USA Darts is a Women’s Game – Floridanewstimes.com
It’s a bit of a sore point around the world but many – even all – sports place an emphasis on the men’s game over the women’s. Inevitably, this has created something of a constant argument regarding things like wages, sponsorship, broadcasting, and grassroots funding. Darts, oddly enough, is not quite so exclusive in the USA.
Equal Pay
Unfortunately, most of the above does go against the ethos of sport as open to all. Around half of the US population of sports fans are female (20% participate in sport themselves) and adjacent activities like sports betting increasingly favor women due to a male tendency to wager based on loyalties.
As far as darts is concerned, the accessibility offered by mobile apps, like the darts betting from Betfair which offers odds on markets like the PDC World Championship, has provided a haven away from the largely male-dominated bricks-and-mortar outlets. The large number of darts betting tips available on the internet also means that even beginners can make informed bets on a wide variety of markets.
To summarise all the above with a single example – it was only in September 2021 that the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) made pay across the two sexes equal, for instance, enshrining the governing body as something of a trailblazer in sport. The USA soccer team is still mulling things over.
Households and Bars
Back in 2019, the Guardian newspaper lamented the fact that the USA was almost completely absent from the global darts scene yet failed to note that the country’s women have enjoyed quite a lot of success at the oche. While not quite breaking any hearts yet, there are four US female pros in the WDF Women’s World Rankings.
The Guardian claimed that there were 17m darts players in the United States but, despite the American love of showmanship and spectacle, the game rarely ventures outside of households and bars. The British game regularly draws comparisons to pro wrestling, an entertainment niche that’s always popular in the States.
Representing the USA in the top 40 of the WDF Rankings are Paula Murphy (17), Dani Warmack (28), Carole Herriott (33), and Teresa Quan (40). While the men’s game has come along a little since 2019, only Chris Lim (23) and Jules van Dongen (28) have breached the top 40.
No Clear Objective
It’d be unfair to blame either sex for the current state of US darts, though. The game is fractured along three fronts due to the influence of a trio of professional associations, namely, the ADA, ADO, and NDA. With no clear objective for the future of the game, American darts has stagnated.
Of course, the primary issue affecting the sport is an old one that takes us right back to the beginning of this article – money. Concerns about low wages are rife in darts, which means that professionals and amateurs (and men and women) aren’t too far apart, at least in terms of how much they are being paid.
It’s a shame, as darts is ready-made for an American audience. It’s big, it’s loud, and it’s full of different personalities. The new decade may prove an important one for the US version of the sport.
