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BloombergBusinessweek February 8, 2021T
he first thing I saw as I walked
up to the Motorpoint Arena in
Nottingham, England, was an
angry old man having his packet of
Sainsbury’s Butter Mintoes confiscated
by security. The first thing I heard was
a woman shouting, “Oh, f--- off, Lucy.” It
was February 2020. Inside were Waldos
and Oompa-Loompas and jungle explor-
ers and pageant queens and lederhosen
guys and old-timey jockeys. There were
hula hoop lads and men in full-body
orange safety cones and a few dudeswho looked like they maybe saw a movie
about Hawaii once and have always
wanted to go. There was a young woman
dressed as an old woman of the lives-in-
a-shoe variety, who fully committed to
the bit by clutching her back and shuf-
fling every time she went to get a pint. All
that’s required to fit in at a darts tourna-
ment, really, is to dress up as ... anything.
What was very important was the
drinking. Darts is a surprisingly good
spectator sport because everyone’s in
the same boat: half-pissed, looking at
close-ups on giant screens of the dart-
board. (It’s far too small for anyone to seewhat’shappeningonit.)BarryHearn,
chairman of theProfessional Darts
Corp.,says,“It’stheonlysportinthe
worldthat’snotvisibletothenakedeye!
Youhavenoideawhat’sgoingon!You
tipa beerinyourearwhilewatchingthe
screen.It’sa greatlife!”ThePDCclaims
thatatdarts’WorldChampionship,fans
averagealmostfive20-ouncepintsper
personperday.Thetournamentlastsa
littlemorethantwoweeks.
Forallthedrunkencamaraderie,
there’sa touchofclass warfare.AtMotorpoint,the peopleinthenose-
bleedschant,“Boring,boringtables!”
atthefolksinthehigher-pricedfloor
seats.Thefloor-seaters chant back, “We
pay your benefits!” Eventually, every-
one chants in unison, “If you love the
darts, stand up!” Short of growing up
with the sport, you’ll never not find
it bizarre. But in person, even for an
outsider, it’s immediately compelling.
You know that thrilling tension that
pops when you’re in a basement and
your buddy Ricky shouts, “I’m gonna
flip this bottle cap onto the head of the
tiger statue your mom got from Laos,”and everyone stops what they’re doing
to see if Ricky can actually do it? That
feeling, pumped up, is darts.
The competition at Motorpoint was
the domain of the sport’s dozen or
so elite Premier League players; the
top dog was a scary, bald Dutchman,
Michael van Gerwen, an absolute bull-
dozer on the board, who won just
under £1.3 million ($1.7 million) during
the 2019 season. He’s currently ranked
No. 2 in the world. But on this night the
PDC had granted a special “challenger”spot to Fallon Sherrock. No challenger
had ever won a game in “Prem” compe-
tition, but the chance to see her try had
led to a sellout of the 10,000-seat arena.
“The place was rammed,” Hearn says.
Sherrock got the invitation based
on her performance at the World
Championship a month prior at Ally
Pally (actual name: Alexandra Palace) in
London. Her opponent was Ted Evetts, a
highly touted young player. Before every
dart she threw in training, at her home
in sleepy Milton Keynes, Sherrock,
now 26, willed herself into in-match ten-
sion: “I was thinking, mentally, ‘This is PREVIOUS SPREAD: STEVEN PASTON/PA/ALAMY; THIS SPREAD FROM LEFT: PA/ALAMY; PHOTOGRAPH BY SOPHIE GREEN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEKALLY PALLY