So, PDC Chief Executive Officer Matt Porter has hinted at changes to next year’s Premier League format. What does he have planned? No idea, although I am sure there are many at boardroom level who have been clued in.
I like to think of PDC headquarters as the thinking tank for new concepts and ideas. As a rule of thumb, they do a great job. Look how far the organisation has come in a couple of decades – in fact, even in recent years. Once upon a time, the game was a fat, chain-smoking bloke called Dave in a pub whose greatest achievement, whilst balancing a pint in his non-throwing hand, was actually getting three darts to stick in the board.
Nowadays, not only do we have a plethora of lads managing that feat, but they seem to predominantly get them to go at the target they are aiming for too.
The tournaments are grander, the venues and audiences larger, the lager prices considerably higher and there is much more prize money on offer. Some players now have nutritionists, sports psychologists and fitness coaches. Bob from the Dog & Duck used to have a kebab and a lie down behind the fruit machine.
However, everyone loves a moan. My beef is half the Euro Tour being in Germany. At this rate, if Germany offered to host the World Cup of Tiddlywinks, the PDC would probably schedule three Euro Tours around it and call one the Bavarian Beer & Bratwurst Open. They already have the overall European Championship as well as the World Cup – so what’s with every other one of these being staged there? Anyway, that’s a question for another time. For now, the Premier League takes centre stage in this discussion.
For those unaware, it’s currently a league phase featuring eight players over sixteen weeks. Lose your first match and you go home with nothing – not even a Bendy Bully. Win one match, two points. Reach the final, three. Win the whole night and it’s five points, a £10,000 bonus and, if you score over 101 with six darts, you get to share a speedboat with Gary from Luton, which couldn’t be further from the coast if you moved him to the Sahara Desert.
It was great at the start because it was something different. Now it’s as stale as a McDonald’s burger bun found behind a radiator during a house clearance. Yes, we get to see seven high-quality matches with the elite facing each other each week. But therein lies the problem.
Once upon a time, when the top chuckers met on stage to do battle, it was a grand and rare occasion – usually a major final or something of genuine substance. Nowadays, Littler versus Humphries is as frequent complaints about VAR.
People are sick of these classic match-ups being diluted to the point where they are losing their prestige. Ryan Clark appearing on our television screens once a week was once considered excessive. Now he seems to be on every bloody channel going. Mind you, seeing his ghostly, luminous-toothed face was never exactly a prestigious occasion in the first place. It’s like being haunted by an orthodontist’s showroom display.
In the recent Premier League campaign, the two Lukes met a total of 584 times. Then afterwards they’d go backstage, have a Connect Four marathon and finish with a few games of Snakes & Ladders. It’s just all too much. What should be a mouth-watering, highly anticipated clash has become like countless re-runs of Only Fools & Horses. Still brilliant, still funny, still loved – but you’ve seen it so many times you can recite half the script before it starts.
What’s to be done about it? Maybe Matt and Co. have the solution.
Many darts fans have posted their suggestions on social media – me included. Having more players involved seems to be a popular opinion. Extend the Premier League back to ten or even twelve. Hell, have sixteen and split them in half (not literally – the NHS has enough problems without somebody attempting to physically divide Gezzy Price into two equal sections.
Then what you can perhaps do is give each bunch a Thursday night off every other week. Or perhaps return to the Contenders concept. That only came about when Gary Anderson pulled out early for the entire campaign and it left the tournament in limbo.
On that occasion, each Thursday night the PDC looked at whoever lived closest to the venue and gave them a shot. We had Big Hendo in Aberdeen, Willie in Dublin and, before he was established as a major star, Dobey in Newcastle. Three great calls and three memorable walk-ons as well as extremely popular shouts.
To be honest, at this stage, anything other than the same copy-and-paste encounters we get each week.
Like I said, it’s absolutely nothing against the competitors or the quality they produce – but perhaps even they are sick to death of facing one another so frequently. Unless, of course, they keep beating them. Then it’s only the bloke on the receiving end who’s fed up with the format and contemplating launching his darts into low Earth orbit.
I honestly don’t know the answer.
Whatever the PDC choose will more than likely be great for a while. Then that will become repetitive after a few years and fans will call for another revamp. That’s sport. You can’t win. Just maybe do your upmost to extend the length of time before everyone starts moaning again.
Whatever they do, please don’t include these bloody influencers.
I’d rather see my milkman go up against Beryl from the local launderette four times an evening than watch a pair of lads who think that because lots of people watch their TikTok videos, they are global superstars. Fair play to what they are doing, but it’s not celebrity status. Love Island and Celebrity Big Brother are what you should be shooting for – anywhere but the main stage of a major darts tournament.
I’m sure it will all be revealed very soon. And I have no doubt it will be welcomed. After all, given the exceptional heights the PDC has reached in recent years, they are clearly doing something right.
Matt, we await your news, sir.
