Is Darts a Sport?

Like the perennial chicken and egg quandary, there will probably never be an answer to this age old question to suit everybody.

The BBC and major broadcasters round the world are happy to include coverage of the bigger events in their suite of sports programming and the BBC website includes it in that very section, rather than in some Lifestyle or Leisure category alongside the stuff they publish about city breaks and salads.

So we’re off to a good start.

The Sports Council of England and Wales however do not classify it as a sport which is hardly a vote of confidence when you consider that angling is on their list. Nothing against fishing but you probably get my point.

And I guess it depends where in the world you are. Holland seems to idolise darts players as it does stars like Bergkamp and van Persie, while only the other week when my darts were picked up by the scanner in the Almaty Metro in Kazakhstan, the goon at the gate was reduced to laughing at me when I told him that I was a sportsman and always had my darts with me. Yes, he let me pass.

So let’s look at it objectively and argue the case for the defence.

Firstly, top professional sport requires years of dedication to get to the top. It is not like the Gloucester Cheese Rolling fest which fun though it looks, anybody can turn up with a chance of winning. Not many people can’t play darts at all, but so few break through the ranks and make it as pros. It takes a long time. So we can agree that training, and intensely demanding physical training at that, is essential for improving darting performance. A classic component of a sport.

Secondly, darts is hardly triathlon but anything over five legs is taxing both mentally and physically. It probably doesn’t look that way on the TV but ask anybody who plays semi-seriously – it drains you. Darts players may not resemble triathletes either but by that logic then half a dozen other sports drop off the list too. I’m thinking rugby, among them.

I am hypocritical enough to claim that chess is not a sport even if it satisfies some of the criteria above, you know, training and dedication, but from here on we start to see differences. Chess is a great game and I won’t have a word said against it, but the focus is on the mental and the players barely ever move more than their hand. Same for darts in terms of the action, until you then consider that players cover more distance during a game than protagonists of many other undisputed sports such as judo and even boxing, both of which involve psychological abilities too.

Having a governing body (or even two) is no reason alone to put darts into the sports list even if it is organised as a sport more so than many sports, which seem to be just businesses these days. And having rich champions is not the point, top PC gamers make a pile of cash and similarly compete for honours internationally. Yet having a sporting organisation running the show puts it in the bracket of pro football or cricket, and darts champions are respected alongside people like Andrew Flintoff (with his magic nine-darter commentary) while chess or bridge champions seem to receive plaudits from other avenues of society.

One more thing which sport depends on is that luck should not be part of the specified objective of the game. This is not to say that there is no good or bad luck in darts and that a bounce out, for example, would never influence a result. But it is overwhelmingly a game of skill not chance, it doesn’t get easier or harder because you get a high or low number on a dice or because you win on the toss of a coin.

So, training needed to get good, mainly physical but involving psychology, rules of fair play, skill not luck, competition, rankings and prize money, and finally, physically taxing, if played seriously. How can darts therefore not be a sport?

Colin Murray from Five Live defines sport by saying, you have to change your shoes to play. so I guess this is why there can be no ultimate definition. Some players change their shoes and some don’t.

So sport or not, make your own mind up. It’s not an issue how we classify it, as long as we enjoy it.

About The Author

Nineteen Dart Finish English, living abroad, standing up because I love the darts!

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