"It would be a real statement to the world of sport" - Luke Humphries applauds plans by Barry Hearn to raise prize money for World Championship winner to £1 million

PDC chairman Barry Hearn has dreamed for some time of raising the prize money for the winner of the World Darts Championship to £1 million. That dream is getting closer after Sky Sports and the PDC struck a £125 million deal to extend their partnership until 2030. That would be worth more than twice as much as the previous contract.

Former world champion Luke Humphries is already applauding Hearn's plans. "It's something [£1m to the world champion] that's Barry's always wanted to happen in this sport. He's been an advocate for it for many years," Humphries said.

"It would be a real statement to the world of sport, and I do think it will happen. It would be a magical moment for darts. We [the PDC] started off at something like £12,000."

The winner of the first-ever PDC World Championship in 1993, Dennis Priestley, received 16,000 pounds before it dropped to 12,000 pounds in 1995, when Phil Taylor won the crown.

The world No. 1 added: "Then, when it got up to £100,000 [in 2006], everyone was like, 'wow, this is incredible!' Can you imagine 10 times that? It would be a massive statement from the PDC and it just shows how great the sport is growing."

Humphries captured nearly 2 million pounds in the biennial rankings, towering far above everyone else. That does ensure that he has a particularly large amount of prize money to defend for the world rankings in the coming months. But he doesn't panic.

"Not at all, not one bit because I'd rather be defending it than not. It means I won," said Humphries.

"I'm probably not going to defend it all because I'd have to defend four major titles, including the World Championship. What you've got to do at the Matchplay [in July] and before is do better than you did before, which lessens the damage that I might receive at the back end of the year.

"If I don't win another penny for the rest of this year, I'll still be world No. 2. I've got an opportunity to stay number one as long as I can.

"And it all depends on what happens next year with the prize money. If you've got the world champion getting a million pounds, if I win it, I'll be world No. 1 by a mile again.

"And if Luke [Littler] doesn't win it either, someone else could be world No. 1, you just don't know what's going to happen with the game."