Sporting Life
Paul Nicholson has his say on the World Series Finals
Paul Nicholson has his say on the World Series Finals

Why the World Series of Darts Finals needs a revamp to become a 'proper' major and excite supporters

By Paul Nicholson
Darts
Fri September 12, 2025 · 3M ago

The World Series of Darts Finals needs a shake up if it's to earn major status in the eyes of players and supporters, writes Paul Nicholson in his latest Sporting Life column.

The World Series of Darts Finals doesn't feel like a 'major' does it? And that's a real shame when it's always been contested by the sport's elite players since the inaugural edition back in 2015.

In fact, the tournament got off to an incredible start in Glasgow 10 years ago when the likes of Phil Taylor, Michael van Gerwen, Peter Wright, Gary Anderson, Raymond van Barneveld and Adrian Lewis produced a standard of darts worthy of gracing any stage.

From the quarter-finals onwards on the last day, there were 12 averages over 100 out of a possible 14 including a pair of 106s from MVG and Wright in a pulsating climax that went right down to the wire before the Dutchman clinched the title.

But despite a lengthy history of nine editions, terrestrial TV coverage, stellar fields and very good prize money, it's fair to say the World Series Finals lacks genuine gravitas and is unanimously regarded as the least important of the big stage events by players and fans.And by quite some distance, too.

Although many feel this is probably the event that needs to be replaced by something different or completely revamped, the PDC clearly believes there is a place for a World Series Finals on the calendar.

To be fair, it does have its merits and rounds off the World Series Tour which has been one of the PDC's flagship ways of taking darts to different parts of the globe that don’t get ranking action, and allows our stars to grace iconic arenas like Madison Square Garden.

However, even those World Series events have too much of an invitational feel with the same elite faces battling it out for the trophies while the local players from each region don't really have much of a genuine chance of picking up life changing wins. Not lately anyway.

So what's the solution?

Here's a few possible changes that I'd do. I'd revamp the World Series circuit and have a tournament in every continent (minus Antarctica obviously!) so there's one in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia.

Darts fans would say European Tour events matter more to them than World Series tournaments and that in itself seems wrong when you consider only the latter is televised terrestrially.

'Only' having one of these in Europe instead of the current tally of three (Copenhagen, Netherlands and Poland) may be seen as a sticking point but many countries get given a ranked event on the European Tour - which currently mean a lot more to fans than World Series events even though they aren't televised.

The European host could change each year, while Australia and New Zealand would take it in turns to host the Australasian event.

In an ideal world, you'd want the Asian event to be held somewhere like the Philippines or Japan but from a logistical point of view, Middle East is probably the most suitable to facilitate a ranking tournament with qualifiers.

It would be tricky to host a darts event of this scale in South America as things stand, but for Africa the best option would be South Africa.

And then, to give these events more grandeur, turn them into ranking events.

Obviously that wouldn't go down well with anyone if they remained 'invite only' tournaments, so here's how I’d make it work.

Firstly the field size would be much larger with bigger prize funds, and all Tour Card holders would have the opportunity to qualify. That could even be done in the country where the event is being staged the day before.

You may not think players low down the rankings would want to risk travelling long distances without the guarantee of being in the main draw but I disagree. I come from an era of the sport where we did have ranking tournaments in America, Canada, and Australia.

They eventually disappeared but I felt they actually worked because so many people turned up to them. Players literally couldn't wait to go to these ranking tournaments, and that was in the days of less money.

Nowadays with the prize money on offer and the opportunity to play in arenas like Madison Square Garden, many players would give qualification their best shot.

Dart players have always been risk-takers. If you stick a tournament in New York City all of them would want to be there. And as soon as someone comes out of Q-School, one of the first things they'd want to do is find out when they're off to New York!

You'd still have the regional contingent having their own qualification structure and, if anything, a bigger overall field would also benefit those players' chances of getting kinder draws in the first round. At the moment they come up against the very best players in the world and generally get battered.

Winning a World Series event would now take on even more significance and at the end of all the events, the final Order of Merit would determine who qualifies for the World Series Finals.

Obviously that would now also be a ranked major and that would certainly give this tournament the prestige it badly needs.

Look what happened to the Masters when the PDC had a revamp and turned it into a new ranked major? I used to be one of the biggest critics of the old Masters as it just seemed like a soft launch to a new season.

Then the PDC got hold of it, opened qualification up to the whole tour and changed the format to give it a completely new lease of life.It was a stroke of genius so let's try and do the same with the World Series.

Nobody can tell me this can't be tweaked to make it better for players, fans and the sport as a whole.

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