Thursday, 9 January 2020

If the BDO were to go busto

Is there anything that the PDC could look at and think would be worth saving with their help?

I think it'd be very limited, but there is one thing I think they could do which would make a lot of sense, and that's to try to keep the World Masters running.

Let's think about how they could do this - there's a very easy way in my opinion, and that is to co-promote it with the WDF, and host it late in the season, either on the weekend of the Players Championship Finals, or the weekend after (maybe leaning towards the latter if you want them to have some sort of televised entity to the extend where you don't want it to clash with Minehead, rather than just being streamed, which I'm sure the PDC wouldn't see as too much of a threat).

The trick is to allow certain tour card holders to play - i.e. those who did not qualify for the Players Championship Finals and would otherwise already be playing something else. Apart from the occasional oddball who doesn't play many events (Gary Anderson, I'm looking at you), this is going to consist primarily of players who are going to be losing their tour cards, in which case the PDC allowing them to play in a WDF-televised event isn't going to be hugely hurting them commercially. Maybe also disallow any top-64 players from the Order of Merit additionally.

The benefits for the PDC, as far as I'm concerned, is that:

a) It would work as somewhat of a parachute payment for players falling off the tour, to allow themselves to start earning WDF ranking points in a major event should they not immediately jump back onto the tour
b) The worldwide nature of the players in the event would help the PDC to further develop new markets, by adding a bit more stability to the World Masters in terms of prize money/organisation
c) In addition to allowing tour card holders to play, they could to similar to what they do with the UK Open and allow some players to qualify by right from the Challenge and Development Tours (if they haven't done already, as a lot of them will have), creating more incentive for players to go on the PDC secondary tours
d) By holding it when I suggest, or perhaps even a weekend later on the weekend before Ally Pally starts, you could help to reduce a lot of the costs of international qualifiers who have made the worlds with clever scheduling
e) As it's the oldest event in the world, as far as I can tell, you help to retain a bit the history that goes with the event

As for anything else, I don't see the point. The World Trophy seemed incredibly artificial and may as well go pop for all I care. Lakeside could be kept around by the WDF as a season-ending event based on their ranking tables, they just wouldn't refer to it as a "world championship". Most other events would be run as they are by their respective organisers, picked up by the home nations as needed.

Thoughts?

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