The BBC’s decision to drop the BDO world darts championships from its schedules represents the ultimate triumph for the man who runs the PDC, Barry Hearn. Whilst no one would pretend that the BDO has all the top players – I don’t think they have any of them – this was, nonetheless, the original world title. The PDC was set up, at least in part, like the Premier League in football, to keep all the money at the top of the game and to embrace a new generation of darts supporters. In the world where cash is king, there is no more powerful sporting king than Hearn.
Instead, the BBC will show a newly invented PDC ‘Champions League of Darts’ later this year, featuring the top eight ranked players in the PDC over one weekend. That may well represent the only darts the BBC is able to show all year and you have to wonder if the wily Hearn offered the tournament to the Beeb on condition it would no longer bother to show the BDO version of the world title. Whether he did or not, that’s what has happened.
It would be churlish to pretend that the PDC has changed darts in this country. I doubt whether many of the spectators at PDC events have the remotest interest in the game, except when it is presented as if it was a giant stag night, but without the wedding to follow. But many thousands pay to watch, or rather get slaughtered at each tournament and hundreds of thousands tune in to Mr Murdoch’s Sky Sports to see the tungsten heroes in action.
Doubtlesss, the BBC will do a cracking job with the new tournament, attracting many more viewers than Sky ever could, and in a few years Hearn will think, “Hmm. Job done. Let’s bring the Champions League of Darts back to Sky Sports where it belongs.” Then, the BBC will show no darts at all and Murdoch will be the owner of yet another monopoly.
I enjoyed this year’s BDO finals more than any darts event for many years. It had a more honest feel about it and it looked to this casual observer that many, if not most, of the attendees were actually from the darting fraternity than just lads out for a night on the piss.
I do hope that BT Sport hangs on to the BDO. It’s great fun to watch. You won’t get the superstars in the BDO version and the tournament is all the better for it. But I am very disappointed that darts, which used to be the people’s pub game of choice, will now all but disappear from terrestrial TV.
