The PDC World Darts Championship, known for sponsorship purposes as the
Cazoo
Cazoo is a British online car retailer based in London, England which was founded in 2018 by Alex Chesterman.
History
Cazoo was founded in 2018 by British internet entrepreneur Alex Chesterman. It launched an online marketplace for used cars i ...
World Darts Championship, organised by the
Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), is a
World Professional Darts Championship held annually in the sport of
darts. The PDC championship begins in December and ends in January and is held at
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and has been held there since 2008. It is the most prestigious of the PDC's tournaments, with the winner receiving the Sid Waddell Trophy, named in honour of the darts commentator
Sid Waddell, who died in 2012. Along with the
Premier League Darts and
World Matchplay, it is considered part of the
Triple Crown.
The PDC championship began in 1994 as the WDC World Darts Championship as one of the consequences of the
split in darts, which saw the
World Darts Council break away from the BDO. As a result of the settlement between the BDO and the WDC in 1997, the WDC became the PDC, and players were thenceforth free to choose which world championship to enter (but not both in the same year), as long as they met certain eligibility criteria. Both organisations continued to organize their own world championship until the 2020 editions, after which the BDO folded.
There have been ten different winners since the tournament's inception. With 14 wins from 25 appearances,
Phil Taylor has dominated the competition, last winning it in 2013. The other players to win it more than once are
John Part (2003 & 2008),
Adrian Lewis (2011 & 2012),
Gary Anderson (2015 & 2016),
Michael van Gerwen (2014, 2017 & 2019) and
Peter Wright (2020 & 2022). The one-time winners are the inaugural champion
Dennis Priestley (1994),
Raymond van Barneveld (2007),
Rob Cross (2018) and
Gerwyn Price (2021),
History
In 1992,
some high-profile players, including all previous winners of the
BDO World Darts Championship still active in the game, formed the WDC (now PDC), and in 1994, held their first World Championship.
Dennis Priestley won the inaugural competition.
The players who broke away were taking a significant gamble – the tournament was broadcast on satellite television rather than terrestrial, and from 1994 to 2001, the prize fund for the players in the WDC/PDC World Championship was lower than the prize fund in the BDO version, although the 1997 PDC World Champion received £45,000 compared to that year's BDO World Champion receiving £38,000. In 2002, the PDC prize fund overtook that of the BDO for the first time, and the PDC event now boasts the largest prize fund of any darts competition. In 2010, the prize fund reached £1 million for the first time, with the World Champion collecting £200,000.
The 2014 and 2015 PDC World Champions collected £250,000 for their respective wins. For the next, winner's share increased to £50,000 each year culminating in a 2018 prize fund of £1.8 million. The current prize fund for the tournament is £2.5 million with £500,000 to the winner, as set since the 2019 edition.
In 2020, the
British Darts Organisation — which had held a separate version of the world championship since the split in 1994 — went into liquidation. As a result, the PDC version was briefly the only recognised world championship in darts until the
2022 WDF World Darts Championship
The 2022 Lakeside WDF World Championship was the first World Championship organised by the World Darts Federation. The tournament was held at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, Surrey, which hosted the now-defunct BDO World Darts Champion ...
was held.
Venue
The PDC World Darts Championship has been held at
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
since 2008, having previously been held at the
Circus Tavern in
Purfleet,
Essex
Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
, from 1994 to 2007.
List of finals
Records and statistics
Total finalist appearances
* Active players are shown in bold
* Only players who reached the final are included
* In the event of identical records, players are sorted in alphabetical order by family name
Champions by country
Nine-dart finishes
Thirteen
nine-dart finishes have been thrown at the World Championship. The first one was in 2009.
Averages
Since the breakaway of the PDC players, there has been much debate about the relative merits of the players within each organisation. The debate often focuses on the three-dart averages of players in matches.
An average over 100 in a match in the PDC World Championship has since been achieved 195 times. This is compared to 21 times in the BDO World Championship, following the 2019 event. In
2010 Phil Taylor became the first player to average over 100 in all six rounds of the tournament. He repeated this feat (though lost the final) in
2015 and
Michael van Gerwen achieved it in
2017 and
2019.
An average of over 105 in a match in the PDC World Championship has been achieved 40 times. The highest match average ever in the BDO World Championship is 103.83 by Raymond van Barneveld in his quarter-final victory over John Walton in 2004.
Records
:Most titles: 14,
Phil Taylor. Taylor's two BDO titles take his total to 16, a record across both organisations.
:Most finals: 19,
Phil Taylor, 1994–2007, 2009–2010, 2013, 2015 and 2018.
Taylor's two BDO finals take his total to 21, a record across both organisations.
:Most match wins: 110,
Phil Taylor, 1994–2018. Taylor has only lost 11 matches at the tournament and reached every final from 1994 until 2007, before being beaten in the quarter-finals by
Wayne Mardle in 2008.
