Sky Sports Launches Festive Darts Channel
The Christmas period will see Sky Sports dedicate an entire channel to darts for the William Hill World Darts Championship, from 18th December.
For the first time, ‘Sky Sports Darts’ will offer viewers over 370 hours of programming, including live coverage of the competition at Alexandra Palace.
The channel will be dedicated to the sport for 18 days through until 5th January, with Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis and defending champion ‘Mighty’ Michael van Gerwen amongst a field of 72 players from around the world.
Sky Sports Darts, which will switch from Sky Sports 3, will also screen programmes and features.
Barney Francis, Sky Sports managing director, commented: ‘The World Darts Championship is one of sport’s most colourful events and for the first time, we’re giving it its own channel. Sky Sports Darts will offer all the drama, excitement and atmosphere from Alexandra Palace for two weeks over Christmas.’
‘The channel will show every match live, all the build-up and analysis plus a fantastic schedule of features too. We know our viewers love the world darts at Christmas and so do we. We can’t wait for the show to begin.’
Phil Taylor, 16-time World Champion, added: ‘This is a great Christmas present for Sky Sports viewers and shows that darts is getting bigger and bigger! It will be interesting to watch some of the old World Championships from the Circus Tavern again and compare it to now when we play darts in front of thousands every night at Ally Pally and the sport has its own dedicated channel. It shows just how far the sport has come.’
