HAPPY HUMPHRIES BACKS HEARN’S £1M PROPOSAL

By Aaron Nijjar  

LUKE HUMPHRIES believes that awarding the World Championship winner a £1 million top prize would send a strong message to the wider sporting world.  

The current prize money for winning the tournament at Ally Pally is £500,000 out of a total prize pot of £2.5m. 

However, PDC chief Barry Hearn has long envisioned raising the winner’s prize to seven figures and has hinted that a major announcement regarding prize money is coming soon. 

That vision is now closer to reality after Sky Sports and the PDC secured a £125 million deal to extend their partnership until 2030 which is reportedly worth more than double the previous contract. 

World No.1 Humphries said in an interview for Reach’s 2025 darts preview publication: “It’s something [£1m to the world champion] that Barry’s always wanted to happen in this sport. He’s been an advocate for it for many years.  

“It would be a real statement to the world of sport, and I do think it will happen. It would be a magical moment for darts. We [the PDC] started off at something like £12,000. 

“Then, when it got up to £100,000 [in 2006], everyone was like, ‘wow, this is incredible!’ Can you imagine 10 times that? It would be a massive statement from the PDC and it just shows how great the sport is growing.” 

‘Cool Hand’ had a phenomenal 2023, winning three Majors before securing the 2024 World title.  The Berkshire thrower must now defend those titles due to the PDC’s two-year ranking system to prevent losing a big chunk of ranking points and he is relishing the challenge. 

He added: “I’d rather be defending it than not. It means I won. I’m probably not going to defend it all because I’d have to defend four major titles, including the World Championship.  

“What you’ve got to do at the Matchplay [in July] and before is do better than you did before, which lessens the damage that I might receive at the back end of the year.  

“If I don’t win another penny for the rest of this year, I’ll still be world No. 2. I’ve got an opportunity to stay number one as long as I can. And it all depends on what happens next year with the prize money.  

“If you’ve got the world champion getting a million pounds, if I win it, I’ll be world No. 1 by a mile again. And if Luke [Littler] doesn’t win it either, someone else could be world No. 1, you just don’t know what’s going to happen with the game.”