"The next target is to get to £100m prize money with £5m to the winner": No limits for PDC president in darting pursuit

Barry Hearn is far from finished. The 77-year-old British sports promoter, long regarded as the architect of the modern darts landscape, has set another ambitious marker on the horizon. After hitting a personal milestone this year by awarding the darts world champion £1 million in prize money for the first time in history, Hearn is already looking further ahead. His new target: a £100 million prize fund, including a staggering £5 million for the winner of the World Darts Championship, by 2035 at the latest.

These are figures that until recently seemed unthinkable in darts. Yet Hearn speaks about them with the same resolve he showed at the start of this century when he declared the world champion would one day become a millionaire. Back then he was mocked by many. Today, that prediction has come true.

According to Hearn, the explosive growth of darts is far from over. The sport is thriving on a five-year television deal worth £125 million with Sky Sports, rising viewing figures, sold-out arenas, and ever larger sponsorship stakes. In total, around £25 million in prize money is currently being distributed within the PDC.

“I look at darts now and I think, OK, we’ve done well — £25million prize money, £1m for the winner. So the next target is to get to £100m prize money with £5m to the winner," said Hearn to the Sun.

For the Matchroom boss, there is simply no ceiling. “I think in ten years we’ll get to £100m. I don’t think there’s any limit because I believe we really are the working-man’s golf.”

Sponsors are a key engine behind that growth. Hearn especially praises title sponsor Paddy Power for the way the company promotes the World Championship. Sky Sports also plays a crucial role with the revamped, significantly expanded broadcast deal.

On-site, the scale is increasing too. From the next edition, the World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace will move to the larger Great Hall, boosting per-session capacity from roughly 3,300 to more than 5,000 spectators. The iconic Ally Pally will remain the tournament’s beating heart, but will grow in step with the sport’s popularity.

“We’re beginning to be recognised as a major sport that’s delivering good audiences, readership, whatever criteria you want to judge it on. So we have no limits.

Hearn also seizes the moment to dispel the image that dogged darts for years. “Darts is not something that people any longer look down their noses at. Fat guys who smoke and drink on stage was 25 years ago," he said. 

“Today, these people . . . their dream is to become a darts professional in the same way as other kids want to be a professional footballer or a boxer or whatever.”

That professionalization is visible in everything: from training schedules and support to physical fitness and mental coaching. The modern darts player is athlete, entertainer, and brand.

Remarkably, Hearn unveiled his new plans after a year in which his health again came sharply into focus. In the spring, he suffered his third heart attack while attending a play-off match of his beloved Leyton Orient. Feeling unwell, he left the stadium and a few hours later was on the operating table, where a new stent was fitted.

It wasn’t his first encounter with heart trouble. In 2002 he suffered his first heart attack, followed by a second — which he described as “mild” — in 2020, when two stents were inserted.

Even so, Hearn refuses to let health concerns slow him down. "Yeah. Third heart attack. A fourth stent. I was saving up for more stents for Christmas. I had an operation, yeah. But I still made 60 for Essex’s over-70s ten days later. I’m not going anywhere."

Within darts, Barry Hearn is seen as the man who fundamentally changed the game. When he became PDC chairman in 2001, he found a sport with potential but limited resources. In the small Circus Tavern in Essex he “smelled money” and decided darts could become a global entertainment machine.

He promised icons like Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld that seven figures would one day appear on the winner’s cheque. It took more than twenty years, but in 2025 it happened: £1 million for the world champion, in a tournament that now features 128 players.

Now Hearn wants to multiply that achievement fivefold.

Whether the £5 million target for the world champion is attainable remains to be seen. But given Hearn’s track record, no one is laughing anymore. Darts has grown into one of the most accessible and profitable sports in the world, with a unique blend of elite competition and mass appeal.

And if Barry Hearn has his way, he’ll be there in 2035 when the cheque is handed over. "And if I do go, it’ll be an explosion.”

Until then, he’ll keep doing what he’s done for decades: pushing boundaries, generating revenue, and driving darts to ever greater heights.