Professional Organisations

Of the two professional organisations, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), founded 1973, is the older. Its tournaments are often shown on the BBC in the UK and on SBS6 in the Netherlands. The BDO is a member of the World Darts Federation (WDF) (founded 1976), along with organisations in some 60 other countries worldwide. The BDO originally organised a number of the more prestigious British tournaments with a few notable exceptions such as the News of the World Championship and the national events run under the auspices of the National Darts Association of Great Britain. However many sponsors were lost and British TV coverage became much reduced by the early nineties.

In 1992 a breakaway organisation was formed, initially known as the World Darts Council (WDC) but shortly after known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The PDC tournaments have a considerable following, although due to their coverage on subscription-based Sky television, the PDC World Championship has lower TV viewing figures than that of the BDO.

The PDC tournaments often have higher prize money and feature the leading player in the history of the game, 13-time World Champion Phil Taylor. The highly successful BDO player Raymond van Barneveld switched to the PDC and won the World Championship at his first attempt in 2007.