PORTER CONFIRMS NEW CENTRAL EUROPE MAJOR AS PDC LOOKS TO EXPAND DARTS CALENDAR

PDC chief Matt Porter has revealed a new major event will be added to the 2027 darts calendar in central Europe.

The tournament will form part of plans to expand the sport and create more opportunities for players beyond the biggest names at the top of the game.

Porter, 46, insists the new event will help balance the schedule, with many of the ranking majors currently taking place in the second half of the season.

He told the Weekly Dartscast: “There will be another premier event that will be staged in central Europe next year.

“I think it’s really good in terms of wanting to balance out the calendar. A lot of the major ranking events are towards the second half of the year.

“The Premier League makes it quite difficult to schedule things earlier on in the year, but this one’s not that early in the year, but it is earlier than the majority of the other ones.

“I think that’s fair to hold the new major early in the year.

“You have to look away from just the top eight, 10 or 12 players and say what are the opportunities that are there for the rest of the tour card holders.

“They need to have opportunities away from just the floor events.”

Porter also confirmed another new venue will join the European Tour calendar in 2027 following successful events in Poland and Slovakia this year.

He added: “We spoke to the promoter in Slovakia afterwards and he was very happy with how it went.

“We’ve got another new one coming on the calendar for next year, which is exciting. We’ll just keep pushing it.”

The darts boom has seen demand for tickets soar, with Luke Littler helping drive the sport to new levels and fans regularly missing out on major events.

Porter admitted they are considering a ballot system to give more supporters a chance of securing tickets.

He continued: “We’re looking at mid to late August. We want to get it right and get the message right.

“We’ve talked about ballot systems. We’re looking at that to increase the chance for more people to get tickets.

“It’s our aim that as many people as possible get to go to the event and, by increasing the capacity and changing the way tickets are distributed, we should be able to do that.

It’s quite difficult logistically.

“We want to reward our members and make sure they get priority, but also we don’t want to close the door on people coming into the system.

“There’s been a lot of work going on behind the scenes with our ticketing partners and our data warehouse partner.”

Porter addressed the ongoing debate around whether leading players should receive automatic places in majors if they decide not to compete in qualifying events.

Littler has not played a Players Championship event this season and is currently outside the qualification places for the Players Championship Finals in Minehead.

But Porter insisted there will be no special treatment for the world No1 or any other player.

He said: “Luke and the other 127 players know what the criteria is.

“He’s absolutely within his rights not to play in ProTour events, with the demands on him from a time perspective, and I kind of don’t blame him.

“Maybe you’d say play in a couple of early ones (Players Championships) and win some money and get through to Minehead, but it’s up to the player.

“If he doesn’t want to play that’s absolutely fine and the other players will probably be happy about that!”

Words: Aaron Nijjar

Image: Taylor Lanning