Dan Dawson darts PDC Credit: PDC
By Matt Yoder on

There is no sporting event in the world quite like a major darts tournament.

What most people think of as a pub game has been transformed into a spectacle of incredible magnitude. Darts is now watched by millions around the globe and thousands in the venues. But darts fans aren’t your normal matchday attendees. Songs, costumes, and plenty of drinks have accompanied the sport’s incredible growth and turned it into a traveling show.

Now that show is coming to ESPN. Earlier this summer, the Professional Darts Corporation announced a new deal with the worldwide leader in sports to bring coverage of their biggest TV majors. It began with the World Matchplay in Blackpool, which saw the full tournament streamed on ESPN+ and the final televised live on ESPN2. While darts has bounced around networks, streamers, and timeslots in the states, seeing a major tournament final shown live is a huge step forward for the game that has been focused on growth in the USA.

Dan Dawson has been one of the leading commentators covering for the sport for several years. He can not only be seen on major tournaments on both Sky Sports and ITV, but also throughout the year on European Tour and Pro Tour events through the PDC.

Darts has been enjoying a moment thanks to the astonishing arrival of teenage sensation Luke “The Nuke” Littler. The 19-year-old has become a worldwide sensation after already winning two world championships and even being noticed by the likes of Pat McAfee. Littler just added the World Matchplay championship to his trophy cabinet again last month and is looking to make a clean sweep of the major TV titles in an unprecedented campaign.

In this wide-ranging interview with Awful Announcing, Dan Dawson talks about the rise of Luke Littler, darts in America, and just how players with day jobs as delivery drivers and firemen transform themselves into gladiatorial figures akin to WWE superstars.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Awful Announcing. How would you describe the spectacle of a major tournament darts match to an American sports viewer who would see it as a pub game?

Dan Dawson: The thing that grabs people’s attention, particularly I’ve found North American viewers, is what’s going on in the crowd because it is one big party. Darts is pretty much unique in that even in the UK and Europe, where it’s got a long history, particularly in the UK, but also in places like the Netherlands, it’s grown massively in Germany the last 15 years, people can be into the sport, but they’re going there for a night at the darts. They’re not necessarily going to support a particular player. They’re not necessarily going to be present at a particular tournament. They’re going for a night at the darts because the experience is what it’s all about. And the whole sporting aspect is going on parallel to it. So they want the big moments, they want the 9-darters, the massive checkouts, the 180s, so they can drink their drinks, sing their songs, and be part of the spectacle. I’m not sure there are many sports like that.

The crowd and the commentary are always so energetic. How has that come to life as part of the sport’s DNA? How do you embrace it as an announcer?

I think you get swept up in it. Every room you’re in is different. I do a lot of the European Tour and I’ve been doing that since its inception. And that has grown from playing in rooms of 200 people where they were having to give away tickets in the early days to now sold out three, four, five thousand. Later on this year we’re going to Maastricht in the Netherlands and they’ve already sold 22,000 tickets in three days. You can’t help but feel that energy in the room and all the crowds are slightly different in how they behave. We get enormous crowds in Hungary but they’re quite staid and placid as darts crowds go, whereas a room full of Dutchman can take the roof off the place even if there’s not so many of them.

But for what is usually two geezers stood eight foot from a wall throwing at the same inch of it over and over and over again for half-an-hour, an hour, however long the game takes, there’s so much stuff that can happen there. And the beauty of the game is not just the maths and the skill, but it’s the psychology of it. It’s a real gladiatorial thing. You can genuinely see the stress these guys are under and it does lead to mistakes. You have people have complete meltdowns, they can be fiery, it is a proper gladiatorial battle, and that is compelling in and of itself. And it’s all happening while there’s 2,500 people on a massive piss-off in the same room singing and dancing and chanting along. It’s quite a mix to be going on in the same room. And if you’re not carried along with that, you’re not in the right job.

How do players get their walk-on songs and nicknames? Is there someone in charge of the PDC creative department or do the players decide themselves?

