Champions League of Darts

The Champions League of Darts is an annual non-ranking darts tournament organised by the Professional Darts Corporation. Featuring the top eight players in the PDC, it is played over two days in a group and then knockout format. First held in September 2016 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, the reigning champion is Phil Taylor. The tournament is the first PDC event to be broadcast on the BBC. It is sponsored by Unibet.

History

The details of the inaugural tournament were announced by the PDC on 9 February 2016, in conjunction with the announcement of a new broadcasting deal between the PDC and the BBC.^[1] With the PDC 2016 calendar having already been announced in August 2015, the Barnsley round of the PDC Player Championship was moved to accommodate it.^[2] A second Champions League tournament was duly announced as part of the August 2016 release of the 2017 calendar.^[1]

Eligibility

Only the top eight players on the PDC Order of Merit qualify for the tournament, signifying the best eight players in the PDC (in 2016 based on the order following the World Matchplay in July^[1]).

Format

The tournament format is a group stage followed by a knockout stage. The group stage features two groups of four, who meet each other in a round-robin format, i.e. each player playing their group opponents opponent once in a single match. The best two players in each group advance to the semi-finals, the winners meeting in a final. There is no third placed play-off. Matches in the group stage are won by the first player to win 10 legs (best of 19), while the knockout stages are first to 11 (best of 21).

List of finals

Year	Date	Champion (average in final)	Score	Runner-Up (average in final)	Prize Money			Venue
					Champion	Runner-Up	Sponsor
2016	September 24–25	Phil Taylor 98.97	11–5	Michael van Gerwen 100.92	£100,000	£50,000	Unibet	Cardiff
2017	September 23–24[3]						Unibet[3]

Finalists

Player	Won	Runner-up	Finals
Phil Taylor	1	0	1
Michael van Gerwen	0	1	1

Broadcaster

The tournament is the first PDC event to be broadcast on the BBC, after they ended their contract to broadcast rights of the BDO World Darts Championship.^[1]

Sponsorship

Title sponsor of the tournament is bookmaker Unibet, who for the 2016 season were the pre-existing sponsors of the PDC's Masters and European Championship, and the new sponsor of the PDC's World Grand Prix.^[4]

References