RL at the Darts

[Dave T]

43 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

Are they? Apart from you saying dartboards are disappearing from pubs I don't see it. And local boozers are still the lifeblood of the pub industry, city centre pubs/bars have always been a different beast, so dismissing them is silly.

Besides any of which, it still doesn't change the fact that Darts is a much bigger 'sport' than RL. Not a better one (no contest) but a bigger one.

But you can judge for yourself when the next SL season starts. See if there's mass viewership in pubs and clubs up and down the country. See how many people are even aware of it in comparison with the darts tournaments. 

I think you've lost what this discussion is about. 

I haven't dismissed a single pub or bar, I certainly haven't dismissed 'hipster bars' or city centre bars like you have.

But that's my point. Food pubs don't have them in the main - the huge chains included rarely have dart boards. Cocktail bars don't. Hotel bars often don't. You're the one dismissing all these.

A cornerstone of your belief that darts is bigger than RL is because 'pretty much every pub and bar in the world has a dart board'. It's a wild claim that just can't be backed up in the slightest.

You've basically stated that Darts is bigger than RL and then ignored every stat where RL is bigger. And it's all based on the pubs you drink in.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Dave T

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

I think Michael Van Gerwen and Raymond BV are quite well known tbf, more so nationally than any RL player.

Not a cat in hells chance are these in the public consciousness. They may be well known within sporting circles, but then so is the name Wigan Warriors. 

 

[Dave T]

20 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Sorry, what are we agreeing to disagree on, are you saying the Active Lives survey doesn't say what I am saying it does?

TMP doesn't recognise the results of the survey in the same way they don't recognise city bars or hipster pubs.

[bigbaldnmad]

New contract for darts coverage.

Guessing that this will add to the conversation on how much darts is valued.

To quote the article

Darts is now Sky’s biggest sport outside of football by viewing figures. The previous PDC World Darts Championship final between. Luke Littler and Luke Humphries saw a 150% increase in the TV audience, compared to the final before (between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen).

 

Edited December 23, 2024 by bigbaldnmad

[HawkMan]

42 minutes ago, bigbaldnmad said:

New contract for darts coverage.

Guessing that this will add to the conversation on how much darts is valued.

To quote the article

Darts is now Sky’s biggest sport outside of football by viewing figures. The previous PDC World Darts Championship final between. Luke Littler and Luke Humphries saw a 150% increase in the TV audience, compared to the final before (between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen).

 

Interesting piece, whatever is bigger, darts is on the up as far as viewers and possible TV deal., £45m a year is what Hearn wants, and with  Amazon and Netflix interested , that puts the price up. Now over to you IMG, do your job and get RL moving in the right direction, you've got 2 years to get a better than £21.5m deal. Vitally this MUST mean other bidders.

 

Edited December 23, 2024 by HawkMan

[Dullish Mood]

20 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think you've lost what this discussion is about. 

I haven't dismissed a single pub or bar, I certainly haven't dismissed 'hipster bars' or city centre bars like you have.

But that's my point. Food pubs don't have them in the main - the huge chains included rarely have dart boards. Cocktail bars don't. Hotel bars often don't. You're the one dismissing all these.

A cornerstone of your belief that darts is bigger than RL is because 'pretty much every pub and bar in the world has a dart board'. It's a wild claim that just can't be backed up in the slightest.

You've basically stated that Darts is bigger than RL and then ignored every stat where RL is bigger. And it's all based on the pubs you drink in.

The only stat where darts is bigger than RL is the amount of people who play it….oh and the amount of people who watch it….oh and the amount the top participants get paid….oh and the amount TV pays to screen it….but apart from that.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Dullish Mood said:

The only stat where darts is bigger than RL is the amount of people who play it….oh and the amount of people who watch it….oh and the amount the top participants get paid….oh and the amount TV pays to screen it….but apart from that.

You'll need to provide sources for your claims really.

Uk participation has been shown to be in RL's favour, massively.

Darts has some good peaks, but more people are watching RL each week both in grounds and on TV.

And RL tv deals absolutely dwarf darts deals.

And if we want to talk about how much players get, we really should look at the £30m or so players earn in Europe per year, and the c£120m players are earning in the NRL.

 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, HawkMan said:

Interesting piece, whatever is bigger, darts is on the up as far as viewers and possible TV deal., £45m a year is what Hearn wants, and with  Amazon and Netflix interested , that puts the price up. Now over to you IMG, do your job and get RL moving in the right direction, you've got 2 years to get a better than £21.5m deal. Vitally this MUST mean other bidders.

