World Series of Darts

The World Series of Darts was a Professional Darts Corporation event which was introduced in 2006. The event was not a ratings success in the United States and the PDC decided to replace it with another new tournament, the US Open for 2007.

It was held in the USA and saw the top 16 ranked Professional Darts Corporation players take on 16 American players ^[1], 12 of which will be winners from several tournaments and 4 from a 'Friday Night Madness' at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. The PDC offered an aspirational prize of US$1,000,000 if an American player won the tournament. The prize for a non-US winner was US$100,000.

2006 showed a huge gulf in class between the PDC pros and the American challengers, with only one home-player out of the 16 that started the tournament, John Kuczynski, getting through to the last 16 after a 6-5 (legs) defeat of John Part. He then lost to Wayne Mardle in the last 16.

2006 Qualifiers

• Isen Veljic ^[2] of Chicago, who qualified from the Virginia Beach Qualifier beating Cabell Stapes in the final.
• Roger Carter ^[3] of Auburn, Alabama, who qualified from the Atlanta qualifier, beating Scott Wollaston in the final. Carter has played in the BDO World Darts Championship and the PDC's 2003 Las Vegas Desert Classic.
• Jim Widmayer ^[4] of Staten Island who made it through the New Jersey qualifier, beating Jerry Van Loan in the final. Widmayer has also played in the 1994 World Matchplay.
• Jim Watkins ^[5] of Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania qualified from the March 4,2006 Philadelphia qualifier, defeating Tom Stewart in the final. Watkin's most notable darts career highlight is winning back-to-back National 501 Singles titles in 1993 and 1994.
• David DePriest ^[6] of Grand Rapids, Michigan qualified from the March 5,2006 Chicago qualifier, defeating Joe Slivan in the final - Slivan qualified two weeks later.
• Joseph Carter Chaney ^[7] of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee qualified from the March 11, 2006 Washington, D.C. qualifier, defeating Darin Young ^[8].
• John Kuczynski ^[9] of Zion Grove, Pennsylvania qualified from the March 12, 2006 Las Vegas qualifier, defeating Sean Downs of Colton, California. Kuczynski had played in the 2006 PDC Ladbrokes.com World Championship
• Tim Grossman ^[10] of Hudson, New York, the 2000 Cricket national champion, qualified from the March 18, 2006 Windsor Locks, Connecticut qualifier, defeating Dave Marienthal of Bloomingdale, New Jersey in a seventh leg tie-breaker.
• Joe Slivan ^[11] of Winter Park, Florida (who lost to David DePriest in the finals of the March 5 Chicago qualifier) qualified from the March 19, 2006 Houston qualifier, defeating Chris Yates of Midland, Texas.
• Ray Carver ^[12] of Nashua, New Hampshire qualified from the April 1, 2006 Marlborough, Massachusetts qualifier, defeating Jeff Russell of Dover, New Hampshire.
• Joe Efter ^[13] of Danielson, Connecticut qualified from the April 2, 2006 Ronkonkoma, New York qualifier, defeating Brad Wethinton ^[14] of St. Louis.
• Tom Curtin ^[15] of Townsend, Massachusetts qualified from the April 22, 2006 Somerville, Massachusetts qualifier, defeating Dave Lambert of Lowville, New York.

2006 WSoD Results

• FNM = Friday Night Madness qualifier ^[16]
• Total Prize Fund = $300,000
• $1,000,000 Prize for a United States champion not won.

TV Ratings

ESPN broadcast the first of eight one-hour segments on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 in prime-time at 7pm. ESPN’s cameras had followed the complete US qualifying process from beginning to end, concluding with the main event itself in Connecticut on May 20-21.

The show was scheduled in-between Sportscenter and World Series of Poker which usually score a Nielsen rating of around 1.0 (approx 1,102,139 households). WSoD premiered at approximately a 0.43 (approx 474,000 households / 559,000 adult viewers), then started sliding for episodes 2 and 3. ESPN then pulled the World Series of Darts programming from its original prime time slot on ESPN1, and relegated it to mid-afternoon broadcast positions on their lesser-viewed sister channel ESPN2.^[17]

Event Cancelled

The relative lack of success with viewing figures led to ESPN's decision not to recommission the event for 2007. ^[18] Having originally scheduled the WSoD to be played May 18-20, the PDC decided to replace that date in the calendar with a new US Open tournament.

The title US Open would have allowed the organisers to invite players from the rival organisation, the British Darts Organisation (BDO). The top BDO players instead agreed to appear in a new Dutch Darts Premier League (DDPL) which clashed with the US Open tournament - however the DDPL was subsequently cancelled due to lack of interest in ticket sales.

The PDC currently hold a UK Open event each June.

References & External Links

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