BDO’s Open Letter To Barry Hearn
Posted on February 5th, 2010
The British Darts Organisation have retaliated in the war of words with PDC Chairman Barry Hearn by issuing an open letter in response to Hearn’s offer to buy the BDO and invest in its future. There are many questions to be answered and the two sides are nowhere near sensible discussions.
The BDO believe Hearn’s move to be a cycnical one motivated by a control fetish and not in the best interests of darts.
The BDO had better be very sure of what they are doing, and they had better have some solid plans for the future if they end up rejecting the offer as expected. It is apparent to all but the most staunch BDO loyalist that their Organisation is creaking at the seams and losing both faith and credibility as each day passes.
In the meantime the saga continues with Hearn quipping that he has just saved himself two million quid but now having to get down to the nitty gritty of the detail, where the devil is always lurking.
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Tags: Barry Hearn, BDO, Olly Croft, PDC, Takeover
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Hearn’s BDO Takeover Latest
Posted on October 22nd, 2009
BARRY Hearn has questioned the authority with which Olly Croft has turned down the PDC’s £1m offer to buy the British Darts Organisation and inject an additional £1m into the grass roots of the game.
The Professional Darts Corporation’s Chairman made the offer in an open letter to the BDO’s shareholders – its 66 member counties – and directors on Tuesday, but quotes from Croft, whose position within the BDO is described on its official website as ‘Founder’, reject the offer out of hand.
Hearn however, believes that Olly Croft as a Director of the BDO has a formal duty to take the PDC offer to his shareholders (the counties) to make the final decision.
“I don’t believe Olly Croft is in a position to turn down the offer,” Hearn said. “The BDO claim they have a democratically elected board and a county structure that form their shareholders – so why don’t they go through the proper procedures to discuss this offer?
“Croft’s claims are laughable: the public don’t buy his ideas about having the two best tournaments in the World and I would ask him to prove one recent instance of where the BDO has supposedly ploughed its profits back in to darts for the benefit of its players.
“The PDC subsidises tournaments for the benefit of our own players: we offer bigger prize money, more opportunities for television exposure, attract bigger crowds and stage superior events.
“These aren’t even boastful claims – anyone who has seen the two products will know they are accurate statements.
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Tags: Barry Hearn, BDO, Olly Croft, PDC, Takeover
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BDO Not For Sale – Olly Croft’s Retort
Posted on October 22nd, 2009
In The Sun dated October 21st Barry Hearn has claimed that he is offering to buy the BDO for £1 million.
This is the response of OLLY CROFT, founder of the British Darts Organisation:
We know that when this time of the year comes round Halloween happens, the clocks go back and Barry Hearn and the PDC start their usual campaign to try and disrupt our World Championships at Lakeside.
THE BDO IS NOT FOR SALE! IT IS A PRICELESS ASSET THAT FOSTERS, PROMOTES AND LOOKS AFTER THE FUTURE OF OUR GREAT SPORT FOR ALL PLAYERS AT ALL LEVELS.
The BDO was founded in 1973 and is a properly constituted governing body for the sport of darts, with a democratically elected board and a country structure that makes up its ‘shareholders’.
Barry Hearn has gone on record saying that he wants to ‘destroy’ the BDO and is not interested in women’s darts, youth darts and county darts, because they are not profitable. Now he claims that he wants to buy the BDO!
The reason that the BDO doesn’t produce vast net profits, is because we plough back the money we receive into the sport for the benefit of the sport and its players.
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Tags: Barry Hearn, BDO, Olly Croft, PDC, Takeover
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Both poker and darts are highly popular pursuits. The games are available online, in fact, that there are organizations dedicated to making sure the rules of video poker and online darts are conformed. Similar to darts having the World Darts Federation, among others, and poker has the Tournament Directors Association. These rules are put into place in highly competitive tournaments, in which as many as hundreds or even thousands of people compete for cash prizes as well as prestige.
