Players strive to win the trophy - not the money - at the Ally Pally

The World Darts Championship must stay at Alexandra Palace and never move to Saudi Arabia, warns Paul Nicholson

By Paul Nicholson

Darts

Mon June 10, 2024 · 5M ago

Paul Nicholson insists it would be an awful decision for players and fans to move the World Championship away from the Alexandra Palace.

Barry Hearn recently suggested the World Darts Championship could leave Alexandra Palace and move to Saudi Arabia.

It’s caused similar outcry to when he repeatedly claimed the future of snooker’s World Championship could also lie in the lucrative Middle East nation rather than its spiritual home of the Crucible – and so it should!

Firstly, is the event really too big for Ally Pally as Barry says? I don't think it is. I think it's just right. Sure, the final could sell tens of thousands of tickets, but what about all of the other sessions? We have to be realistic.

As for Saudi Arabia hosting the tournament in future – imagine the atmosphere it would generate compared to what we get at Ally Pally? The way the crowd responds to the action is what makes darts – especially the World Championship – so special.

Fans love to dress up at the Ally Pally

You simply can’t take the most important tournament to a place where the fans don’t passionately care like they do in a darts mad nation and can’t create a memorable atmosphere.

Also, although Alexandra Palace is obviously in the UK – many of the crowd have travelled abroad to be there. It’s like a pilgrimage for fans around the world. It’s a destination tournament.

When I played the ‘play a pro’ for Paddy Power in the fans’ village, most of the people who challenged me were from overseas. The Germans and Dutch, for example, love to come here in great numbers.

If you want to stage a major in another country, don’t move the ones that are historically linked with a certain venue like the World Championship or World Matchplay.

Use the other majors, because I’d say most of them are ‘transportable’ and I think there’s too many in the UK anyway. I’ve said this in previous columns.

Money comes second

As for Saudi Arabia, I don’t really have any qualms with them hosting a World Series event in the future and let them pump money into the sport.

But not the World Championship.

It had to move from its original ‘spiritual home’ at the Circus Tavern many years ago because the venue simply wasn’t big enough and the sport was growing so quickly, but it would be awful if it ever ended up somewhere with empty seats and an unenthusiastic atmosphere purely because of more money.

Darts players have grown up wanting to play at Ally Pally so if you move it now and put it somewhere like Saudi, well, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work for me.

Let me put it into some sort of perspective. When Gerwyn Price won the world title in 2021, there was nobody there due to Covid. It was a great moment for him but even he’ll admit there was something huge missing. The fans and that atmosphere.

Every player dreams of that crowning moment in front of thousands of fans.

Fans enjoying the World Darts Championship at the Ally Pally

The money comes second.

If someone had offered me £500,000 or being world champion, I’d have said world champion in a heartbeat. Plus, I’d have wanted to do it at Alexandra Palace in front of all those people just like the legends of our sport have.

If you’re good enough to reach the latter stages of the biggest events in the sport, the money doesn’t actually matter that much. You just want to lift that trophy. The money is a bonus because you’ll have been applying your career right anyway and will be earning more than enough money to be comfortable.

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Greed could alienate fans

Legacy is important to fans and players.

If you don't want to alienate your fans, don't screw this up and greedily chase the money.

Imagine giving all 128 Tour Card holders this choice; Win the World Championship at Ally Pally and receive a cheque for £500,000 or win the World Championship in Saudi Arabia and receive a cheque for £1,000,000 – what would the majority choose?

I'd be astonished if less than 80% went for the first option. I think there'd be a few people out there who are a bit more money driven and wouldn’t care about the venue as long as they became world champion and pocketed the extra cash.

But darts players value what it's like to go to the palace at Christmas time and the whole feeling around it. You're not just turning up to play for money.

Players are desperate to travel the planet just to get the chance to play there at Christmas time.

Do you honestly think that Luke Littler and Luke Humphries were talking about the prize money for a game of darts? Were they hell.

They were thinking about the trophy and the story.

Put it this way, if you perversely told them the loser of the match would get the most money – they’d still both play to win to get the title and the trophy.

The title and what it represents lasts forever. The money doesn’t. The best players should always have enough of that.

Even if you knocked the prize money right back down to £100,000 for the winner, it wouldn’t cause players to retire!

So let’s stop constantly chasing the dollar and remember the real reasons why we’re in love with our sport – whether that’s as players or fans. We are extremely grateful to the PDC for what they’ve done for people’s livelihoods, including my own, but there has to be a balance of finance and tradition here.

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Where’s all the ranked action?

June is a busy month for darts with seven PDC events – if you include the New York Darts Masters that concluded this past weekend - but only three of them are ranked. There’s one event on the European Tour and two Players Championship tournaments.

We have two more World Series events in Denmark and Poland while there’s also the World Cup of Darts to end the month.

If you then look into July, there’s two more Players Championships at the start before the World Matchplay.

The PDC can say how stacked the calendar is but what about those players who aren’t invited to those lucrative unranked events?

Even players like Gerwyn Price – who is obviously good enough to be involved – has voiced his frustration at how so much of his money he wins isn’t reflected on his ranking.

He’s certainly not the only one complaining.

There used to be a running joke when Raymond van Barneveld won the Grand Slam of Darts years ago when it wasn’t ranked. He’d say ‘I can’t believe I won all this money and it’s not on my ranking.”

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At the time everyone thought it was just Barney being grumpy but over 10 years later, there’s many other players feeling the same.

We’ve got more unranked action than ever and it’s not necessary.

If you want to have World Series tournaments, that's great for growing the game - but we're continually going to the same countries and growing the game in the same places.

Don’t get me wrong, the PDC have done a tremendous job globalising the sport like never before but we are approaching a time where the rankings do not reflect who the best players in the world are. And we've had this conversation about Jonny Clayton three years ago when he won so many unranked tournaments.

And nothing has changed.