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Darts and Rugby League are quite analogous.

The elite competition in both have gone down the route of being behind a paywall and so while there may be fantastic occasions in both, they rarely break through into the full national consciousness.  Yes, this tournament (and in particular the final) generated a lot of clicks and likes on social media but for the rest of the year the PDC is pretty well hidden away.  We break out with the Challenge Cup, Grand Final and, once in a blue moon, an international tournament.

Gone are the days when a couple of TV channels meant that the leading figures in most sports are nationally recognised.

We may lament that our best players are not household names but I would argue that if you walked the streets of the UK and asked a thousand people to name a darts player the likes of Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson would still get named... maybe Phil Taylor. 

I am a sports fan across many areas and watched a lot of the recent World Championship but I had never heard of Michael Smith before the last few weeks.  Because I watch darts for the World Championships as so many people just watch Rugby League for the Grand Final or when England play.  When you don't have the platform, you don't reach the audience.  Simple as that.

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"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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1 hour ago, SalfordSlim said:

For research purposes I think we should test this theory out as would love to see the end results. Will you be gaining an unfair head start by wearing your leopardskin trainers?

Cheetah ones for running 😉

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3 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

So there's loads of fat lads in St Helens and Stoke 

They are known as the "Fat St Helens lads" on the darts fans forum. Smith is known as "Belly boy". 

I like MVG and aren't keen on Smith, so I am not too enamoured about wanting St Helens to win this year if he is parading his trophies there.🙂

Maybe I should follow Leigh Leopards instead? 🙂

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39 minutes ago, Niels said:

They are known as the "Fat St Helens lads" on the darts fans forum. Smith is known as "Belly boy". 

I like MVG and aren't keen on Smith, so I am not too enamoured about wanting St Helens to win this year if he is parading his trophies there.🙂

Maybe I should follow Leigh Leopards instead? 🙂

MVG is a bit of a tool TBH. Great player but not particularly likeable IMO. I predicted Bully Boy to win the tournament beforehand so it's sod's law it's the one year I don't have a bet!🤦‍♂️ Michael Smith is the Warrington RL of darts.... been a top player for a good number of years without landing the big one of the World Champs (think Lee Westwood or Colin Montgomerie in golf). In fact before the Grand Slam this year he'd never won one of the darts "majors". With that monkey off his back I can see him winning another 3 or 4 as he's still only in his early 30's. 

Scary thing is the amount of young kids in the sport. The world youth champion is barely 15 (I lost to him when he was 12 in local league match😂). I doubt you'll ever see a period of dominance like Phil Taylor had ever again, the depth of talent is huge.

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12 minutes ago, SalfordSlim said:

MVG is a bit of a tool TBH. Great player but not particularly likeable IMO. I predicted Bully Boy to win the tournament beforehand so it's sod's law it's the one year I don't have a bet!🤦‍♂️ Michael Smith is the Warrington RL of darts.... been a top player for a good number of years without landing the big one of the World Champs (think Lee Westwood or Colin Montgomerie in golf). In fact before the Grand Slam this year he'd never won one of the darts "majors". With that monkey off his back I can see him winning another 3 or 4 as he's still only in his early 30's. 

Scary thing is the amount of young kids in the sport. The world youth champion is barely 15 (I lost to him when he was 12 in local league match😂). I doubt you'll ever see a period of dominance like Phil Taylor had ever again, the depth of talent is huge.

Maybe Salford are a better team for me to follow😊

I agree, many of the players now are capable of averages over a 100. MVG and Smith are the most consistent. But they don't just have one or two players to beat now, any of the top 16 and more can produce on the day. 

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36 minutes ago, Niels said:

Maybe Salford are a better team for me to follow😊

I agree, many of the players now are capable of averages over a 100. MVG and Smith are the most consistent. But they don't just have one or two players to beat now, any of the top 16 and more can produce on the day. 

Salford are always the better team to follow fella. It's not about the glory as a Salford fan, it's the memories.😎 

Back to the darts..... I can't see why Josh Rock won't be PDC World Champ before he's 25. Looks the real deal and can't see any major weaknesses in his game.

For anyone that was a BDO Darts fan (now WDF) then I wouldn't be surprised to see Luke Littler win it in the next couple of years. Standard in the WDF is pretty poor in comparison to the PDC and he should be nailed on to be the youngest world champ ever as he's got 5/6 years to beat Jelle Klassan's record! He's a Warrington lad so they might finally get to see  a trophy down at the HJ.😉

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One of the things I have often contemplated is which sports are the closest to their theoretical best... which sports have developed both the skills and athleticism to be close to the pinnacle of how well that sport could be possibly played.

And then I think about darts.  Which is a sport that would be absolutely dominated by someone who happened to have any physical dexterity at all.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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1 minute ago, Dunbar said:

One of the things I have often contemplated is which sports are the closest to their theoretical best... which sports have developed both the skills and athleticism to be close to the pinnacle of how well that sport could be possibly played.

And then I think about darts.  Which is a sport that would be absolutely dominated by someone who happened to have any physical dexterity at all.

Chess?

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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1 minute ago, Dunbar said:

One of the things I have often contemplated is which sports are the closest to their theoretical best... which sports have developed both the skills and athleticism to be close to the pinnacle of how well that sport could be possibly played.

And then I think about darts.  Which is a sport that would be absolutely dominated by someone who happened to have any physical dexterity at all.

