'I rejected big money in darts breakaway â I'm still unsure I made right call'
Darts legend John Lowe looks back on his pivotal role in the acrimonious 'split' which ripped the game in half in the 1990s, paving the way to its present-day success
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Darts legend John Lowe looks back on his pivotal role in the acrimonious 'split' which ripped the game in half in the 1990s, paving the way to its present-day successThree-time BDO world champion John Lowe was at the centre of the sport's 'split' (Image: Christopher Lee/Getty Images)
More than 30 years on, John Lowe still wonders if he made the right decision.
In the early 1990s, darts was at a crossroads that would define its entire future. Restless at the sportâs dwindling TV exposure, the best players in the game, including Lowe, Phil Taylor and Eric Bristow, broke away from the BDO to form the World Darts Council (WDC), which later became the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).
The âsplitâ, as it would become known, proved to be the best thing to happen to darts. But it wasnât a simple decision for those involved at the time. Stick with the BDO and its guaranteed tobacco sponsorship income or gamble on a new entity?
There were ructions, rows and U-turns. The WDC almost fell apart before its first World Championship in 1994. And it may have done had three-time world champion Lowe not decided to stick with it.
âOld Stonefaceâ won the final BDO World Championship at the Lakeside prior to the split in 1993. The WDC was already up and running, but Lowe and his fellow defectors were being pressured into returning to the BDO.
âI was the last world champion and never defended it,â recalls Lowe, who appears in the Sky documentary series Darts Kings. "It runs a bit deeper than that because Embassy, who sponsored the World Championship, asked me to go back to the BDO before this new division started and they offered me a substantial amount of money.
âAt that time, I was involved in the Professional Darts Association. I was unpaid secretary for about 12 years. And when a company like Embassy offers you £20,000 [more than £50,000 in todayâs money] to stay⦠If I had gone back, Sky TV would not have shown the first World Championship.
âWeâd already had two players pull out and Sky said, âif one more of you pulls out, weâll pull the plugâ. So I said, âno, weâve got to stay together and push this alongâ.
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John Lowe with great rival and friend Eric Bristow (Image:
LUSTIG PHOTOGRAPHY 02085294967)âAll these years later, should I have stayed and taken the money? I look back sometimes and think, âshould I have taken it?â I still canât make my mind up whether I made the right decision. It was for the sport of darts because of what it is now. But should I have just looked after John Lowe?â
The early years after the breakaway were tough, with players not even getting paid initially. Lowe says: âThey [the WDC] were in desperate need of money.
âAt that first World Championship, no one got paid for quite a while. I donât think Phil Taylor and Dennis Priestley [the finalists that year] got paid for about two years.
âThey got paid in shares in the new company. Then it nearly collapsed, and without Barry Hearn and Matchroom coming in, it would have gone.â
While most of the players involved were taking a big risk, Lowe didnât see it that way. He explains: âThe others were taking more of a risk than me. I was a joiner and when I started playing darts professionally, I still had it in the back of my mind that I could go back to that and set up a nice little business.
Phil Taylor was one of the players to defected to the WDC (now the PDC) (Image:
Getty Images)âBack when I first started playing, I thought it was a pub game, not a sport whatsoever. It was something people did after a day at work.
âYou played in local leagues and if you were successful at the end of the season, you may have won an alarm clock or something like that. There was no money in it. But then, when money came in, it changed from being a pub game to a serious sport.
âI always thought the [WDC] bubble would burst. I didnât think it would be going for more than 10 years. Now itâs been more than 30 years and is established for the next 25-30 years.â
With that in mind, todayâs players, many of whom are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per year, owe a debt of gratitude to the likes of Lowe, not that he expects any thanks.
âLetâs say Iâd been a tennis player, would my son remember Bjorn Borg," he asks. âTime moves on and it has to move on. So Iâm not looking for any thank yous from anybody. Iâm quite happy with the way life has treated me and how darts has treated me.â
Watch Dart Kings on Sky Documentaries and NOW.
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