I wish there was! Some of them are bloody awful. It helps to have a bit of an identity and a bit of a walk-on. It helps get the fans onside, which can be important in a game. Being popular, having the crowd with you, and they are fickle, darts crowds. They’re not often partisan, but they will change favorites, and they will change minds in the middle of the game as well. The bloke who everyone wants to win is winning comfortably, the other guy starts staging a comeback, they’ll switch allegiances, they want the party to continue.

Having a decent walk-on and identity and nickname probably helps. It’s building a brand, that’s all it is in purely cynical marketing terms. And yes, I think there have been moves by some players, not really the PDC, but by some people within the game, whether its management or manufacturers or advisors, to create identities they feel will chime with people. But to be honest, it’s still so ad hoc. We’ve got people who have reached the top of the game and won major titles and they’re still going with a nickname that some bloke gave them in a pub because they were wearing some fancy new trainers once.

There is an endearing quality that these are just normal guys. The phrase I always use when talking about darts players is they’re ordinary people doing extraordinary things. They do have this incredible talent. Darts is an easy game to play, it’s a difficult game to play to that level. And these guys and girls, the vast majority of them are just normal people. A lot of them have had real-life jobs, some of them still have real-life jobs. We’ve got people on the tour who are firemen, delivery drivers, and they fit the darts in around it. But they are relatable in a way that a lot of elite sportspeople just aren’t.

Cameron Menzies, the world championship before last, was underneath somebody’s sink fixing the plumbing on the day he was playing at Ally Pally. You don’t get this in normal sports. And that makes it relatable. Forget the nicknames, Cameron Menzies has got the name “Cammy.” It’s nothing. But the fact he’s relatable means people like him and you get these stories you don’t get in other sports. It’s hilarious and mad that they get the full WWE treatment and the walk-on song and the lights and the lasers and the announcers giving it the big-un when literally the boy was fixing a sink this morning or driving a delivery van tomorrow when he’s finished. But that’s one of the reasons I absolutely love it.

Luke Littler is the toast of the town at the moment and looks like he could be following in Phil Taylor’s footsteps as the future GOAT of darts. What is it like having a 19-year-old dominating the sport at the moment and how has his presence and story lifted the sport?

His story has reached through to bits of the world darts doesn’t often reach. The Littler mums have got right into darts in recent times. They’re all watching and commenting on Facebook having never been into darts before. Child nearly wins world championship on debut is a heck of a story. Child then wins world championship and everything else is an unbelievable story. What he’s doing is pretty much unprecedented, to turn up as he has and kept on winning. That has been a huge thing for darts and it’s been a big reason why a lot more kids are getting into it, more females are watching, a wider spread of people are getting into the game and giving it a chance. And once they gave it a chance they found out it’s pretty good.

We had a similar thing when Fallon Sherrock won games at the World Championship. That got Billie Jean King posting about it on social media. The woman whose name I forget who’s in Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker, tweeted about the darts. That is not a demographic that we traditionally cut through to. That in itself was a massive thing. Woman winning games against the men at the world championship.

You’ve had woman winning games at the world championship, child nearly wins world championship, child does win world championship. Unless talking dog wins world championship, we’re running out of things where we can build upon it. But it has really capitalized on the growth that the sport has seen over the last 10-15 years.

The PDC, their viewership in the United States has doubled in the last two-and-a-half years. Some of their social posts have about tripled. Their ticket sales at MSG, I know we had the World Cup on so there was a lot of people from Europe as well, but it was absolutely chalk and cheese compared to when we first went to MSG. And that was better than we were doing for the US Darts Masters in Vegas a few years ago. So there is growth. It is a phenomenally hard market to break into and get a piece of that enormous pie. But it does appear to be gaining some sort of traction. Luke Littler is a huge part of that.

What is the importance of having the biggest tournaments live on ESPN in the States and this new media deal? How much does it mean to the sport to grow in America given the success of the World Series and in places like Europe and Australia?

It’s huge. There’s only so much the PDC can do. They’ve created an environment where the sport has been able to grow and get better. They’re giving opportunities to player, it’s become more professional. And they’ve put the building blocks in place to allow stories like Michael Van Gerwen or Peter Wright or Luke Littler or Fallon Sherrock to happen. All they can do is create a system where these things can happen. And when they have, they need to maximize what they get out of it.

