t make it any [less] frustrating."
Mr Hale said there were streaming services international viewers could watch the championships on live, which was hard as the championships were played in the middle of the night (New Zealand time) and the services did not allow the events to be recorded to watch later as they could on Sky.
A Sky spokesman said the company no longer held the rights to broadcast the championships after a "feasibly balanced deal" could not be reached.
"However, broadcast rights change regularly, so this may be the case moving forward."
