The Making of a Pro Darts Fan in America
How an 80s game show and a global pandemic created my darting obsession
*record scratch*
Yup. That’s me. Sitting front row at a Professional Darts Corporation event. I’m wearing the gear of and watching a Welsh professional darts player named Gerwyn Price. He’s become my favorite player on the tour.
You’re probably wondering how I got here.
It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot in the last few years: How does a random American with no real connections to the game of darts become a fanatic of the professional version of the sport?
The answer isn’t simple. To be honest, I sometimes struggle to fully explain why pro darts has captured me as much as it has. That said, I can confirm whatever answer I do have starts with a random British TV game show.
As a kid, for whatever reason, I was drawn to TV game shows, and not just the kids’ ones. The USA network used to carry a block of re-runs of 80s game shows after school which became my go-to TV viewing choice. That block introduced me to what remains my favorite game show of all time, “Press Your Luck”, but I grew to love almost all game shows. Getting Game Show Network for the first time was like being at the grand opening of a gourmet buffet. Game shows were and remain the “safe” watching choice when I just need something on TV.
Fast forward to October 2016. My then-fiancée, now-wife, Karen and I are in London making our first-ever trip across the pond. After a long day of exploring new sights, we’re just looking to wind down in our hotel room. Channel-surfing, we discover Challenge, Britain’s version of Game Show Network. Ahh. Nice comfort TV to end the day. Challenge carried both British versions of shows I had watched at home (Supermarket Sweep, Price is Right, etc.) and shows exclusive to the UK (Countdown, the Chase). In general, they were mostly your standard game shows.
Until a cartoon bull appeared on our screen.
“It’s a Bullseye! And here’s your host…Jim Bowen!”
This was my introduction to an iconic piece of 80s British TV. Bullseye aired usually on Sunday afternoons for over a decade and drew audiences of up to 20 million people. It was a game show that combined trivia, darts throwing, bad 80s fashion, bronze bull statues and ridiculous catch-phrases. I couldn’t stop laughing. Bullseye was the most amazing and ridiculous thing I had ever seen on TV. For the rest of the week, we watched it faithfully on Challenge every night. (Correction: I watched it intently. Karen tolerated it and rolled her eyes to it every night.)
When I got back to the states, I continued watching old episodes and even documentaries about the show on YouTube over the next few months and years. It was one of my new ridiculous obsessions. However, even though Bullseye introduced me to some of the darting legends of the 1980s like Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson, that love for Bullseye didn’t immediately turn me over to the pro version of darts.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like many of us, I bounced around looking for entertainment throughout the early months of the pandemic. Tiger King. Last Dance. I did the standard stuff for sure. And as some American sports came back, I got into the lockdown versions of the NBA, NHL and more. Yet something was still missing.
It was sometime during that COVID summer that I read how the Professional Darts Corporation created a “Home Tour” so pro players could play tournaments from their homes on webcams. Much like my first exposure to Bullseye, I thought this was one of the funniest yet most brilliant ideas I had heard. So, I started watching highlights of the home tour. I didn’t really know anything about the games or the players at first, but that home tour fully introduced me to the pro version of darts.
This home tour led me down multiple Wikipedia and YouTube rabbit holes into what darts was like before COVID: the insane crowds, the wild walk-ons, the “exciting” moments on stage (at this point I still didn’t fully grasp what was happening). For whatever reason, I was captivated. I still hadn’t really been following what was actually happening in the sport in 2020, but now I was getting more “darts-curious”.
By the time we reached the holidays, I learned you could watch all the big PDC events on DAZN in the USA. With some extra time over the break, I decided that I would invest in the app for the 2021 World Championships. Sure, there would still not be any crowds, but this was the supposed pinnacle of the sport. I decided to give it at shot. This would be my formal proper introduction to pro darts.
I haven’t been the same since. The 2021 Worlds was full of dramatic and insane moments: American Danny Baggish upsetting former 2-time world champion Adrian Lewis. James Wade’s 9-darter. Best player in the world Michael van Gerwen getting demolished by Dave Chisnall. Gary Anderson getting into a war of words with broadcaster Wayne Mardle. All leading to Gerwyn Price beating Anderson for his first world title. I watched or followed (yes I learned about the score apps that track darts) every match. I re-upped my DAZN subscription and was in for the 2021 season and haven’t left since.
And now here I am, writing about my fandom on a platform that I hope to use to write more about pro darts.
As I tell my wife, she (and you) can blame a cartoon bull and a pandemic for the fact that darts is now a huge part of my life.