🗣️ "It feels like the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" @Duzza180 opens up on 🎯 Trying to repair the disconnect The PDPA 🎯 Change the Pro Tour pay structure 🎯 Luke Littler while he's here Listen in full now 🎥👇🏻 youtu.be/65CXDd5VxaI
"If you're in the top 32 you're living a great life, anything after that it's tough" - Glen Durrant and the PDPA keen to fix financial disparity within PDC
PDCTuesday, 09 July 2024 at 15:12
Currently, there are 128 players with a PDC Tour Card. Those players have the right to participate in every Players Championships tournament this year, if there are cancellations they will be replaced by players from the Challenge Tour.
Of those 128 players with Tour Cards, there are several who supplement their income from darts by working part-time or even full-time in some cases. After all, whilst there is plenty of good money to be made within the PDC, it is mostly swallowed up by the players who are in the top 40 of the world rankings.
For example, at a Players Championship tournament, you only get money if you survive the first round. "If it went to a vote right now and they said; 'Glen, can we get your vote?' I'd say yes. I think a minimum wage of 250 pound if you lose first round on the Pro Tour," says former Premier League winner Glen Durrant, who now has a key role within the players' association, the PDPA, in conversation with Online Darts. "That what I would do."
As mentioned, Durrant himself is currently involved with the Professional Darts Players Association (PDPA), the players' union of the PDC. "The PDPA will listen to all players. Not every will agree with that (his suggestion ed.). Ask Gerwyn Price and he'll be like; 'no, no, no. More money for the top 8,'" Duzza explains. "But you get the feeling then that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. If you're in the top 32 you're living a great life, anything after that it's tough."
In fact, Durrant himself can speak from personal experience of how tough things can be when losing early week in week out after a disastrous final year on the Pro Tour. "I had the worst year of my life, just going out there and getting battered. If I didn't have savings from previous success I'd have been going back to work," he concludes. "But the PDC do listen. We'll try to help and we'll put it to the PDC."
One of those who hasn't had to deal with the lower rungs of the PDC rankings however, is Luke Littler. After the now 17-year-old burst onto the scene at the most recent World Darts Championship, some were unsure about throwing the teen sensation straight into the Premier League. Durrant however, never had any doubt about Littler's capabilities of thriving in the cut throat nature of a Premier League Darts campaign. "I'm going to go back to Ally Pally when he played Matt Campbell. He'd had this magnificent average in the first round but things weren't going as planned against Matt Campbell. His family and friends looked a little bit frenzied and he looked over and he went 'calm down'. I thought at 16 years old, that is unbelievable," Duzza recalls.
"He's changed the whole dynamic of it. He had to be in the Premier League," continues Durrant glowingly. "That's one thing but then to go and win it, I didn't really expect that. He's just generational! He is the X factor and he's getting that balance right as well, where he's not playing every tournament and he's not going to be burnt out."
Just how good can The Nuke be though? With darts as competitive as it ever has been, is it possible for one player to dominate like in the past? "When Phil Taylor was doing it Phil was earning 10 grand and I mean, Littler's going to be a multi-millionaire," Durrant says. "You sort of see an element of it with Michael Van Gerwen and that appetite. How on earth does Michael keep going? He's got everything he's ever wanted. I don't think he'll have the longevity, Luke Littler, but it could be a decade of brilliance. I'm just enjoying while he's here right now, producing staggering things. Those nine darters, the Premier League wins, he's just rejuvenated and revitalized our game right now and the front pages and back pages are all about darts again that's got to be seen as a positive."
On his upcoming World Matchplay debut, Littler will face off against Michael van Gerwen. A tricky task despite the inconsistent form of the great Dutchman over the last year or so, with Richard Ashdown even suggesting van Gerwen has lost his smile. "I've got no evidence of that," Durrant responds however. "I've never been close to Michael. He saw me as a threat when I was a player but I like that he's not in it to be everyone's best mate."
"When you're a dart player and when you're at the top, you've got exhibitions, you've got tournaments and I mean, we haven't even come to the busy part of the season yet. How does he keep on going, how much appetite has he got to continue playing?" Durrant adds. "Do I think he's going to get back and dominant again? No I don't."
As mentioned, Littler and Van Gerwen go head to head in the first round of the 2024 World Matchplay at the prestigious tournament's iconic home at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. A bigger match for Van Gerwen than Littler you feel, a first round defeat would be a disaster for the Dutchman after winning the title two years ago, with a giant loss of prize money on the PDC Order of Merit to defend next week in Blackpool.
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