The Dart Side of Life — The Adrian Geiler Column#8: The next step in the darts boom

New TV deals in Germany, more tournaments on DAZN and a Luke Littler appearing at the BRIT Awards: darts continues to move into the mainstream – and everything suggests that its rise is far from over.

Hello dear darts fans,

it was the news of February: the Darts World Championship will be broadcast in Germany by ProSieben from 2027 onwards. SPORT1 misses out for the first time in the channel’s history, but nevertheless there will still be plenty of darts to watch there next year! And DAZN remains the “Home of Darts”, broadcasting all tournaments – and even more than before. After the groundbreaking deal between the PDC and Sky UK, darts broadcasting is now secured in the second most important market after the United Kingdom.

The development shows once again: darts is booming relentlessly. The sport is entering the mainstream. ProSieben is a big name in the TV business and has repeatedly shown with the Celebrity Darts World Championship that it understands the sport. No matter how the team in front of and behind the camera will be set up – I’m confident that darts will be in good hands there.

I feel sorry for SPORT1. The channel has played a considerable, if not decisive, role in making darts so successful in Germany. The broadcasts with Elmar Paulke and Roland Scholten or Tomas “Shorty” Seyler are legendary and cult. Basti Schwele and Robby Marijanovic took over this heavy legacy after Paulke moved to DAZN in 2018 and have continued it successfully. I would even go so far as to call the two of them cult as well. And we won’t lose them entirely anyway. Because SPORT1 isn’t out of the game – quite the opposite: 69 (Basti Schwele would now say “It’s hilarious”) live days are a lot.

DAZN is the big winner of the rights allocation. Not only is the broadcaster further establishing itself in the German darts scene. Just like in 2022 with the European Tour, the platform is expanding its rights portfolio once again! From 2027 onwards, subscribers will also be able to watch Players Championship events and secondary tours (Challenge Tour, Development Tour, Women’s Series) on the platform.

DAZN clearly has an appetite for darts: the conference broadcast during the UK Open is the next sign of this, following the conference coverage at the PC Finals and the on-site presence during the World Championship. And internally at the broadcaster I could imagine darts becoming more important due to its relatively low production costs combined with comparatively high returns. Especially as DAZN will lose the TV rights to the Champions League from 2027.

All of this continues a remarkable rise of darts. Not only in Germany. Even though here, for example, Gabriel Clemens’ World Championship semi-final run in 2022 was an important milestone. Suddenly the “Tagesschau” reported on it and the “German Giant” appeared on the “Sportstudio”.

Darts is now trendy! Even in the UK the sport is pushing further into the mainstream. The BRIT Awards were held recently, for the first time in Manchester rather than the usual London. The organizers of the internationally renowned music award then had the idea to invite a sports star from the region to present a prize: Luke Littler.

Together with his darts-loving influencer friend Angryginge, the darts double world champion presented Rosé and Bruno Mars with the award for Best International Song for “Apt.” Rosé accepted the award. The hugely successful K-pop singer therefore shared a stage for a few seconds with the best darts player in the world.

Just as a reminder: the BRIT Awards are an event whose red carpet gala is widely covered by the media. Raye was in the audience, Harry Styles as well. And right there, in that universe, a darts player is now present. Try telling someone that ten years ago.

And the development continues: Luke Littler has been nominated for the Laureus Sport Award “Breakthrough of the Year” – as the first darts player ever, in a category alongside Formula One world champion Lando Norris.

In Germany, “The Last Flight” is emerging, a darts league with content creators – professionally organized and with the aim of combining sport and entertainment. I will be part of this league as a commentator, and BULL’S will provide the boards among other things. At the end of February I was also in Berlin again to commentate the in-house darts tournament of football media outlet Calcio Berlin (103,000 followers on Instagram, 285,000 subscribers on YouTube). Among everyone involved, the huge enthusiasm for darts was clearly noticeable. And thanks to the streaming platform Twitch, the connection to the fans is always guaranteed.

The recently played UK Open may have been the first slight dampener in the Luke Littler hype. “The Nuke” is the undisputed dominator, defends the title and is already the third most successful player of all time. But the triumph comes without great drama because Littler’s B-game (with a 99 average, by the way) is already enough. On the one hand, we need Littler’s greatness in the sport. On the other hand, things shouldn’t become too one-sided and dull.

Despite – and because of – Littler, the stars continue to align well for darts, especially in Germany. There are also new TV deals and offerings from the PDC in Italy and France. The sport remains on free-to-air television and doesn’t disappear completely behind a paywall as once happened in the Netherlands, which slowed the momentum there.

And problems like those in Poland – where for a time there was no live broadcast at all despite the increasingly successful, well-known and popular BULL’S player Krzysztof Ratajski (once again reaching the quarter-finals at the UK Open) – are becoming rarer.

A lot will change in darts over the next few years. New audiences, new fans, new developments.

This is going to be fun.

Game on,
Adrian