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Split in darts

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The split in darts refers to an acrimonious dispute between top professional darts players and the game's governing body, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), in 1993. The players were discontented by the game's big decline in television coverage in 1989 and the early 1990s, and by what they saw as the BDO's inability to reverse that decline, culminating in 16 top ranked players, including every previous world champion who was still active, breaking away from the BDO to form their own organisation, the World Darts Council (WDC).

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The BDO responded by banning the 16 defectors from all BDO-sanctioned darts events, which included prohibition of remaining BDO affiliated players from even engaging in exhibition matches against any of the defectors. At the BDO's behest, this was endorsed at a World Darts Federation meeting and became a worldwide sanction. A long-running legal battle followed and ended with a Tomlin order in 1997. The BDO recognised the WDC and the right of players to choose which organisation they played for. In return, the WDC recognised the World Darts Federation as the governing body of world darts, the BDO as the governing body of UK darts, and renamed itself the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

The split in the game remains to this day. The BDO and the PDC have separate pools of players and stage their own tournaments. Each holds its own version of the World Professional Darts Championship.

Before the split

Darts first appeared on British television in 1962 when Westward Television broadcast the Westward TV Invitational to the south-west of England. 1972 was a big year for darts when ITV started broadcasting the News of the World Championship. Also in 1972 was the start of The Indoor League, which featured a darts tournament, although it was only shown in the Yorkshire Television region in 1972. The Indoor League was shown across Britain on the ITV network from 1973 onwards.

The British Darts Organisation (BDO) was formed in 1973 by Olly Croft. The BDO became the governing body of the game in the United Kingdom and would organise darts events for grassroots players right through to the best players in the world.

Gradually televised events began to appear more regularly as the 1970s went on and into the 1980s. ITV broadcast the World Masters, British Matchplay, the World Matchplay, the World Cup and other International competitions - particularly on its Saturday afternoon sports anthology show World of Sport.

The first darts tournament broadcast by the BBC was the 1975 British Open. When the World Championship began in 1978, the BBC picked up the event and also went on to cover the Bullseye Darts Championship, British Gold Cup, British Professional Championship and others in later years.

The mass of coverage and amount of prize money in the game led to several players turning professional - now able to make a full-time living from the game.

Decline in the game

Darts players were allowed to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes on the stage during matches, a reflection of the game's roots in British pubs. This behaviour by players was mocked in a Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch in 1980 at the height of darts' popularity.

The peak of the darts boom was reached in 1983, when there was more televised darts tournaments than ever before. After 1983, professional darts in Britain began to haemorrhage sponsors and lose television coverage. In 1984, the British Gold Cup (BBC), Butlins Grand Masters (ATV) and British Matchplay (ITV) all stopped being televised as programmes in their own right, although this negative news was partially offset by the creation of the MFI World Matchplay. In September 1985, a big blow came when ITV decided to cancel its World of Sport show which had covered darts events on a regular basis. ITV continued to show darts as programmes in their own right over the next 3 years, but events in the second half of 1988 would rock professional darts to its foundations.

In the summer of 1988, the BBC announced that they would be dropping nearly all of their darts coverage after the 1988 British Professional, but wanted to keep broadcasting the World Championship. In October 1988, after the transmission of the 1988 MFI World Matchplay on ITV, ITV announced that they would be withdrawing from all darts coverage at the end of the year, and their final tournament broadcast was the 1988 World Masters. As part of this, the ITV regional channels that covered local darts tournaments cancelled all of them at the end of 1988. As a result of these sudden catastrophic events, 1989 saw a very drastic slump in the amount of darts seen on TV, down to just one tournament, the World Championship.

The BDO banned alcohol on stage during all matches from the 1989 World Championship, but the game maintained a poor image to sponsors.

Players' unrest

Even during the years from 1975 to 1988, when darts was either booming and/or had plenty of prize money and television coverage, there was a certain discontent bubbling under the surface amongst some of the top players, particularly with John Lowe. These issues were about why players lost money whenever they played for their country, why players had no say whatsoever in the running of darts, and why players would be prevented from wearing their personal sponsors on their shirts during tournaments, and also forced to wear BDO sponsors. Lowe mentions in his autobiography, entitled Old Stoneface, that he was prevented from wearing his sponsor Unicorn on his shirt during tournaments, and was compelled to allow Unicorn's rivals Winmau to be put on his shirt instead for free. Lowe mentions that he and some other players would hold meetings with the BDO about these issues, but that nothing really changed. Due to the widespread television coverage and the prize money in darts at this time, any confrontations between the complainants and the BDO, never became too serious until 1988, when all remaining darts tournaments on television, except the World Championship, were getting cancelled after being held for the last time.

Many players had become full-time professionals during darts' peak years in the 1980s, and the big sudden drop in the amount of darts television coverage in 1989 left them with very little prize money to play for. It also meant a lack of exposure, which would make it very tough for them to make a living from exhibition matches. The top players felt that not enough was being done by the BDO to encourage new sponsors into their sport and television coverage should be greater than just one event per year.

In August 1988, a pressure group named the Darts Council had been formed by some top players and their agents, due to their worry about the imminent disappearance of darts television coverage. After over 3 years of internal pressure from the Darts Council had failed to produce any noticeable results from the BDO hierarchy, 16 professional players, including every previous BDO World Champion who was still active in the game, created their own darts organisation originally named the World Darts Council (WDC) in January 1992. They wanted to appoint a public relations consultant to improve the image of the game and to get more tournaments on television. The WDC staged their first televised event in October 1992 (the Lada UK Masters on Anglia Television).

The final straw which had led to the decision to form the World Darts Council in January 1992 was the BDO's quick release of a VHS videotape which featured extended highlights of the 1992 Embassy World Championship Final between Phil Taylor and Mike Gregory. The videotape also featured brief highlights of the 1983, 1985 and 1987 Embassy World Championship Finals featuring Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Keith Deller, as well as Paul Lim's 9-dart finish from the 1990 Embassy World Championship. None of the featured players, nor their agents, were offered payment for the release of the VHS videotape.

The 1993 World Championship

The 1993 Embassy World Championship was the last time that all the players played in one unified world darts championship. The WDC players wore their new insignia on their sleeves during the tournament, but were told to remove them by the BDO. The WDC players decided that if they were not going to be recognised by the BDO they would no longer play in the Embassy tournament. The BDO did not allow the WDC players to set up their own tournaments and the players decided to go their own way.

On 7 January 1993, the 16 WDC players released a statement saying that they would only participate in the 1994 Embassy World Championship if it came under the auspices of the WDC, and that they only recognised the WDC as having the authority to sanction their participation in darts tournaments worldwide. On 24 January 1993, a couple of weeks after the 1993 Embassy World Championship had ended, the BDO responded by suspending the 16 "rebel" players from all BDO tournaments on British soil.

The 16 WDC players who signed the 7 January 1993 statement were:

References

Split in darts Wikipedia