It is amazing just how big darts has become since Sky Sports and Barry Hearn teamed up to create the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) in 1992.
Before Sky’s intervention, darts was very much stalling. There was no glamour, there were barely any sponsors, and there was barely any TV coverage. The top of players of the British Darts Organisation (BDO) wanted more, and in Barry Hearn they found just the man.
Today darts is among the most watched sports on UK TV, and almost weekly attracts arena crowds over 5,000 people not just in Britain, but around the world.
Indeed, the Darts Premier League is now played in 15,000 + sold-out arenas in Ireland, Germany and Holland, while there are also tournaments held on a regular basis in Belgium, Austria, USA, China, Japan, Australia, the UAE, and Singapore to name a few.
These days during the World Championships, Sky Sports rename one of their channels Sky Sports Darts to cover the tournament in-depth and the last final saw 1.4 million people tune in for the final, which amazingly is half the figure that watched in Germany.
Some thought Phil Taylor’s retirement may lead to a drop in ratings, but darts is more than managing without its former star man, and that’s because the talent on display these days has never, ever been higher.
Michael van Gerwen is obviously the standout. Though he only has two World Championship titles to his name, he’s been defacto the best player in the world for probably half a decade now smashing average record after record. His highest of all time came in February 2016 when he averaged 123.40 vs Michael Smith over 8 legs in the Premier League. Ridculous.
Gary Anderson is, of course, one of the other stars. Another two time World Championship winner, Gary Anderson has won a further 6 major titles and been to another 9 finals.
Then there’s the likes of the stunning, up and coming Rob Cross, the wild-haired Peter Wright, four-time World Champ winner and Dutch legend Raymond van Barneveld, plus the two-time World Champ and Phil Taylor protege Adrian Taylor.
Darts has never been so consistently good. Though we’ve had great names in the past like Jocky Wilson, Eric Bristow, Bobby George, John Part and Dennis Priestley, they never played quite with the consistently, the professionalism or the ferociousness that these guys do today.
Darts has been on an upward trajectory for nearly two decades now, but it still has never been better.
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