Author: Peter Fryers (Peter Fryers)

It seems a long time ago now, but covid and its horrible lockdowns were only declared ‘over’ a mere matter of months ago. And while it brought nothing but misery and damage and some changes to the way we go about things on a daily basis, there is at least one legacy that has been positive.

We are talking about the Online Darts Live League, originally branded as the MODUS Darts Live League which itself followed on from the MODUS Icons of Darts Live League.

As noted, all of these events came about as a reaction to the coronavirus pandemic which at the time brought global sports to a standstill. Darts, of course, is fortunate that it is one of the few sports that can benefit from being played inside people’s homes. Football, cricket and rugby, for example, not so much.

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Who Are MODUS?

Founded in 1997, MODUS is an events and management company that represent many of the world’s highest profile darts players while laying on professional, premier events and exhibitions.

MODUS have partnered with Belfast-based iGame Media in order to utilize their sophisticated technical delivery and broadcast capabilities to bring these events to the market. 4k cameras will continue to capture every thrilling moment as well as every throw in ultra high definition as standard while supporting Ultra Low Latency streaming and broadcast-grade quality content. This is achieved by broadcasting brand new multi-camera footage.

The 2020 Modus Icons of Darts Live League pitted groups of six players fighting it out from the comfort of their own homes and live streaming their efforts remotely. Play was set up in a round-robin format and took place from Monday to Saturday each week.

Not only did this provide players with valuable match practice in a competitive environment at a time when no darts tournaments were ongoing, but it also gave darts fans the chance to catch some live darts during that first initial period of isolation.

Now that lockdown is a thing of the past, there is no need for the players to take on each other from home. However, such was the accidental success of live streaming the darts behind closed doors, newer tourneys have sprung up in their place, the Online Darts Live League being one of them.  

Weekly tournaments

2021 saw the Icons tournament replaced by the Modus Online Live League which originally featured a host of star names taking each other on in a group stage format through a live stream in a behind closed doors set up. The League was comprised of three groups and play took place from Monday to Friday with a final group being formed for the Saturday. There was a £10,000 prize fund, reserved for the weekly winners, runners-up and third-placed players.

Former Lakeside world champs Martin Adams and Richie Burnett, plus former UK Open finalist Colin Osborne, James Richardson and Chas Barstow were among the bigger names to take part.

All of the matches were contested over a best-of-seven legs format while being streamed exclusively live on desktop, mobile and tablet for darts fans in the United Kingdom and numerous other regions globally.

MODUS Super Series, The Successor

As of Saturday the 3^rd of September 2022, an exciting new darts competition will launch in the UK. The MODUS Super Series will feature top international stars such as the record-breaking Fallon Sherrock, plus the legends that are Martin Adams and Robert Thornton.

Lisa Ashton, Jarred Cole, Neil Duff, Kevin Painter, Mikuru Suzuki and Thibault Tricole are all also on board while Paul Nicholson, Mark Webster, Chris Mason, Chris Murphy and Abigail Davies will be providing live commentary.

This competition will again be live streamed, but games will not be taking place inside players’ homes but instead at a top-spec, purpose-built location in Portsmouth. There is over £1 million on offer to players across the season which comprises of more than 30 hours of live streamed matches which can also be viewed through the bet365 darts live stream Monday to Saturday every week.

The MODUS Super Series will offer perfectly timed matches for UK bettors with matches running in Morning and Evening Sessions from 09:30 GMT through 22:00 GMT.

Open to non PDC Tour Card holders over the age of 18 as well as legends of the sport, the MODUS Super Series will see 12 players compete each week in a series of group matches. They will happen on weekdays, producing six qualifiers who will each progress onto the Finals Night on Saturday evening which will be held in front of a live audience. 

This will continue for 13 weeks when the 12 weekly winners will battle it out in Champions Week in an effort to be crowned the MODUS Super Series champion who will pick up a winners’ prize of £20,000.

Best of all, the next MODUS Super Series begins all over again from week one creating a non-stop cycle of high-quality tournaments that are played continuously all year round. Not bad for a successor to the Online Darts Live League which ran for two years as a COVID era, play at home darts tournament and evolved made for TV, studio-based competition.

While darts is more popular now than it has ever been, it is still not the most monied of world sports. Nor is it the most glamourous with many still considering it to be a dusty old pub game. 

The invention of the PDC, which only broke away because the BDO made poor money, was designed to smarten up and professionalise the game’s image and has been, for the most part, successful in doing that.

And while darters will never earn the same as a Premier League footballer, playing the game professionally can still provide a decent, if not spectacular, income.

But how much exactly do they earn?

Obviously, they are not paid by the week like some sportsmen are so this is very much performance-based and darts events don’t always carry the biggest purse. But, over the course of a career, even a modestly successful darts star should be more than comfortable in retirement.

