Tournament ideas in darts: A World Senior Championship and Master Out events are two to consider, says Paul Nicholson

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Putting 2020 aside, a usual darting year is jam-packed from start to finish with a plethora of televised majors, globe-trotting ‘invitationals’, European Tour events and the essential ‘bread and butter’ ranking Players Championship tournaments away from the crowds.

Although we’ve seen some variations with formats, qualifying criteria and field sizes down the years, there are still so many other possibilities that haven’t yet been explored in this ever-growing sport of darts. But is there any room for more?

In the first instalment of a mini-series over the coming weeks, Paul Nicholson will put forward some fresh ideas he’d love the PDC to turn into reality, even if it means using up any of the rare ‘rest weekends’ or replacing some of the least popular existing televised tournaments.

The Asset reveals his first two this week, but before that he shares his thoughts on how the calendar could evolve…

Finding space in the calendar

When it comes to calendar management, we don't really appreciate the hard work that goes on in the background. So, when we talk about new tournament ideas, we’ve got to understand there’s only 52 weeks in a year and an entire month is taken by the World Championship for starters, then January is about qualifying school and holiday time for those who already have a Tour Card.

December is therefore out unless you try and squeeze one in at the start, which a lot of players wouldn’t like because it would affect their pre worlds downtime that they use to practice and spent with their families before they go off to neglect them for weeks! The PDC also need to focus on preparing to stage the the World Championship and creating a buzz for it.

There are other historical tournaments like the World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix which will also need to stay as well as the Premier League for its moneymaking power and keeping darts in the limelight every week from February to May.

So when you look at things that can be potentially revamped or replaced altogether, you first and foremost look at the unranked events, such as the World Series events, Masters and the Champions League.

Ultimately, to grab the public's attention once more you may have to constantly evolve the product and try to challenge the audience a little bit. Darts is a remarkably simple game to follow and watch, so if it's too complicated then the punter won’t like it.

So, it needs to be an idea that people can get a hold of quickly to understand and enjoy fast. So that's where we look at the ideas for tournaments and potentially what we can do to make time.

As much damage as the global pandemic has done to this year’s calendar, it has inadvertently forced the PDC into new ideas which could actually create space in future years.

The Summer Series and Autumn Series have each clustered five events together – whereas in the past it would have taken five separate weekends to get through 10 Players Championship tournaments.

There aren’t many players or officials who don't like this idea and they believe this is the way forward. If you have four series events for each season, that will be 20 tournaments and while there would still need to be top up Players Championship events, it would still free up a lot of weekends.

These would be used for more European Tour and potentially more interesting events away from the usual 501 standard type of format.

World Senior Tour and Championship

This idea has been harped on about on social media and I am pretty sure that the players who would fall into a ‘seniors’ bracket would all be very keen to do it.

When you look at the likes of Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer and all those other great golfers from yesteryear on the PGA Tour Chanpions and you see how well they're performing on the senior tours, how much sponsorship it grabs and the popularity with the fans, you realise there could be a place for it in darts.

We do have people over the age of 50 who could compete in this arena and provide a touch of nostalgia and create some great entertainment. However, it has to be about the talent first. This can’t be about certain ‘seniors’ wanting to fill up their calendar and giving them a pay day.

This has to be a viable option for everybody involved and the PDC have to believe this is a commercial idea that can be sustainable for 10 to 20 years. It needs long-term thought because this is potentially an avenue for the guys who come off the main tour yet continue to have some kind of competitive environments. It's almost like an anti-development tour to give you another type of viewing.

You can’t be having people in their 60s and 70s who happened to be on the tour years ago but can’t play to a good enough standard anymore because it would detract from the appeal of the product in my opinion.

I personally think that the seniors tournament or seniors tour idea is feasible, but it has to be done properly.

I would say that it has to have specific age requirements. Any sports brand around the world pride themselves on consistency so in order to make this fair for every player involved, I think everybody would have to be over the age of 50 or 55. Pick an age and they have to be over it.

55 could be the perfect age for someone to potentially go into a seniors event because that would bring in some great players and also allow those who don't necessarily want to play on the Pro Tour anymore – or haven’t previously – but are still good enough to mix it at this level.

You see people come through and shine on the PGA Champions Tour who didn't do anything on the PGA Tour. They haven’t all won majors or tournaments on the main PGA and European Tours - but they can still compete in a new era of their life.