 

I think this is an area RL has struggled. We've never really been able to move up from good TV figures. We don't deliver events that step up to 750k to 1m viewers. 

[Eddie]

8 hours ago, Dave T said:

Not a cat in hells chance are these in the public consciousness. They may be well known within sporting circles, but then so is the name Wigan Warriors. 

 

I think the majority of blokes I know aged 20-50 would know who MVG is, and few would be able to name a current rugby league player. Comparing with a team isn’t realistic. 

Edited December 24, 2024 by Eddie

[Tommygilf]

5 hours ago, Dave T said:

I think this is an area RL has struggled. We've never really been able to move up from good TV figures. We don't deliver events that step up to 750k to 1m viewers. 

This is where I think we have a "smaller than darts" issue perhaps. 

We have a far larger core and consistent audience, but in the casual space our reach is far smaller. 

[The Masked Poster]

9 hours ago, Dunbar said:

Sorry, what are we agreeing to disagree on, are you saying the Active Lives survey doesn't say what I am saying it does?

What we are disagreeing on is that you are happy to take that survey at face value and extrapolate from it that darts is less popular and has less participation than Rugby League. That is absolutely your right to have that opinion. 
I have a different view on things and won't be changing it, even if the whole forum tells me that RL is the more popular game. Which is where I'll leave it.

[The Masked Poster]

9 hours ago, Dave T said:

I think you've lost what this discussion is about. 

I haven't dismissed a single pub or bar, I certainly haven't dismissed 'hipster bars' or city centre bars like you have.

But that's my point. Food pubs don't have them in the main - the huge chains included rarely have dart boards. Cocktail bars don't. Hotel bars often don't. You're the one dismissing all these.

A cornerstone of your belief that darts is bigger than RL is because 'pretty much every pub and bar in the world has a dart board'. It's a wild claim that just can't be backed up in the slightest.

You've basically stated that Darts is bigger than RL and then ignored every stat where RL is bigger. And it's all based on the pubs you drink in.

I didn't dismiss any of those places, I just assumed that it was a given that I was talking about regular bars/pubs. You wouldn't expect to see a dartboard in a cocktail bar anyway - but many hotel bars do, I have personally seen them. 
 

I also don't need a particular stat to tell me that darts is a much more widespread and popular game than RL, because it is. That's just how it is, if you want to pretend otherwise that's up to you. 

Finally, I am not even a darts fan, I see the odd clip of the big games or a 9 dart finish but that's it. I have no particular affinity with darts whatsoever. But let's remember this at the SL season launch because it will surely overshadow the darts publicity/hype. 

[The Masked Poster]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

I think the majority of blokes I know aged 20-50 would know who MVG is, and few would be able to name a current rugby league player. Comparing with a team isn’t realistic. 

Add to that, ask people to name *any* RL player they'd probably still say Martin Offiah or Ellery Hanley. (I won't include RB and KS for obvious reasons) 

Darts players aren't exactly world famous in general but the famous ones like Phil Taylor or Littler cut through and are well known. I wish it was not the case but it is. 

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

Add to that, ask people to name *any* RL player they'd probably still say Martin Offiah or Ellery Hanley. (I won't include RB and KS for obvious reasons) 

Darts players aren't exactly world famous in general but the famous ones like Phil Taylor or Littler cut through and are well known. I wish it was not the case but it is. 

At the height of his fame, Phil Taylor appeared on a daytime BBC quiz show where a row of people stood and gave their name and occupation. The contestants had to identify the liar among the truth tellers.

They didn’t know who Phil Taylor was.

[HawkMan]

8 hours ago, Dave T said:

 

Darts has some good peaks, but more people are watching RL each week both in grounds and on TV.

And RL tv deals absolutely dwarf darts deals.

 

 

This is a tad disingenuous,  as you say elsewhere on this thread, we're selling to the same people over and over. The aggregate of all people watching RL over a season is clearly higher than darts, massively so, but which has more DIFFERENT people? Casual viewers is the key,and RL has a committed band of core supporters but not great on the casual front.

As for tv deal, higher for RL at present but that may change. If darts really is the second highest viewership on Sky after football then they may go upward of what the article says they'll pay to keep it. It's noteworthy that Sky will at least go to 25million, but reluctantly went to 21.5 million for RL. Of course , no other bidders was the problem for us. 