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Career Longevity

One of the good things about darts is that fitness isn’t really an issue meaning that players can play as long as they want. Peter Wright, who quit the game for two decades, won the 2022 PDC World Darts Championship at the age of 51. That’s only five years younger than Phil Taylor was when he retired as the most successful darts player ever. Now, Snakebite is a millionaire.

There aren’t many millionaire darts players out there, but The Power certainly will be one of them. Taylor, who used to make his living making ceramic toilet roll handles, collected £7.1 million over his career at the oche.

And while sponsorship and merchandise will likely take his money in to double figures millions wise, that’s not particularly a lot considering how much he dominated a professional sport for all those years.

Basically, we are not talking about footballers who earn a guaranteed half a million pounds per week, we’re talking about sports people who have made a good living and where only a small select group of elite players have made any real money.

How Much Does A Player Earn?

In reality, to earn anything worthwhile a player should at least be among the best 16 players in the world. Better still, the top 10. Of course, a single tournament win in one of the top PDC events can make for relatively nice pay, but the real money is to be made with sustained success.

However, the PDPA levy every player has to pay from their prize money is 2%. On top of that, players need to pay their managers if they have them and most of the big names will. 

Some players may have to pay for their own travel and accommodation, although the higher profile players will sometimes get that paid for them through a sponsorship deal. These sponsorship deals are arranged by sports management firms so they will take a cut of that too, as well as any prize money.

Beware The Tax Man

Many professional darts players are actually registered as limited companies meaning they pay a hefty amount of tax which they need to declare over the course of the year. When Adrian Lewis won his first world title, lost track of his finances, and having spent his money throughout the year, was hit with an unexpected massive tax bill he hadn’t budgeted for.

Unfortunately for Lewis, this wasn’t the first time he has seen his winnings diminish. In 2005, when playing in the Las Vegas Desert Classic aged just 20, Lewis broke the local law by unknowingly gambling under age at the MGM Grand Casino. Ironically, this is how he earned his professional nickname ‘Jackpot’.

Today, the World Championship pays £500,000 to the winner as part of its £2.5 million pot. £10,000 of that goes to the players union and the rest will go into a player’s bank account. From there, the taxman will eventually take their cut.

Exhibition Earnings

When it comes to exhibition games, players can anything from £250 to £20,000 for one night’s work. The amount that they can command will obviously depend on the size of their profile. 

Today, the likes of Gerwyn Price, Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen can pretty much charge whatever they want, and the top players usually have a fixed fee. Even then though, it’s up to the promoter to pay that fee or at least attempt to negotiate it.

Again though, there are plenty of players that have won major titles but then slipped down the rankings so are unable to command the same fees as when they were at their peak. Adrian Lewis being among them. At the end of the day, ticket sales will dictate and the big names are the draw.

Air Miles

As with a lot of top sportsman, the very best players in world darts will need to do a lot of travelling. Only last month, there were players who, in the space of a week, having played in the Darts Premier League in Brighton, flew to Prague for the Czech Darts Open before moving on to Budapest for a big exhibition. Then its was on to London and Stuttgart. That’s a busy week.

Not long after that, the top players travelled to New York for the first event of the World Series Tour. Other stops along the way include Denmark, Australia, New Zealand and The Netherlands. And while flying isn’t as expensive as it used to be, not all of them will be flying business class in luxury.

Working Class Made Good

Darts is a working-class sport and many of the players don’t come from money. That’s not too problematic with this game because all you really need to get started is a set of darts, a board and a wall (or a good pub).

However, unless a professional is a regular winner, it makes it hard to make regular payments for something such as a mortgage. Most darters aren’t driving around in fancy cars or living lavish lifestyles, they just want to buy a home, put food on the table and generally provide for their families.

So, for the lower-ranked players it can be a very hard living and many maintain a second job. Everything they have hinges on their performance.

Even Jonny Clayton, who earned a cool £500,000 in 2021, refuses to quit his part-time job as a plasterer for his local council. That’s hard when you need to find the time to practise and now that he has established himself as one of the best in the world that may change soon.

However, one good earning year is no guarantee it will happen again. Former electrician Rob Cross springs to mind. Voltage is also a former world champion and has won some other major tournaments too, but he also had more than enough baron years.

Of course, the more you win, the greater the weight of pressure is lifted. There was a point a few years ago when Nathan Aspinall famously only had £19 left in his bank account. One quick run to the World Championship semi-finals and a triumph at the UK Open and now he doesn’t have to worry about money anymore. He was a totally different player after that and paid for his family’s home outright with his winnings.

Next Live Darts

Live PDC Darts returns on 16^th July when the game’s second-biggest event, the Darts World Matchplay rolls into Blackpool. 

The summer’s biggest darts tournament runs until 24^th July at the Winter Gardens and will see 32 of the world’s best players such as Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen and reigning champion Peter Wright fight it out for the Phil Taylor Trophy.

As soon as we have the bet365 darts betting odds for this year’s event we will bring them to you here at Betting Darts.