Women’s PDC World Championship Info
Posted on March 26th, 2010
THE inaugural PDC Unicorn Women’s World Championship will be played in three stages this year.
The new tournament, offering £30,000 prize money, will culminate in the final to be held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool on Sunday July 25, shown live on Sky Sports ahead of the World Matchplay Final.
Ahead of that, players will compete in two stages as the event works down to the final, with the first stage being knockout qualifying tournaments held in Rileys clubs around the UK or International Qualifiers.
The 20 Rileys Qualifiers will be joined by 12 International Qualifiers in playing off at the Barnsley Metrodome on Saturday June 12.
Play in Barnsley will be down to the last two players, who will compete in the final on stage ahead of the World Matchplay Final in Blackpool on July 25.
In the UK, 20 Rileys Darts Zones will hold knockout qualifiers for women, with the winner of each progressing to play in Barnsley.
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Tags: PDC, Women's World Championship
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Unified World Darts Ranking Feb 2010
Posted on March 7th, 2010
After the furore of the festive period and the two World Championships has died down, February is a more sedate time of year as we all catch our breath. Not if you play the circuit though! The tour continues apace and the UWDR combines the action on both sides of the divide to give you a joined up view of the current darting hierarchy.
PDC players jetted off to Gibraltar in early February for two Players Championship events with Colin Lloyd and Denis Ovens bringing home the bacon. Lloyd’s win pushed him up a couple of places to 18th and Ovens jumped 5 places to number 43 on the back of his first title for some time.
This was followed later in the month by events in Swindon and Derby. Mervyn King bagged a Swindon double, winning the Players Championship event and the UK Open Qualifier, and in the process consolidating his lofty UWDR position of 6th. King has truly cemented his status as one of top PDC pros and has fully realised the undoubted potential that he showed when playing under the BDO banner. Future world champion perhaps?
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Tags: BDO, PDC, WDF
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New Dawn For PDC
Posted on February 16th, 2010
PDC LAUNCHES PDC WORLD CUP, PDC UNICORN UNDER-21 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP & PDC UNICORN WOMENS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Following the decision, by a majority vote, of the BDO County Associations not to agree to discuss the detail of the PDC’s offer to acquire the British Darts Organisation nor to grant the PDC access to its books of accounts in order for normal due diligence to be carried out the Board of the PDC can issue the following statement:
The Board of the PDC find the decision of the BDO County Associations not to engage in discussions as to how to distribute the PDC’s proposed cash injection of £2m into amateur darts contrary to the best interests of the membership they represent.
Nevertheless the PDC Board has accepted this decision and intends to move on with its plans for the expansion of the professional game of darts offering all players the opportunity to compete with the elite of world darts for prize money at a level never before experienced.
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Tags: BDO, PDC, Takeover
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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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BDO Counties Vote To Reject PDC Offer
Posted on February 1st, 2010
THE Professional Darts Corporation have released the following statement after the decision by the British Darts Organisation to reject its takeover offer.
In October 2009, the PDC offered £1 million to purchase the BDO, with a further £1 million which would then have been invested in amateur darts.
However, a meeting of the BDO Counties on Sunday voted by a majority to reject the offer.
PDC Chairman Barry Hearn said: “We are disappointed with their decision but while we acknowledge their right to make that decision, we are disappointed on two counts.
“Firstly, we wanted a meeting with the member counties and clearly the majority did not want that meeting.”
“Secondly, we wanted due diligence on their records. They did not want us to look at their books.”
“When you look at their decision, it shows the ineptitude of the amateur game.”
“For us at the PDC, it saves us £2m which we can plough back into the development of our sport, but our door is always open to them.”
Tags: BDO, PDC, Takeover
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PDC & Unicorn Darts Academy
Posted on December 3rd, 2009
THE Professional Darts Corporation and Unicorn Darts have teamed up with Stockport College to launch the first professional Darts Academy.
The unique Darts Academy will be a part of Stockport College’s highly successful Academy of Sport, and based at the Stockport College Town Centre Campus.
Equipped with Unicorn playing equipment, the Darts Academy will offer professional coaching for students alongside full-time education within Stockport College.
Stockport College Academy of Sport Manager Steve Mort said: “Due to the seven-year success of our Academy of Sport we felt that there was a unique opportunity to create the first ever professional Darts Academy in partnership with the PDC and sponsored by Unicorn.
“Players within the professional Darts Academy will benefit from full-time education and in addition from professional coaching in the sport.”
PDC stars Terry Jenkins, Colin Lloyd and Jelle Klaasen visited Stockport College in March and played exhibition games against a selection of students, as well as seeing the Academy of Sport’s facilities at first hand.
Mort added: “Since March we have been inundated with enquiries about our new professional Darts Academy, and the plans have now finally come into fruition and we are ready to welcome new players!
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Tags: Darts Academy, PDC, Stockport College, Unicorn
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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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PDC Make Offer For BDO
Posted on October 21st, 2009
THE Professional Darts Corporation have made a £1 million offer to purchase the British Darts Organisation, as well as offering to invest the same amount in to the grass roots side of the sport.
An open letter, detailed below, has been sent to the Board of Directors and Members of the British Darts Organisation, by PDC Chairman Barry Hearn.
The letter read:
Subject to Contract
Without Prejudice
20 October 2009
To the Directors and Members of the British Darts Organisation:
An open letter relating to the future of Darts
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Tags: BDO, PDC
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Mark Webster Joins the PDC
Posted on February 5th, 2009
MARK WEBSTER has joined the Professional Darts Corporation, and will make his debut on the PDC Pro Tour in Gladbeck at the end of February.
The 25-year-old Welshman won the 2008 Lakeside Championship, defeating Simon Whitlock in the final, and is also a former International Darts League runner-up.
He has opted to leave the BDO circuit to join the PDC, and will play for the first time in the Players Championship double-header in Germany this month.
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Tags: Mark Webster, PDC
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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.