The relationships they’ve had across Britain and Europe have been phenomenal. What Sky has done has been superb. They gave darts the treatment that Sky give all their sports. They show it respect. This is big, this is worth watching. Traditionally darts used to be a pat on the head, here’s a silly pub game, it’s all a bit of fun. Sky said no, this is a proper professional sport. And we will treat it properly. Lo and behold if you give something respect, then a lot of people come to respect it a bit more.

Being on a partner like ESPN gives an opportunity for more people to see what this is all about. Yes, it is a big party for the fans. They get to go and have a great time and enjoy themselves. But they’re also getting to watch these incredible stories develop of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and completely changing their lives. With ESPN, these stories are going to reach a bigger audience and hopefully it helps give this sport a foothold in North America that can help it grow and grow and grow.

Dan Dawson
Credit: PDC

What would it mean for darts to have an American player who could compete at the top level in the hopes of growing that fanbase?

North America is a growth area. They’ve invested money. They’ve sold a lot of tickets, they’re getting broadcasters involved like ESPN. Hopefully they can start making money from this, but they’ve been investing in an entire North American tour, the CDC, because they want a homegrown champion to go up against the big guns. That is an easy story, someone to cheer for from the North American fans. They’ll have their favorites, loads of them are Littler fans. But it’s good to have. People want to see their champions perform.

They’ve invested a lot of time, money, and effort to try to do this. It can be a slow process. But at the same time, it doesn’t take that long for someone to go from picking up a dart for the first time to getting to the elite level if they’re talented, if they’re committed, if they’re dedicated. Not everyone can do it, if they could I wouldn’t be talking to you, I’d be a darts player and earning a lot more money than I do now.

Who knows when you get that North American champion coming through? But it could be tomorrow. It could be next year. And it will be very exciting to see what happens when it does, and I believe it is when. It’s not a case of if. You create the conditions, it’s going to happen. It’s just a case of when.

Luke Littler is currently attempting a clean sweep of every major trophy this year. Is it better for the sport if he completes this feat or if rivals like Luke Humphries, Gerwyn Price, Gian Van Veen, Michael Van Gerwen and others step up to his level?

I’ve asked this question for years. What is better for the sport, to have one dominant figure who you go, ‘that’s the guy, that’s the benchmark for everybody,’ whether it’s a Michael Jordan or Phil Taylor, Michael Van Gerwen. They won half the tournaments they entered when they were playing their best stuff. Littler’s about the same but he’s on this freakish run of winning majors. And Blackpool, which we got to see on ESPN, was the greatest performance over an entire campaign anybody’s ever seen at the World Matchplay. I think that’s a freak, I don’t think he’s going to play like that forever. It’d be scary if he does and everybody else is going to have to do a lot of work just to make things awkward for him, let alone beat him. But we are watching an astonishing young talent do some amazing things at the minute.

He has had a little bit of fortune. There are a number of those major titles over the last 12 months where he has survived match darts or been behind or games he could have lost. But when it comes to what’s better for the sport, I don’t know the answer. Premier League football in the nineties and oughties became this huge, megalithic thing. It was always big in Britain, football. But the Premier League became bigger and getting more money and more sponsors. And Manchester United were winning it most of the time. They were the Premier League in many respects. Didn’t do that any harm.

Personally, I’m a darts hipster. Luke Humphries came along and dominated a while prior to Littler turning up and now it’s Littler. But that little interregnum between the rise of the two Lukes and Michael Van Gerwen, you saw all these different winners from outside the Top 32 in the world. Andrew Gilding at the UK Open, Chris Dobey, Ross Smith. I loved it, I absolutely loved it. But you don’t need to convince me. I already love darts. I’m going to be watching it anyways. It’s the millions of other people. And if they turn the telly on, and you had it with Phil Taylor, you had with Michael Van Gerwen, and now you have it with Luke Littler. Somebody says, ‘why do you put the darts on?’ This bloke’s playing tonight. And there’s a chance he might do something nobody’s ever seen. He might hit three nine-darters, he might hit back-to-back nine-darters, he might average 150. Who knows? But this guy is box office. And having that sort of star quality is a huge positive.

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