Premier League Darts

Premier League Darts is a darts tournament which launched on 20 January 2005 on Sky Sports. The league is now played weekly from February to May, having originally started as a fortnightly fixture. The tournament originally featured seven players and now sees ten of the biggest names from the PDC circuit competing in a double round-robin format, with matches held across Europe at different venues. The top four players in the PDC Order of Merit are joined by six wildcard selections to make up the ten-man field. The current sponsor is Unibet.
The previous sponsors were McCoy's, Whyte and Mackay, who succeeded Holsten, having signed a three-year contract to support the event in October 2007, and 888.com. The prize fund rose from £265,000 to £340,000 in 2008, steadily increasing each year for a prize fund of £855,000 in 2019. The winner currently receives £250,000.
Phil Taylor has dominated this event, winning six of the thirteen tournaments he appeared in. He went unbeaten throughout the first three seasons before James Wade ended his 44 match run in the first match of the 2008 season. A new champion was to be crowned after Mervyn King defeated him in the 2009 semi-finals. Wade defeated King 13–8 in the final, to pick up the £125,000 first prize. Phil Taylor defeated James Wade the following season to claim his fifth title in the competition in 2010; however, he was defeated in the semi-final of the 2011 tournament. Gary Anderson became champion in his début season by defeating Adrian Lewis in a repeat of the world championship final earlier that year. Phil Taylor reclaimed the title the following year, after defeating Simon Whitlock in the 2012 final, but lost the 2013 final to Michael van Gerwen. A year later, Taylor – who lost four of his first five games of the season and only secured qualification to the playoffs on the final league night – lost to eventual champion Raymond van Barneveld in the semi-finals.
Although there have been six overall winners of the Premier League, the actual league stage has been dominated by Taylor and van Gerwen, with Taylor topping the table for each of the first eight editions and van Gerwen winning the next seven. In 2020, Glen Durrant became the third player to finish top after all league fixtures had been completed. He went on to win the title, meaning all three players both topped the table and won the play-offs at their first attempt.
Television coverage.
The matches have been broadcast on Thursday nights on Sky Sports since the tournament inception. Originally the league alternated with Premier League Snooker one week and Premier League Darts the next. From 2006, the snooker moved to late autumn – giving the Premier League darts a straight weekly run in the spring.
American sports channel OLN aired the 2006 Premier League Darts season on a slight delay, in August 2006. In 2018 BBC America started airing Premier League Darts on Thursday nights. In 2020 BBC America started airing Premier League Darts on Sunday mornings.
German sports channel Sport1 broadcasts most matches live on TV and gives coverages of a selection of matches.
The PDC announced in January 2007 that the contract with Sky Television for coverage of the Premier League had been extended to 2010.
Sponsorship.
The tournament has had six title sponsors since it was formed in 2005. They are 888.com (2005, 2011), Holsten (2006–2007), Whyte and Mackay (2008–2010), McCoy's (2012–2013) and Betway (2014–2017). Unibet was the sixth when they took over for the 2018 tournament.
Records and statistics.
Nine-dart finishes.
Twelve nine-dart finishes have been thrown in the Premier League. The first one was in 2006, and the most recent one was in 2021.
Appearances.
Since the tournament made its debut in 2005, Phil Taylor made an appearance in every Premier League competition until his retirement following the 2018 PDC World Darts Championship. Raymond van Barneveld competed in every Premier League from 2006 to 2019. From 2005 until the 2010 tournament, the top six players in the PDC Order of Merit after the PDC World Darts Championship automatically qualified, with one wildcard (2005 and 2006) and two wildcards (2007–2010) chosen by either the PDC or Sky Sports. From the 2011 tournament, only the top four in the PDC Order of Merit automatically qualified, with four wildcards (2011 and 2012) chosen by both the PDC and Sky Sports. In 2013, the tournament grew from eight players to ten, with the top four players in the PDC Order of Merit automatically qualifying and six other players chosen as Wildcards on the basis of their performance in the past year or in earlier editions of the Premier League.
In 2021 Dimitri Van den Bergh, José de Sousa and Jonny Clayton will be the latest players to make their Premier League debuts.
Premier League players and performance.
When Gary Anderson withdrew from the 2019 season just before it began, Chris Dobey, Glen Durrant, Steve Lennon, Luke Humphries, John Henderson, Nathan Aspinall, Max Hopp, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Jeffrey de Zwaan were named as "contenders" to play in Anderson's place each of the first eight weeks. This format was extended – this time as part of the original schedule – to the 2020 season, with 9 regular players and 9 challengers. John Henderson, Fallon Sherrock, Jonny Clayton, William O'Connor, Luke Humphries, Stephen Bunting, Chris Dobey, Jeffrey de Zwaan and Jermaine Wattimena were the challengers.