The PDC have created a monster

buster180

A very interesting article here on the PDC and the crowd.



https://cornishtalks.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/the-pdc-have-created-a-monster-they-are-now-slaves-to-it/

Dirty Dingus McGee

The game is all about generating money so it can sustain as many full time pro players as possible and therefore standards rise.As long as the crowds turn up nothing will change and I don't think the players would want it either as they would want nothing to affect the prize money regardless of the crowd being annoying.

Every time a sport booms in popularity the so called die hards cry foul and say they have been forgotten about but the new fans money is worth the same as anyone elses so the PDC or any other governing body dont give a fiddlers either way.

I love watching Darts on TV but I only view it as a tv sport and would never attend a live event as honestly the crowd is like my vision of hell.

Appealing to the lowest common denominator always works so I doubt anything will change.

Devastator

load of crap IMO.

PDC/Sky/Barry Hearn/Premier league are not to blame. Long before the days of the PDC crowds threw full beer cans at Bristow while he was on stage. Thats that nice respectful quiet BDO crowd

Lazarus2.0

Devastator wrote: »

load of crap IMO.

Sums it up quite nicely.

That whole thing reads like the guy set out to slate Barry Hearn & co and the article was written to suit the agenda. For sure crowd behaviour can be monstrous and it should be better managed, particularly in respect of protecting the players, but it's really naive and smacks of wanting to have your cake and eat it to start resenting the circus that has transformed darts from being a minority sport to the major spectacle it is today. Stick a couple of thousand people in a hall and open the bar and you'll always get a healthy dose of stupidity whatever is going on on the stage. As Devastator says up there the same crap happens at Lakeside and any other big venue but Sky zoom in where BBC pan out. End result is Sky puts more bums on seats thereby generating more PDC revenue/prize funds and keeping the sport mainstream.

Now I'm old school, I suppose ... I like what seems to be the BBC/BDO way of things i.e. best of order for the players and all that ... and agree that 'true' darts fans are being pushed away from attending major PDC events but the upside of that is that when I go to play or watch local open tournaments the turnout and standard is scary good especially among the youths. I cant say why or how any of these kids got into darts in the first place but I'd be damned sure most of them got the bug from watching MVG,Taylor,Barney etc. If a bigger fan base, player base and prize money are all bad things then yeah, the end is nigh!

DEFTLEFTHAND

The BDO best of order is still the best for the sport, the original whole thing fell apart in the late 80s because of clowns giving abuse and being rowdy, darts got a rep for being a drunken lower order game.

In later times the BDO have rammed out the problem. A modern day eg for instance is the 2014 the Winmau World Masters in Hull and not a peep from the huge crowd in attendence.

Duzza won the Northern Ireland Title in very respectful settings also this year, no gob****s just people wanting to watch high quality darts.

sc86

huge crowd at the winmau?
i was looking at it and looked to be couple of hundred at most?

DEFTLEFTHAND

sc86 wrote: »

huge crowd at the winmau?
i was looking at it and looked to be couple of hundred at most?

Filled out the Hull town hall on all three days. The qualifier rounds at the civic centre earlier in the week also had a great collection of folk. Sober friendly people with a keen interest in Darts.

Devastator

sc86 wrote: »

huge crowd at the winmau?

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Filled out the Hull town hall on all three days.

yes but what is Hull Town Hall's capacity? If its 45 thats hardly a huge crowd just saying it was filled doesn't say much

Kingp35

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

A modern day eg for instance is the 2014 the Winmau World Masters in Hull and not a peep from the huge crowd in attendence.

I don't think I would want that either. Somewhere in between the two is the what I would like to see. The best example of this is what the crowd used to be like in the Circus Tavern when the World Championships were held there. I was at that famous Taylor Barney final when Barney beat him and it's still the best atmosphere I have ever experienced at a sporting event but absolute respect was given on the important shots. Watch it back, particularly the final leg, and you will notice the silence when Barney was throwing to win it but it was absolute mayhem when big shots etc. were hit.

I would love if it could go back to how it was in the Circus Tavern but it will never happen as Darts has grown way beyond that as a spectacle and the event junkies will continue to go to it and act the clown.

gramar

I wouldn't be inclined to go to any of the big PDC events. Rowdy, drunken behaviour from what looks like the worlds biggest congregation of stag parties. The BDO is almost too quiet. The games need atmosphere but not roaring and shouting for the sake of it and noise when players are throwing.
By all means celebrate the bigs shots/misses but respect players at the oche.

Ach, I don't think anyone likes the crowd nonsense, the Yaya chants, tables v chairs etc. And the BDO crowd is undeniably better, it's smaller and more intimate.

But on the other hand, it's what ensures that players now can go full time, pushing the game forward. If they don't like it, they can wear earplugs.