The PDC association, which dominates professional darts, and its World Championships have only been able to offer new experiences in recent years, writes Urheilu’s news manager Olli-Pekka Lukka.
Olli-Pekka Lukkaeruhlu’s news manager
When Luke Littler and Luke Humphries stepped onto the stage of Sunday’s World Cup final, cheered the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) headmen, guaranteed to be satisfied behind the scenes. Throughout the tournament, the media attention was intense, especially in the British Isles, where even Littler was treated menu on the day of the final match.
The 16-year-old Littler immediately became one of the top names in darts and improved his world ranking by more than 130. Humphries, on the other hand, rose to the highest peak of darts after difficult years and dominated the rest of the season, winning no less than four major tournaments.
The audience has a good time, TV viewers are treated to top performances, new countries and new talents appear on the world map.
Of course, top darts could have gone in another direction. The same old men’s club could have alternately grabbed the best prize money and dominated the PDC’s extremely tight competition calendar with its qualifying systems that seemed confusing to the layman’s eye.
But but: already in 2018, things got confusing Rob Crosswho reached the world championship as an unranked player.
In 2019, the audience at London’s Alexandra Palace was booed Fallon Sherrockwho was the first woman to advance to the third round of the World Championships.
The years 2020, 2021 and 2023 saw new world champions, Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price and Michael Smith. The turn of the year 2023–24 then brought the World Cup and darts as a sport in general to the awareness of the wider masses.
The sport is also popular in Finland and it seems that young people are also interested. The trend was already visible in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup.
The number of licensed players in Finland is increasing and maybe someday we will get more Finnish players in the limelight Marko Kanteleen alongside.
Even in the stands of this year’s “Ally Pally” there were people from our country looking for TV pictures to wave their flags. One of the neatest ones read – hopefully prophetically – “Supaloja”.