From Ally Pally to the World. Darts (not the BBC)
The World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace in North London started on 11th December and runs through to the first weekend in January with a brief Christmas break which has just concluded.
Darts was once a proletarian sport played in pubs, and it still is, but the Ally Pally event is about darts as a global entertainment and commercial phenomenon.
It’s broadcast not by the BBC but by Sky (Comcast) who passed up the chance to bid for the Ashes in Australia on the basis that the darts is a bigger audience draw, almost certainly correctly.
The Ally Pally darts are now shown in 100 countries including in 2025 India and Mongolia. For the post-Christmas final sessions 40% of the tickets are sold elsewhere in Europe primarily to Holland and Germany
While it might be thought, in a stereotypical way, to be the natural habitat of Reform supporters in reality this is far from the case. Both the TV audience and those attending are also global. Quite how far this is grasped in official British society I’m less sure…
Kmflett's Blog 
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