[Old Frightful]

Another RL connection from the Live World Darts the other night... 

(With apologies to the more sensitive Hull KR fans...)

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

I think the majority of blokes I know aged 20-50 would know who MVG is, and few would be able to name a current rugby league player. Comparing with a team isn’t realistic. 

It sort of is though. A darts fixture is Littler v MVG for example, an RL fixture is Saints v Wigan. You wouldn't expect the same awareness for a team sport player and an impressive dividual sportsperson.

[Dave T]

51 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

This is where I think we have a "smaller than darts" issue perhaps. 

We have a far larger core and consistent audience, but in the casual space our reach is far smaller. 

It is, but as per a previous post, they outperform NFL, F1, Tennis for Sky Sports viewers, but we don't accept that as the overruling thing that claims that darts is bigger, but people are happy to dismiss all the other things for RL.

[Dave T]

39 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

I didn't dismiss any of those places, I just assumed that it was a given that I was talking about regular bars/pubs. You wouldn't expect to see a dartboard in a cocktail bar anyway - but many hotel bars do, I have personally seen them. 
 

Fine, this is just weird.

So what you are saying is that pubs that have darts boards tend to have dart boards?

It was weird to claim that almost every pub and bar in the World has a dart board when you didn't mean that in the slightest.

[Dave T]

26 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

This is a tad disingenuous,  as you say elsewhere on this thread, we're selling to the same people over and over. The aggregate of all people watching RL over a season is clearly higher than darts, massively so, but which has more DIFFERENT people? Casual viewers is the key,and RL has a committed band of core supporters but not great on the casual front.

As for tv deal, higher for RL at present but that may change. If darts really is the second highest viewership on Sky after football then they may go upward of what the article says they'll pay to keep it. It's noteworthy that Sky will at least go to 25million, but reluctantly went to 21.5 million for RL. Of course , no other bidders was the problem for us. 

There isn't anything disingenuous about it. I've acknowledged that darts does very well in the TV space with their superb peaks around major events.

What we are seeing with the Worlds in darts is their biggest event worldwide, so an RL comparison is maybe a World Cup, international tournament or even NRL.

People appear keen to take every strong number from darts but dismiss anything positive from RL. That's, disingenuous.

[The Masked Poster]

39 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

At the height of his fame, Phil Taylor appeared on a daytime BBC quiz show where a row of people stood and gave their name and occupation. The contestants had to identify the liar among the truth tellers.

They didn’t know who Phil Taylor was.

That may well be the case but I'd suggest that people had at least heard of him, even if they wouldn't recognise him. This is an important distinction because most people will not have even heard of todays leading RL players.
 

Rather like I have heard of people like Drake and Nicki Minaj but wouldn't know them if they ran me over. 

[HawkMan]

Presumably Amazon and Netflix are interested in taking darts off Sky because they think it'll increase their portfolio gain subscribers , advertising revenue etc. Someone at their HQ should be saying, " hang on a mo, RL is bigger let's grab that, get those numbers to us."

But they're not, either the metrics tell them that Darts is a better bet, or their sports acquisition team are morons.

[The Masked Poster]

16 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Fine, this is just weird.

So what you are saying is that pubs that have darts boards tend to have dart boards?

It was weird to claim that almost every pub and bar in the World has a dart board when you didn't mean that in the slightest.

I meant that almost every regular pub/bar across the world has a dartboard yes. Not every single pub and certainly countries that don't have pubs. 
 

What is weird though, is your insistence that darts is a relatively obscure pastime spotted in a few random local pubs here and there. 

[The Masked Poster]

2 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

Presumably Amazon and Netflix are interested in taking darts off Sky because they think it'll increase their portfolio gain subscribers , advertising revenue etc. Someone at their HQ should be saying, " hang on a mo, RL is bigger let's grab that, get those numbers to us."

But they're not, either the metrics tell them that Darts is a better bet, or their sports acquisition team are morons.

Mate, it's been proved on here conclusively that RL is the bigger game, save your breath. (Or typing) 

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

Presumably Amazon and Netflix are interested in taking darts off Sky because they think it'll increase their portfolio gain subscribers , advertising revenue etc. Someone at their HQ should be saying, " hang on a mo, RL is bigger let's grab that, get those numbers to us."

But they're not, either the metrics tell them that Darts is a better bet, or their sports acquisition team are morons.

When is the darts on Amazon or Netflix?