Sky Sports will for the first time dedicate an entire channel to darts this Christmas. ‘Sky Sports Darts’ will launch on 18 December and offer pubs over 370 hours of programming, including live coverage of one sport’s most colourful events, the William Hill World Darts Championship.
The channel will offer 18 days of non-stop tungsten television, as the biggest names in arrows battle for the Sid Waddell Trophy in front of sell-out crowds at Alexandra Palace. Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis and defending champion ‘Mighty’ Michael van Gerwen will be amongst a field of 72 players from around the world, with every clash live on Sky Sports Darts.
Sky Sports 3 will become Sky Sports Darts at 6am on 18 December and be the home of darts until 5 January. As well as live coverage of the World Championship, Sky Sports Darts will screen a host of programmes and features including fascinating documentary with reigning champion van Gerwen.
David Rey, Sky Business Managing Director, says, “The World Darts Championship is one of sport’s most colourful events and for the first time, we’re giving it its own channel. Sky Sports Darts will offer all the drama, excitement and atmosphere from Alexandra Palace for two weeks over Christmas. The channel will show every match live, all the build-up and analysis plus a fantastic schedule of features too. We know darts offers a great opportunity for pubs to create big events around the festive season and we can’t wait for the show to begin.”
Phil Taylor, 16-time World Champion, comments, “This is a great Christmas present for Sky Sports viewers and shows that darts is getting bigger and bigger! It will be interesting to watch some of the old World Championships from the Circus Tavern again and compare it to now when we play darts in front of thousands every night at Ally Pally and the sport has its own dedicated channel. It shows just how far the sport has come.”