Chatting Bull with Dan Dawson - Issue #011

It is almost impossible to ascertain for sure if his words were referring to the PDC European Tour darts schedule for 2025, but I can also find no evidence to the contrary.

The Euro Tour (a.k.a. “The greatest tour in Professional Sport”) is getting bigger once again, with a record 14 events to be held next year. Half of them in Germany and half of them outside. The immediate criticism from some has been that it’s rather heavily weighted towards Germany, but there are good reasons for that - Germany is massive, it’s fallen in love with darts, and they actually pay money to turn up and watch it.

Compare that with even the Netherlands, whose sole Euro Tour event this year saw 4,000 turn up for Saturday night, but not even half that for the final day on Sunday. That is an established darts nation with players very likely to be involved in the final stages of the event, and yet the hall was half-empty on the final day.

Belgium has two events this year, and rightly so, following the enormous success of Wieze for the last three years. Czechia, Austria, Hungary have all remained on the calendar, alongside the new addition of Switzerland (which will host its debut event in the next few weeks, towards the end of this year’s tour).  But still there is clamour for more - a Scandinavian event, an Irish one, a Spanish and a French one! All lovely ideas, but all quite difficult practically.

Aligning dates, venues, and facilities  for a massive stage, 48 players, their managers/families, officials, staff, and potentially thousands of fans, is not easy. The Euro Tour has also become a victim of its own success.  A few years ago it would not matter if a country were “tested out” for a year or two - if the fans do not show, then it would lose money, but that could potentially be accommodated.  

Now the events are on television, no network will want to show a tournament without the famous atmosphere (is it any wonder the Gibraltar Darts Trophy has died a death?). How many would turn up to a Euro Tour in France? There are huge numbers of fans from central Europe who travel to Ally Pally for the Worlds (the PDC have the data), but I would wager they are not shifting many tickets in Toulouse.

The European Tour will always have a strong German presence for as long as Germany remains a major market force in the sport, but it certainly feels more European than it did in 2017 for example, when nine of the 12 events were staged on German soil.  However, it remains, for my money, the best darts there is outside of the World Championship and the World Matchplay… and now you get even more of it.  All of the people may not be pleased, but a large majority should be.

Issue #011 Quiz Answers

1) Goalkeeper
2) Two
3) Silverback

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