"It’s what dreams are made of": Aspinall ticks off childhood dream from darting bucket list with World Series in Australia and New Zealand
PDCWednesday, 21 June 2023 at 08:00
Nathan Aspinall is among the players who have received an invitation from the PDC to take part in World Series tournaments 'Down Under' in August.
The PDC's annual trip Down Under begins with the New Zealand Darts Masters at the GLOBOX Arena in Hamilton on 4 and 5 August, before the PalmerBet New South Wales Darts Masters is held on 11 and 12 August.
For Aspinall, it will be the first time he may be in action at these tournaments, although he did receive an invitation previously. “When I was in the Premier League in 2020 I was due to play in New Zealand and Australia, but then unfortunately Covid happened,” Aspinall told NZ’s Country Radio Breakfast Show.
“I was absolutely gutted, but I’m really looking forward to coming over this year. It’s going to be an amazing experience.
“When I was a young kid, I could only dream of what I am doing at the moment.
“It’s always great to go to new places. I’ve been to New York this year, I’ve been all over Europe and now I’m coming to New Zealand and Australia!
“I never thought I would go to New Zealand, let alone be playing a massive darting tournament out there. It’s what dreams are made of.”
Aspinall's invitation is a reward for his resurgence over the past 12 months, in which he reached the finals at the World Grand Prix and Grand Slam of Darts respectively.
The 31-year-old darter was then included in the 2023 Premier League Darts, in which he narrowly missed out on a place in the play-offs on the final night of the competition.
“Getting back into the Premier League was a massive lift for me,” added Aspinall.
“The buzz that you get from playing on the biggest stages – you can’t describe it unless you’ve done it.
“When you walk on to that stage and there’s 10,000 people chanting your name - it is unreal, and long may it continue!
“I had a great Premier League. It was very tough, and it’s the first time I have done it with all the travelling across Europe week in week out.
“It was an opportunity that I relished, and I took it all the way down to the final game to try and qualify for Finals Night.
“Unfortunately Gerwyn [Price] did a number on me again. He’s cost me a few quid this year!”
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- depends on the tournament, easier to tune out at minehead where the acoustics aren't very good and half the crowd are pensioners. "keir starmer's a w*****" is their only good chant though, they should censor the rest and keep that one.colt09-03-2026
- I watched all of the UK open and didn't hear it. Does anyone actually listen to, or hear the crowd noise? I just tune it out as it gets quite annoying. If I have to hear "if you love the darts stand up" one more flippin' time.... Clearly everyone there loves the darts, they paid for tickets. Why they should stand up is beyond me (half of them are so bladdered they'd fall straight back down anyway) hahaha
DartsEnvy09-03-2026 - I can't answer why, only the PDC can. I do watch most of them on PDC TV - I have it on in the background when working from home haha. There can be some great moments in them like Beau's recent 9 darter etc. As for their significance, they all contribute to the players rankings with the winners of each day getting 15K, so they are important to their rankings as well as their overall earnings. Win 4 in a year and there's a nice 60K (runner up also gets 10K per day). Also I've seen so many interviews where players say they really enjoy it, because its "pure darts" without the spectacle and they can just get on with it. As per the original reply above, with the stage format playing in front of a bunch of booing drunkards, it's a nice change of pace and can aid concentration. So I can perfectly understand why the players like it so much - it's a good earner, not quite as late nights and very quiet / pure.DartsEnvy09-03-2026
- Would love if podcast was available on youtube. Dont have spotify.kangacheckoutz03-03-2026
- ah ok, that helps put it in context, cheersMrMarkWatsonnonotthatone28-02-2026
- Any IDeaS.....richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- I deserve it I am the greatest I am the people's champion I believe I will win the Premier League because I believe I am the best because honestly I am the people's champion and I honestly made the fans come tonight because I am honestly the greatest and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Oh shut up you pathetic pandering hideously ugly fat waste of space! Fatty Bunting should be more sincere and humbly accept he needed that instead of I this and I that.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- Wright's wife DEMANDS he continues so IT can rook every last penny from him. Commentary beckons.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- i can't answer this definitively, but i can make some suggestions. firstly, these are essentially just glorified qualifiers for TV events which double as helping the lesser players on tour make a living, but they aren't really considered that significant. they weren't even streamed until the past decade or so. most casual fans don't even know they exist and getting an audience in might be difficult. i'm assuming they're currently quite cheap to run and they would need to sell a lot of tickets to justify opening them up into more of a spectacle. they're held on weekdays when most people are at work anyway and there's no room on the calendar to put most of them on weekends. the logistics of presenting it to an audience would also be tricky given that they have to get through 7 rounds containing 128 players in a single day, using loads of stages simultaneously. maybe the uk open could be used as a template but it'd need to be even more condensed into a short time period, and even with the uk open it's hard to follow most of the games. the venues they're currently held at wouldn't cater for turning this into a public event as they're pretty small, so they'd need to hire much bigger venues 30 times in places around the country. it just probably isn't feasible. i also suspect the players don't really want to play in front of drunk audiences in every single domestic tournament, they already have the euro tour, world series and majors for that. the players championship is basically a way for players to demonstrate they're ready to make the step up to those levels of competition.colt26-02-2026
- Hi, can someone explain why the Players Championship takes place behind closed doors? I've been watching the big championships on and off for decades, but only just started taking a keener interest in the game, and this strange looking competition is a bit of a head scratcher to me at the moment.MrMarkWatsonnonotthatone25-02-2026
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