Nominal vs present value
Local display: $1.7m · Rebased to 2024 USD via US CPI-U
How the total breaks down
Ranking prize money. World Championship and ranking-event purses during his dominant BBC years.
Exhibitions & endorsements. UK exhibition circuit and early commercial deals on the back of prime-time fame.
Impact 90
- Made snooker a British prime-time commercial profession
- Proved world No. 1 weeks translated into six-figure sterling seasons
- Set the exhibition-plus-Crucible template still used today
Davis taught snooker that television fame was a balance sheet. Exhibitions and BBC familiarity paid as much as the Crucible — a structure Hendry and O'Sullivan later scaled rather than replaced.
In 1985 Davis was snooker's establishment machine: world titles, BBC ubiquity and an exhibition diary that pushed his peak toward $600,000. In present value that is still a serious UK sports living — and the sport's first modern commercial template.