:Longest unbeaten run: 44 matches,
Phil Taylor, 1995–2003, between his defeats in the 1994 and 2003 finals.
:Most 180s in a tournament (total): 828 in 2019. This was the first tournament to feature a 96 player field.
:Most 180s in a tournament (individual): 83,
Michael Smith (2022)
:Most 180s in a match: 24,
Peter Wright (2022 semi-final) and
Michael Smith (2022 final)
:Most 180s in a match (both players): 42,
Gary Anderson (22) and
Michael van Gerwen (20) (2017 final)
:Longest streak of 100+ averages: 19 matches,
Michael van Gerwen, 2016–2019
:Most appearances: 25,
Phil Taylor.
:Youngest player:
Mitchell Clegg
Mitchell Clegg (born 12 November 1990) is an Australian professional darts player. He lives in Newcastle, New South Wales. Clegg won the Oceanic Masters title at the age of just 15 years, 345 days. This meant he was the youngest player ever to q ...
, 16 years and 37 days in 2007. Clegg had qualified as a 15-year-old. He was younger than
Michael van Gerwen, who set the BDO World Championship youngest player record a few weeks later.
:Youngest finalist:
Kirk Shepherd, 21 years and 88 days In the 2008 final,
Shepherd was two days younger than
Jelle Klaasen, who won the BDO title in 2006.
:Record TV audience UK: 1,500,000 (2015 Final). The 2007 final was the first time that
Sky Television achieved a viewing figure of over 1 million for a darts match. The 2013 final had a 1.2 million average, with 10 million viewers over the course of the tournament.
:Record TV audience: 2,170,000 (2017 Final). The record was set during the Dutch broadcast (RTL7) of the 2017 final between Dutchman
Michael van Gerwen and
Gary Anderson.
The 2018 final holds the record for highest combined audience in the UK, Netherlands and Germany with over 4.4 million viewers.
:Won both World Championships: Four players.
Dennis Priestley was the first player to win both versions of the World Championship,
winning the 1991 BDO Championship and the 1994 PDC Championship. Phil Taylor,
John Part and
Raymond van Barneveld have since matched the feat.
:Overseas World Champions: Three players.
John Part was the first player from outside the UK to win the PDC World Championship with his 2003 title, followed by
Raymond van Barneveld in 2007 and
Michael van Gerwen in 2014. Part was also the first overseas player to win the BDO title, doing so in 1994.
:Youngest World Champion:
Michael van Gerwen was 24 years and 9 months old when he won the title in 2014.
:Oldest World Champion:
Phil Taylor was 52 years and 5 months old when he won his last world title in 2013.
Media
Domestic broadcaster
The PDC World Championship has been broadcast live and in its entirety by
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
in the UK since its inception. Since 2009 the tournament has been presented in
High Definition (HD). Their coverage is currently presented from a studio overlooking the interior of the Alexandra Palace venue.
The current presenting team is as follows:
Presenters:
* Emma Paton: (2020–present)
*
Anna Woolhouse: (2022–present)
Commentators:
*
Stuart Pyke
Stuart Pyke (born 8 July 1961) is a British-born sports journalist and broadcaster. Stuart was born in St Helens, Lancashire
St Helens () is a town in Merseyside, England, with a population of 102,629. It is the administrative centre of the M ...
: (2003–present)
* Rod Studd: (2009–present)
* Dan Dawson: (2022–present)
Co-commentators/pundits:
*
Wayne Mardle: (2010–present)
*
John Part: (2013–present)
*
Mark Webster: (2018–present)
*
Laura Turner: (2019–present)
*
Corrine Hammond: (2022–present)
Former presenters and commentators have been:
*
Dave Lanning: (1993–2010 & 2013)
*
John Gwynne: (1993–2013, 2016)
*
Sid Waddell: (1994–2012)
*
Jeff Stelling: (1993–2002, 2005)
*
David Bobin
David Bobin (November 1945 – 24 May 2017) was an England, English sports journalist mainly known for his work on television.
Biography
Bobin was educated at Abingdon School from 1957 to 1962 and was a keen rower.
He began his career as a news ...
: (1994, 2002–2003)
*
Helen Chamberlain
Helen Marie Chamberlain (born 2 April 1967) is an English television presenter, best known for presenting ''Soccer AM'' on Sky Sports for 22 years. She previously worked as a holiday-camp entertainer.
Biography
Chamberlain was born on 2 April ...