Just need a very , very ,VERY solid base to launch the projectiles from 

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6 hours ago, Dunbar said:

Darts and Rugby League are quite analogous.

The elite competition in both have gone down the route of being behind a paywall and so while there may be fantastic occasions in both, they rarely break through into the full national consciousness.  Yes, this tournament (and in particular the final) generated a lot of clicks and likes on social media but for the rest of the year the PDC is pretty well hidden away.  We break out with the Challenge Cup, Grand Final and, once in a blue moon, an international tournament.

Gone are the days when a couple of TV channels meant that the leading figures in most sports are nationally recognised.

We may lament that our best players are not household names but I would argue that if you walked the streets of the UK and asked a thousand people to name a darts player the likes of Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson would still get named... maybe Phil Taylor. 

I am a sports fan across many areas and watched a lot of the recent World Championship but I had never heard of Michael Smith before the last few weeks.  Because I watch darts for the World Championships as so many people just watch Rugby League for the Grand Final or when England play.  When you don't have the platform, you don't reach the audience.  Simple as that.

Bearing in mind that a lot of the clicks generated were about one leg of darts in the final. A leg where both players had the chance of a nine dart finish.

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15 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Bearing in mind that a lot of the clicks generated were about one leg of darts in the final. A leg where both players had the chance of a nine dart finish.

Indeed. A leg I have watched many times already on Twitter, Facebook etc.  Sporting drama at its very best.

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"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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11 hours ago, HawkMan said:

More spectators,  media etc doesn't necessarily mean bigger profile,other than counting pages in newspapers and saying yep, we've got more than them.

That was the point made by a previous poster, and he's right.

But moving on, what has RL done with this media profile,  more money etc., not much it seems because it's got IMG involved,  admitting therefore that previous strategies have failed.

We could that with reality Tv say Love Island is more popular then actually proper tv drama's and documentary's etc but we know it's not true and most people are #### sheep.

Real Ale is our nations historical alcoholic beverage but most people drink ###### lager.

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23 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

When I saw the thread title I thought , RL player , CAS wasn't it , Kiwi 

Yes I knew the bloke who won the darts was from St Helens but didn't know his name 

Who I their right mind watches fat blokes throwing little spears into the same little box over and over and over and over again for hours on end ? Bonkers 

I think the popularity of the game is partly explained by the ease with which the ''average Joe'' can identify with the players.

It's a lot easier to imagine that they could emulate what goes on, on the oche than they could emulate the heroics, on the playing field at the Totally Wicked, or the Leigh SV for that matter.

The average darts fans, would see Pro RL players as very different (to themselves) indeed.

There's a great deal to admire about our superb professional athletes but there's something about the psyche of too many average Englishman (thinly veiled envy perhaps) that prefers the underdog to the hero, the common man, to the high achiever.

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7 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I think the popularity of the game is partly explained by the ease with which the ''average Joe'' can identify with the players.

It's a lot easier to imagine that they could emulate what goes on, on the oche than they could emulate the heroics, on the playing field at the Totally Wicked, or the Leigh SV for that matter.

The average darts fans, would see Pro RL players as very different (to themselves) indeed.

There's a great deal to admire about our superb professional athletes but there's something about the psyche of too many average Englishman (thinly veiled envy perhaps) that prefers the underdog to the hero, the common man, to the high achiever.

Well I always had that psych with Rugby with League was the underdog and the common man and the high achiever was Union.

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1 minute ago, EggFace said:

Well I always had that psych with Rugby with League was the underdog and the common man and the high achiever was Union.

Oh my goodness, you've opened a great can of worms here.

The context in which you use of these words is very different from the context of my own (in the post above). 

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5 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I think the popularity of the game is partly explained by the ease with which the ''average Joe'' can identify with the players.

It's a lot easier to imagine that they could emulate what goes on, on the oche than they could emulate the heroics, on the playing field at the Totally Wicked, or the Leigh SV for that matter.

The average darts fans, would see Pro RL players as very different (to themselves) indeed.

There's a great deal to admire about our superb professional athletes but there's something about the psyche of too many average Englishman (thinly veiled envy perhaps) that prefers the underdog to the hero, the common man, to the high achiever.

Way back when Bristow ,Lowe,Wilson and George came to prominence for a few years it was compulsive viewing, but as I've put watching a dart land in a little box continually over and over has lost its appeal for me 

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1 hour ago, fighting irish said:

Oh my goodness, you've opened a great can of worms here.

The context in which you use of these words is very different from the context of my own (in the post above). 

I haven't it's just a forum mate so settle down as people think and post differently.

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1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

Way back when Bristow ,Lowe,Wilson and George came to prominence for a few years it was compulsive viewing, but as I've put watching a dart land in a little box continually over and over has lost its appeal for me 

Sadly Darts even had homage to one of the greats in Pop music history but League never did.

 

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12 hours ago, EggFace said:

I haven't it's just a forum mate so settle down as people think and post differently.

It's quite clear that you think very differently to me.

I'm happy to report nevertheless, that I am unperturbed and was for the whole of yesterday, in fact except under very extreme circumstances, I'm quite unperturbable.

May I suggest you look up the word context in the dictionary?

I don't want you to be caught with egg on your face.

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21 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Cheetah ones for running 😉

Hey, what's happened to my post about the average Joe, more easily identifying with dart players than our elite athletes? 

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