'I rejected big money during darts breakaway – I'm still not sure if I made the right call'

Darts fable John Lowe looks backmost connected his pivotal relation successful the acrimonious 'split' which ripped the crippled successful fractional successful the 1990s, paving the mode to its present-day success

More than 30 years on, John Lowe inactive wonders if helium made the close decision.

In the aboriginal 1990s, darts was astatine a crossroads that would specify its full future. Restless astatine the sport’s dwindling TV exposure, the champion players successful the game, including Lowe, Phil Taylor and Eric Bristow, broke distant from the BDO to signifier the World Darts Council (WDC), which aboriginal became the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

The ‘split’, arsenic it would go known, proved to beryllium the champion happening to hap to darts. But it wasn’t a elemental determination for those progressive astatine the time. Stick with the BDO and its guaranteed baccy sponsorship income oregon gamble connected a caller entity?

There were ructions, rows and U-turns. The WDC astir fell isolated earlier its archetypal World Championship successful 1994. And it whitethorn person done had three-time world champion Lowe not decided to instrumentality with it.

‘Old Stoneface’ won the last BDO World Championship astatine the Lakeside anterior to the divided successful 1993. The WDC was already up and running, but Lowe and his chap defectors were being pressured into returning to the BDO.

“I was the past satellite champion and ne'er defended it,” recalls Lowe, who appears successful the Sky documentary bid Darts Kings. "It runs a spot deeper than that due to the fact that Embassy, who sponsored the World Championship, asked maine to spell backmost to the BDO earlier this caller part started and they offered maine a important magnitude of money.

“At that time, I was progressive successful the Professional Darts Association. I was unpaid caput for astir 12 years. And erstwhile a institution similar Embassy offers you £20,000 [more than £50,000 successful today’s money] to stay… If I had gone back, Sky TV would not person shown the archetypal World Championship.

“We’d already had 2 players propulsion retired and Sky said, ‘if 1 much of you pulls out, we’ll propulsion the plug’. So I said, ‘no, we’ve got to enactment unneurotic and propulsion this along’.

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“All these years later, should I person stayed and taken the money? I look backmost sometimes and think, ‘should I person taken it?’ I inactive can’t marque my caput up whether I made the close decision. It was for the athletics of darts due to the fact that of what it is now. But should I person conscionable looked aft John Lowe?”

The aboriginal years aft the breakaway were tough, with players not adjacent getting paid initially. Lowe says: “They [the WDC] were successful hopeless request of money.

“At that archetypal World Championship, nary 1 got paid for rather a while. I don’t deliberation Phil Taylor and Dennis Priestley [the finalists that year] got paid for astir 2 years.

“They got paid successful shares successful the caller company. Then it astir collapsed, and without Barry Hearn and Matchroom coming in, it would person gone.”

While astir of the players progressive were taking a large risk, Lowe didn’t spot it that way. He explains: “The others were taking much of a hazard than me. I was a joiner and erstwhile I started playing darts professionally, I inactive had it successful the backmost of my caput that I could spell backmost to that and acceptable up a bully small business.

“Back erstwhile I archetypal started playing, I thought it was a pub game, not a athletics whatsoever. It was thing radical did aft a time astatine work.

“You played successful section leagues and if you were palmy astatine the extremity of the season, you whitethorn person won an alarm timepiece oregon thing similar that. There was nary wealth successful it. But then, erstwhile wealth came in, it changed from being a pub crippled to a superior sport.

“I ever thought the [WDC] bubble would burst. I didn’t deliberation it would beryllium going for much than 10 years. Now it’s been much than 30 years and is established for the adjacent 25-30 years.”

With that successful mind, today’s players, galore of whom are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per year, beryllium a indebtedness of gratitude to the likes of Lowe, not that helium expects immoderate thanks.

“Let’s accidental I’d been a tennis player, would my lad retrieve Bjorn Borg," helium asks. “Time moves connected and it has to determination on. So I’m not looking for immoderate convey yous from anybody. I’m rather blessed with the mode beingness has treated maine and however darts has treated me.”

Watch Dart Kings connected Sky Documentaries and NOW.