City AM: Channel 5 pockets snooker and darts

Story from City AM:

Fresh from bagging Club World Cup games, Channel 5 is set to snap up darts and snooker’s free-to-air rights in an attempt to capitalise on the growing popularity of both sports.

City AM has learned that 5 is close to securing live rights for nine tournaments from next year that are currently held by ITV, including darts’ UK Open and snooker’s Players Championship.

The new TV contract will see 5 broadcast several high-profile Professional Darts Corporation events such as The Masters, UK Open, European Championship, Players Championship finals, and at least seven World Series of Darts global events including the finals.

Teenager Luke Littler won last year’s World Series of Darts finals in September on the way to claiming his first world title at the age of 17 at Alexandra Palace after Christmas.

It comes after 5 struck a sublicensing deal with Dazn to show roughly half of the matches at the Club World Cup, which starts next month, and as the channel leads the chase for live rights to four England T20 cricket internationals this summer.

Matchroom, the promotions company run by Barry and Eddie Hearn which is the majority shareholder in the PDC and the World Snooker Tour, is hoping that Zhao Xintong’s historic victory at the World Championship in Sheffield last week will transform the sport on a global scale in a similar way to the way Littler has raised the profile of darts domestically.

Snooker is a huge sport in China already, with the country having around 300,000 snooker halls and more than 150m TV viewers reported to have watched Zhao become the first Chinese world champion with his 18-12 demolition of Mark Williams at The Crucible last week.