Will it move or won’t it? That’s been the question asked of the World Darts Championship for some time, as the future of the sport continues to hang in the balance. With capacity at its current venue, the Alexandra Palace, having maxed out, relocating the biggest competition in darts has been mooted – but will it go ahead?
If it were up to legendary darts referee Russ Bray, a move away from Ally Pally “makes sense”. More than that, the former World Championship caller can see the sport’s future lying in Saudi Arabia. During an interview with talkSPORT, he explained: “The PDC’s [Professional Darts Corporation] a business. Barry and Eddie [Hearn, respective chairman and ex-chairman] and Matt [Porter, CEO of PDC], these guys, they’ll sit down and talk.”
Saudi chiefs are no strangers to disrupting the sporting landscape. The Public Investment Fund is involved in football, boxing and snooker, just to name a few, with darts having been touted as next on the list.
And Bray believes the pendulum could swing if the Saudi bigwigs are able to promise even bigger bucks than the PDC are offering now, leaving the likes of Luke Littler and co. on red alert. He continued: “Obviously, if they can pay the players £2million for winning the world final because we’ve got to go to somewhere else, then I’m pretty certain that’s what they will do. It makes sense.”
There are obviously cultural differences between darts as a sport and the Middle Eastern nation that may act as a roadblock to any move, most notably alcohol consumption. It’s something darts chief Barry Hearn has opened up about, saying: “I’ve taken a couple of big events out there and the players are loving it. We actually start the 167 event [snooker] next week, next Wednesday, before the Fury vs Usyk fight.
“This is our busiest time of the year. I mean, the Saudis asked me for darts about a couple of months ago, and I asked them a simple question – ‘Can we have alcohol?’ And they said no. And I said, ‘Well, then you can’t have the darts’.”
Given Saudi Arabia’s ever-increasing influence over the world of sport, Hearn’s knockback is unlikely to deter the organisers, should they set their sights on darts long-term. And with figures like Bray seemingly open to the idea, it could come sooner rather than later.