Before Luke Littler could walk the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) pathway to fame and fortune, an organisation, a multi layered sporting structure and a huge commercial juggernaut had to be assembled piece by piece over close to three decades.
Today’s PDC had a difficult birth and troubled early years, but the vision and ambition to see darts act, become structured, and be treated like other globally successful sports has remained constant from its earliest days.
Like most successful commercial sports, darts has had a roller coaster ride of success and failure and its fair share of growing pains. Just as with golf, tennis and others the initial foundations were laid by amateur organisations formed to facilitate competition, systemise rules and generally organise a game which had been played, almost exclusively by working men, under more ad-hoc local administration. In this case it was initially* the British Darts Organisation (BDO) under the auspices of Olly Croft.
Soon after, the World Darts Federation (WDF) was established - by many of the same BDO people - to provide an umbrella organisation for the many other nations with growing darts interests. The WDF oversaw the game and promoted international competition for both teams and individuals. Think IAAF in athletics and you are not far wrong.
Within a few years, with the help of mass colour TV coverage and decent organisational skills, Croft had built a mass participation sport with a World Championship, several other televised events and a grassroots and rankings structure to match.
Sadly, however the tide turned and this boom period - from the late 1970s to the last 1980s - suffered a backlash and began to haemorrhage television events and thus its earning capacity and that of its top players diminished rapidly.
At this point two of the problems associated with commercial sports development collided with darts, but at the same time!
Moving from what can be termed into an amateur game into a professional sport is often a controversial affair with many vested interests left unhappy. Equally, the transition that allows any sport to sustain professional players requires them to be acknowledged as the vital ingredient they are, adequately rewarded, and their interests and welfare looked after accordingly. Often players see this as best done by themselves.
Several top players', and their management, sought to organise themselves and attract more television coverage directly. The group attempted to negotiate with the BDO (and WDF) in order to bring their collective expertise to improving the situation.
Their overtures were rejected. BDO chairman Olly Croft famously stated "I don't owe any dart players a living".
As a direct result managers Tommy Cox, Dick Allix and the top players of the time, including Eric Bristow, Phil Taylor and every previous BDO/WDF World Champion still active, formed the World Darts Council in January 1992. Further controversy ensued when the BDO refused to let them wear their logo at the 1993 World Championship.
The new association withdrew its players from future stagings of the event and pursued television coverage and new events for themselves. The 16 were, in turn, banned from all BDO darts and associated activity. Several years of ill feeling, struggle, and legal action, not unlike a bitter industrial strike followed.
Meanwhile, in 1995, successful sports promoter Barry Hearn had seen the potential of darts during the WDC’s new World championship, and assisted the WDC in developing their product with the aid of SKY Sports television.
Finally, in 1997 a legally enforceable compromise was reached with players free to play in either code and certain other conditions. One of which was that the WDC should drop its claims with regard to being a ‘world body’ for darts.
As such it changed its name and the PROFESSIONAL DARTS CORPORATION was born.
Look out for Part II - The Elite Game, next week here on TNS.