The same goes with the World Seniors tour in snooker. Some of the players who can mix it with the likes of Jimmy White didn’t have an illustrious career in their younger days.

This would give another portion of the public an opportunity of getting into big-time darts and shouldn’t just be for a club of players from yesteryear.

Sport is all about stories. While it would be good if a great player from the past won it, what about a player who nobody has really heard of? It would throw up questions like why didn’t they get discovered decades earlier and there could well be a fascinating narrative behind that.

It doesn't matter who you are or how old you are. We'd have an event that fits your age bracket or whatever you plan to do with your darts future. The most important thing about this idea is it has to be for everybody over the certain age and not just those who think they deserve this tour because they did something previously.

Admittedly, if it was to happen, then there would be one huge hole and that’s Eric Bristow. Even if he wasn't playing in it, his personally would have been able to drive it from a commercial or broadcast perspective.

I think a World Seniors Championship would need players to spearhead the advertising and the commercial aspect of it to get it up and running. And who better than Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld with a collective of 21 World Championships to do that?

This would grab the people's attention although admittedly there will be some fans out there who feel they’ve had enough doses of Taylor and Barney down the years.

Having big names involved would encourage others to do the same and it’ll be a bit different to how it’s been done before. Who’s to say you couldn’t have women in this tournament that didn’t have the opportunities to beat the men in their era?

It has to be inclusive and if it is, then the sky’s the limit for those who thought their careers had ended.

Master Out

What I like about this next idea is that it challenges some of the purists of the game and it almost brings some other people from the world of darts together. We have many different types of darts tournaments around the world but in the UK, everybody seems to think it’s just 501 straight start and finish with a double. Apart from the World Grand Prix, or course.

Now if you go into Asia and into Central Europe they play a lot of Master Out darts, where you can finish on a treble as well as a double.

The only two ways you can’t finish on the board in this format is the 25 or a big single.

One thing that really enforced this idea for me was at the Autumn Series when Gerwyn Price was playing Ross Smith. He had 140 left and he hit treble 20, single 20 and then went for a big 20 which would have left him tops. However, he accidentally hit the treble and bust his score!

However, what if he was playing Master Out darts and wanted to finish on a treble? Having these rules in force would also encourage people to try and finish with a 180!

Someone would love to hit a nine-darter with eight treble 20s, with a treble seven in there at some point!

You could potentially finish 159 by going two treble 20s and treble 13 and there would be many other numbers up for grabs that aren’t currently possible.

An event like this would be very easy to educate the public about because it’s only one tiny thing that’s different to the norm. A bit like how the World Grand Prix is ‘just’ starting on a double – it’s in essence a small change but everyone thinks it’s massively different and unique.

Although being able to finish on a treble as well as a double is just a change of target, it does bring in a whole new range of checkouts, which in turn makes players think differently about what scores they’d want to leave and therefore use the board with more variety.

I think this will appeal to some of the guys who played Master Out in Central Europe like Gabriel Clemens and Martin Schindler but it would also play into the hands of MVG because of the amount he uses treble 19 – and the same could be said for Darius Labanauskas and Madars Razma.

This idea would only be used for one tournament a year – potentially on the European Tour – and from there people could argue its merits and downfalls before deciding if it has a long-term future on the calendar. But for me it’s very simple and could be executed easily.

Ultimately the doubles are bigger than the trebles but you have to understand that the example I gave you earlier – the 140 for Gerwyn Price – it might be easier to go for the second treble as the third dart because you’ve already got the market in there.

Some people may grumble and say you’ve got to finish on a double otherwise it’s not proper darts. But the dart board is one of the most flexible pieces of sporting equipment you can find and you can break it down into thousands of different variables.

It’ll also make the officials job a bit more difficult of course! All of a sudden they’d have to be on their toes to say “Gerwyn, you require 159!”

One last thing about this idea – you could take it one step further and make it Master In Master Out – whereby you have to start a leg on a double or a treble as well as finishing that way.

In Germany they stage a lot of soft tip darts festivals with Master In Master Out rules, so we’ve got to realise there are more types of games out there to try.

There’s other variations like only a double in but then Master Out but if you have too many different types of tournament it does affect the overall consistency of the tour.

Paul Nicholson will reveal new tournament ideas in the coming weeks but if you have any of your own suggestions please email editorial@sportinglife.com or contact him on his Twitter page: @TheAsset180

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