Darts in the Far East
Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2018 4:30 am
So for the last couple of months I’ve been working in the Far East, in particular in Taiwan. To my surprise, there are a number of sports bars over here and a darts league is thriving; not just within the expat community but also with the locals (admittedly from a very small sample size).
Got chatting to an American expat a few weeks ago whilst having a throw myself, about what darts is like in America and also over here. He said that soft tip darts is obviously the more popular game - mostly for money reasons in terms of getting people into bars and paying to use the machines. Cricket was also popular and seems to be the league game of choice.
It appeared very popular though - it reaffirmed my thought that the region is potentially a lucrative one for the PDC to tap into, should the steel tip variety increase its level of participation and interest.
Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea etc all appear to be real target markets - is there room for it too in China?
The Asian Tour this season has been a revelation with 100s taking part and the standard increasing significantly in recent years. In 25 years, we could easily have an Asian world champion? I wouldn’t put it past in the next 5-10 years an Asian player climbing into the top 16.
Got chatting to an American expat a few weeks ago whilst having a throw myself, about what darts is like in America and also over here. He said that soft tip darts is obviously the more popular game - mostly for money reasons in terms of getting people into bars and paying to use the machines. Cricket was also popular and seems to be the league game of choice.
It appeared very popular though - it reaffirmed my thought that the region is potentially a lucrative one for the PDC to tap into, should the steel tip variety increase its level of participation and interest.
Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea etc all appear to be real target markets - is there room for it too in China?
The Asian Tour this season has been a revelation with 100s taking part and the standard increasing significantly in recent years. In 25 years, we could easily have an Asian world champion? I wouldn’t put it past in the next 5-10 years an Asian player climbing into the top 16.