Former PDC chairman and current Matchroom president Barry Hearn has confirmed that the World Championship will be extended once again, and will feature 128 players from the 2026 edition.
While announcing this change, he also hinted at the possibility that the biggest tournament in darts may move away from its home of 17 years in Alexandra Palace.
Speaking on TALKSport, Hearn mentioned that this years edition of the tournament had sold 90,000 tickets within 15 minutes, and when discussing potential ticket sales, Hearn said: “I asked my people in head office, ‘Tell me, how many could I have sold?’ They said, somewhere over 300,000. Now that puts a different emphasis on it.” These figures helped to visualise the growing popularity of darts, which is likely to be a key factor behind the decision to expand the tournament.
Discussing the format change itself, the 76-year-old mentioned that “We will add four more days, which is eight sessions, which is another 25,000 tickets.” By adding four more days to the already packed schedule of the current World Championship, it would allow the PDC to capitalise even further on the growing popularity of the sport to sell more tickets and make the event even more profitable for the corporation.
Due to this increased demand, Hearn has hinted that he does not think the venue in use for the tournament since 2007, Alexandra Palace in London, is big enough for the expanded tournament, and is looking at alternatives. “Sooner or later, I should be looking and saying: ‘Do you know, like with snooker, I need a bigger venue’. I mean I can sell out any arena in the world. But can I do it for 30 or 40 sessions?,” he said. Any sort of decision to move away from the much loved Ally Pally is likely to be met with some negative feedback from fans, but Hearn believes the PDC have finally outgrown the venue, and a change may be necessary to continue to grow the reach of the darts across the globe.