The Nine Darter: Everything You Need To Know About BBC America’s Thursday Night Darts

On Thursday night at 10 p.m. ET, BBC America will debut Thursday Night Darts, a primetime broadcast bringing the best from the day’s action in the Unibet Premier League.

It will be the first time weekly darts will be broadcast on television in the United States, and for those that have grown to love the sport via streams of the World Darts Championships (which moved to BBC America on TV this year as well) and other events, this is exciting news. It’s also a great opportunity for American sports fans that either haven’t watched or have only seen a little bit of darts to really get to see why it’s so popular in Europe.

Each week, we’ll be coming to you on Friday mornings with a recap of the night’s action right here on Uproxx Sports with The Nine Darter, but for now, we just want to provide something of a primer on what to expect, why you should watch darts, and a quick rundown of the rules so you are familiar when you settle in for the action.

1. The Rules

For those that haven’t watched darts before and have only ever played cricket at the bar, 501 is a very different game, so we’ll offer up the rules here. It’s a fairly simple concept: Each player starts at 501 and it’s a race to get to zero. The catch is, you have to hit zero exactly and hit a double (the outer ring of the board or the center bull) to get there. You do this three darts at a time, meaning the best you can do is get out in nine darts (we’ll get to that later), and hitting the triple 20 (they’ll call them trebles) is the best you can do in a single dart (not the center bullseye as one may think, that’s worth 50).

Players, once inside 170, will usually have an opportunity to close out, and the broadcast is kind enough to provide the needed darts to get them there. For example, a player sitting on 120 would need T20, 20, D20 to close out (always ending on the double). The games in the Premier League are a Best of 12 legs format, meaning the first to seven wins, but there is the opportunity for a draw.

2. The Players

The Premier League is made up of 10 of the best players in the world, including the reigning world champion, the world’s No. 1, and a number of legends and former world champions. However, the face of darts for years, Phil Taylor, is retired now, while other notable names like Adrian Lewis and Dave Chisnall did not qualify this year, which has brought some fresh blood to the tournament. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to meet the players, all of whom have nicknames, because darts players have nicknames.

• Gary Anderson, aka The Flying Scotsman
• Rob Cross, aka Voltage
• Daryl Gurney, aka Superchin
• Gerwyn Price, aka The Iceman
• Michael Smith, aka Bully Boy
• Mensur Suljovic, aka The Gentle
• Raymond van Barneveld, aka Barney
• Michael van Gerwen, aka Mighty Mike
• Simon Whitlock, aka The Wizard
• Peter Wright, aka Snakebite

3. The Schedule And Tournament Scoring Format

The Premier League operates on a 16-week schedule, with each player playing the others over the course of the first nine weeks. From there, the bottom two are dropped off, with everyone playing each other one more time in the final six weeks before the top four are crowned and take it to the Playoffs at the O2 Arena in London on the final night of the season (May 17).

The scoring in league play is much like that of a soccer table, but you get two points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. Leg differential operates like goal differential to break ties (i.e., winning 7-4 gives you a +3, while losing 4-7 gives you a -3) once the nine weeks are up.

4. The Walk-Ons

Yes, there are player intros for darts and yes, they are spectacular. The Premier League is played in legit arenas, fitting sometimes more than 10,000 people in for the event, and the place goes bananas for the walk-ons. Just look at the reception for Michael Van Gerwen, universally regarded the best player in the world (but not the reigning world champion, that would be Rob Cross, who stunned Van Gerwen in the semifinal of the world championships last month), on Thursday.

5. The 180s

As mentioned above, the best you can do in a single dart is a triple 20 which means the best you can do in a single throw (three darts) is three triple 20s for a 180. The maximum is what the people crave and it always elicits a great reaction from the players, crowd, on-stage announcer and TV announcers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk5cvMDHAoQ

6. The Ton-Plus Finishes

You can’t close out a leg on a 180, because you have to hit a double out, so the crown jewel of the darts world is a ton-plus finish (aka, any finish over 100). The bigger the finish, the bigger the roars, like this 138 taken out by Mensur Suljovic on Thursday.

7. The Crowd

Darts has some of the best fans in the world. It’s the one sporting event where getting intoxicated and dressing up in a costume is not only allowed, but encouraged and considered a crucial part of the darts playing experience. Tables upon tables are filled with adult human beings just housing alcohol while holding up signs and singing chants that will get stuck in your head. Here are a collection of some of the best in the sport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHCuqdkqCBw

8. The Announcers

Darts announcers are great for two reasons. One is that they will sometimes forget they are meant to call matches and turn into fans, usually when the gravity of a moment becomes so big that they go “Hey, this is cool.” The other is that they are 100 percent willing to call out athletes when they don’t like something, and not in the way that we’re used to in American sports. Say hello the announce team: John Part, Dave Clark, and Wayne Mardle.

9. The Nine Darter

The perfect leg in a game of darts is a nine darter. It is exactly what it sounds like: A darts player throws nine darts to close out a leg. This doesn’t sound especially difficult — how hard can it be to throw nine darts in the right order? — but it’s the hardest thing to do in the sport. It is the holy grail of darts, and it has occurred eight times in the 13-year history of the Premier League. Everything we’ve written about above gets ramped up to 11 when someone throws a perfect leg. Here’s the last one to occur: Adrian Lewis (who is not in the Premier League this year) in Week 11 against Raymond Van Barneveld.

The amazing thing about darts, other than how easy it is to pick everything up, is that it’s far more fun than it has any business being. You would not expect a game that you know from sitting at a bar and playing because you’re bored to be this enjoyable, but we promise, you will not regret throwing on BBC America and checking it out when it’s played at the highest level.