Split in darts

The split in darts refers to an acrimonious dispute between top professional darts players and the game's governing body, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), in 1993. The players were discontented by the game's big decline in television coverage in 1989 and the early 1990s, and by what they saw as the BDO's inability to reverse that decline, culminating in 16 top ranked players, including every previous world champion who was still active, breaking away from the BDO to form their own organisation, the World Darts Council (WDC).

The BDO responded by banning the 16 defectors from all BDO-sanctioned darts events, which included prohibition of remaining BDO affiliated players from even engaging in exhibition matches against any of the defectors. At the BDO's behest, this was endorsed at a World Darts Federation meeting and became a worldwide sanction. A long-running legal battle followed and ended with a Tomlin order in 1997. The BDO recognised the WDC and the right of players to choose which organisation they played for. In return, the WDC recognised the World Darts Federation as the governing body of world darts, the BDO as the governing body of UK darts, and renamed itself the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

The split in the game remains to this day. The BDO and the PDC have separate pools of players and stage their own tournaments. Each holds its own version of the World Professional Darts Championship.

Darts first appeared on British television in 1962 when Westward Television broadcast the Westward TV Invitational to the south-west of England. 1972 was a big year for darts when ITV started broadcasting the News of the World Championship. Also in 1972 was the start of The Indoor League, which featured a darts tournament, although it was only shown in the Yorkshire Television region in 1972. The Indoor League was shown across Britain on the ITV network from 1973 onwards.

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