: (2003–2009)
* Jonathan Green: (2000)
* Laura "Laure" James (2014–2016)
*
Eric Bristow: (1993–2016)
*
Dave Clark: (2001–2020)
*
Colin Lloyd: (2020)
*
Rod Harrington: (2005–2020)
* Nigel Pearson (2006-2022)
*
David Croft: (2013–2021)
*
Laura Woods: (2018–2022)
*
Devon Petersen
Devon Petersen (born 4 June 1986) is a South African professional darts player and a pundit for Sky Sports. He has qualified for the PDC World Championship on seven occasions with his best result coming in 2014, 2019 and 2021 when he reached th ...
: (2019–2022)
* Adam Smith: (2020–2022)
Overseas broadcasters
Dutch broadcaster
SBS6, having covered the BDO World Darts Championship for many years, also covered the event until
RTL7
RTL 7 is a Dutch free-to-cable television channel that was launched as ''Veronica'' on 1 September 1995. RTL 7 is RTL Nederland's "men's channel" with action films, reality television about crime and professions, soccer, motorsport and talk sho ...
took over broadcasting.
TV3 Sport (Denmark),
Fox Sports (Australia),
TSN (Canada),
SuperSport (South Africa),
Sky Sport (New Zealand),
StarHub (Singapore), Ten Sports (India), CCTV (China), Showtime (Middle East), Ukraine TV, TVP Sport (Poland), NOVA Sport (Czech Republic and Slovakia), Sport1 (Hungary), Meersat (Malaysia), 7TV (Russia), Measat (Indonesia),
J Sports
J Sports is a group of four sports satellite TV channels in Japan produced and broadcast by Jupiter Sports. They are owned by
Coverage Football Soccer
* FIFA
** National teams
*** Men's:
**** FIFA U-17 World Cup
*** Women's :
**** F ...
(Japan),
DAZN (USA, Italy), GOL TV (Spain)
Eurosport
Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...
(Romania) and
VTM4 (Belgium) now also broadcast the event.
Viewing figures
Television viewing figures for the final are as follows:
Webcasting
The PDC world championship events are now broadcast on www.livepdc.tv which shows the events live, highlights and also classic matches. This website is a subscription only viewing and is limited to certain territorial restrictions.
Video games
The PDC have worked with various
video game developers since 2006 to create a number of darts-themed titles based on the World Darts Championship tournament.
Their first game ''
PDC World Championship Darts'' was developed by
Mere Mortals for the
PlayStation 2 and
PC. The second game in the series was ''
PDC World Championship Darts 2008
''PDC World Championship Darts 2008'' is a sports video game, published by Oxygen Interactive and developed and designed by Mere Mortals. It was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 PC, Wii, Xbox 360, and the PlayStation Portable. Th ...
'' developed by Mere Mortals for the PlayStation 2, PC,
PlayStation Portable,
Wii
The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...
and
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
. A year later
Rebellion Developments took over development of the series, releasing PDC World Championship Darts 2009 for the Wii and
Nintendo DS.
The most recent PDC World Darts Championship console game to be released was ''
PDC World Championship Darts Pro Tour
''PDC World Championship Darts: Pro Tour'' is a darts simulation video game based on events held by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The game was developed by Rebellion Developments in collaboration with British developer Redoubt, Ltd. ...
'' a darts video game for the
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
, Wii and Xbox 360. This game is the most comprehensive of the series featuring ten professional players and five official PDC tournaments including the
PDC World Grand Prix,
Las Vegas Desert Classic,
PDC UK Open and the Holland Open.
In 2021 the PDC collaborated with Blueprint Gaming to develop ''PDC World Darts Championship'', an officially licensed slots game available to play on mobile devices and PC, the game was released in February 2021.
Sponsor
The tournament has been sponsored by online car retailer
Cazoo
Cazoo is a British online car retailer based in London, England which was founded in 2018 by Alex Chesterman.
History
Cazoo was founded in 2018 by British internet entrepreneur Alex Chesterman. It launched an online marketplace for used cars i ...
in 2023. Previous sponsors have been:
*
Skol (1994)
*
Proton Cars (1995)
*
Vernon's Pools (1996)
* Red Band (1997)
*
Skol (1998–2002)
*
Ladbrokes
Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations a ...
(2003–2014)
*
William Hill (2015–2022)
*
Cazoo
Cazoo is a British online car retailer based in London, England which was founded in 2018 by Alex Chesterman.
History
Cazoo was founded in 2018 by British internet entrepreneur Alex Chesterman. It launched an online marketplace for used cars i ...
(2023–)
Trophy
Following popular darts commentator
Sid Waddell's death on 11 August 2012, the decision was made to rename the champion's trophy to the Sid Waddell trophy from the 2013 tournament onwards.
Notes and references
External links
World Championship page on the PDC websitePDC World Darts Championship on Darts database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pdc World Darts Championship
World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
Alexandra Palace
PDC
Recurring sporting events established in 1994
1994 establishments in England
Annual sporting events in the United Kingdom
International sports competitions hosted by England