Week 2
Learn how professional darts are played and how the game, and business, has evolved over the last several decades.
Watch
This 2013 Grand Slam semifinal is widely regarded as the best match in the history of the sport. Watch “Jackpot” Adrian Lewis and “The Power” Phil Taylor race to 16 legs in this long-format game.
Learn
World Darts
Professional darts are played in the singles format. There are professional and amateur circuits for both steel-tip and soft-tip (electronic) darts, with steel-tip being the overwhelming favorite in terms of television audiences, prize money, and global notoriety. Similarly, 501 and Cricket are both played, with 501 being the favorite (and exclusive game for professional steel-tip darts).
The global professional darts organization is the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), which was formed during the infamous split in darts.
The PDC tour structure can be thought of like the tennis and golf tours. Players earn tour cards, which allow them to compete in tournaments throughout the year. Several Orders of Merit are used to determine player rankings based on their cumulative earnings in certain events over a rolling 12- to 24-month period (depending on the Order of Merit). The annual calendar can be organized into four categories of events:
- Players Championship
- The bread-and-butter of the Pro Tour is the Players Championship series. All 128 tour card holders are invited to compete in each of the 30 events throughout the year, typically held on adjacent Saturdays and Sundays at venues in Barnsley or Wigan, UK. The winner earns £10,000.
- European Tour
- The Euro Tour is a series of events held in mainland Europe that offer players, including non-tour-card-holders, the opportunity to compete in a big-money, televised event. However, only the top 64 players on the Pro Tour Order of Merit are automatically invited. The remainer must qualify like everyone else. The winner earns £25,000
- Majors
- Like the Euro Tour, the majors only offer invites to a subset of the top 128 players in the world, and offer qualification paths for non-tour-card-holders. All are televised, and offer first-place prizes of between £100,000 and £500,000 for the World Championships.
- Exhibitions
- More like majors than any other format, exhibition events are strictly invite-only based on a combination of world ranking and player popularity. Players earn prize money similar to the majors, but that prize money does not count toward their Order of Merit ranking. The Premier League, World Series, Masters, Champions League, and World Cup are the major annual exhibition events/tours on the PDC circuit.