"Less drunken hooligans causing fights": Gerwyn Price in favour of darts following other sports into Saudi Arabia

Gerwyn Price is in favour of a potential move to Saudi Arabia for future darting events which could yet include the World Darts Championship with the popularity of the sport skyrocketing in the past year.

With the Luke Littler effect, there are more darts fans than ever before and darts will want to take advantage of that. Boxing is one of the main sports that has profited in staging the biggest fights in Riyadh. Albeit there has been push back from some due to perceived sportswashing and poor human rights records.

Price though said that if the move did happen, it would lead to less 'drunken hooligans' starting fights and spoiling the darts for fans and also the players on the stage so is in favour of the move with the hashtag Players First at the end of it.

"Maybe it’s the way forward, less drunken hooligans that aren’t fans, causing fights, that turn up once in a blue moon and spoil/dictates the outcome of the game in what’s the most important event of the year for the players, if you want that atmosphere there’s 4 months of it with the Premier League, People can still enjoy themselves without alcohol," said Price.

This opinion stemmed from quotes by Barry Hearn speaking to the Mirror about the Saudi future of darts. He has previously mooted a similar move of the World Championship to Saudi Arabia in snooker from the historic Crucible. That idea though went down like a lead balloon with fans in particular. But is seen as more of a commercial move.

Hearn admitted that in reality the World Championship needs to be thought about with only 3.2k allowed per session compared to potential attendances abroad.

"I have spoken to the Saudis and they were very keen," Hearn told The Mirror. "But of course there's no alcohol in Saudi. There will be quite soon. And when it does, the first event they will want to stage in Saudi will be darts."

"It's a great atmosphere at Ally Pally, but well, we're looking at it. And we're going to be very adventurous because we have tremendous demands all around the world for people that want to play in the World Darts Championship from different countries.

"So we've got to start looking at making the World Championships bigger. If I went from 96 players to 128 for example, which I can easily do in a heartbeat, it brings in a lot more TV money from different countries. And from the fans point of view, it gives me an extra 25,000 seats. Still nowhere near enough. I could sell a quarter of a million seats for the world championship. I sell 90,000.

"Do I go into the big hall? I think there's a lot of work, but that would give me 6000 seats. And I'd still be at Ally Pally. Or do I go somewhere else Everyone will say, 'are you gonna take it to Saudi?' Well, no, don't be silly. They're not ready yet, But they won't be far along. They won't allow alcohol and the essence of darts is it's party time, isn't it? It's fun as well as great sport."