If you ever wondered how tough it is down at the lower end of the rankings, read this story in the Paisley Express about Scott MacKenzie.
Players have to win two matches in ranking tournaments to earn any money and making a living is a hard slog.
And with dwindling sponsorship, it's surely going to get worse before it gets better.
Very interesting article.
ReplyDeleteThis bit has me scratching my head though:
MacKenzie said: “It’s still the third most popular sport in Britain but there’s a lack of money at the top of the sport so you can imagine what it’s like for the rest of us.
Third most popular?
No doubt the WPBSA will be fining him for being honest, erm. I mean not showing the sport in a positive light!
ReplyDelete1. Phil Taylor £510,658
ReplyDelete2. James Wade £310,159
3. Raymond v Barneveld £267,800
4. John Part £188,012
5. Terry Jenkins £136,556
6. Mervyn King £128,504
7. Adrian Lewis £122,721
8. Wayne Mardle £121,999
9. Andy Hamilton £109,294
10. Colin Lloyd £107,121
11. Dennis Priestley £106,101
12. Alan Tabern £105,401
13. Ronnie Baxter £100,061
14. Peter Manley £ 97,185
15. Colin Osborne £ 89,604
16. Kevin Painter £ 88,604
And not so long ago this sport was always 2nd fiddle to snooker.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
id like to see that list extend down to at least 75 (if possble) please.
ReplyDeleteIts taken from SkySports where they only list the Top 16.
ReplyDeleteMr Hearn does have a habit of only talking of winners, not "Also Rans".
Sounds harsh, but hey, thats business.
Its taken from SkySports where they only list the Top 16.
ReplyDeleteMr Hearn does have a habit of only talking of winners, not "Also Rans".
Sounds harsh, but hey, thats business.
The full PDC darts list can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pdc.tv/page/PDCOrderofMerit/0,,10180,00.html
The world number 75 in the PDC has £8,296 on the order of merit.
The PDC Order of Merit is based on 2 years of prize money, with money 'lost' on the two year anniversary of the event. I have no idea why it's two years.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, using dartsdatabase.co.uk, a query based on earnings from all PDC ranking events from 07/01/2008 - 14/01/2009 (basically ending at the WC last month) shows the following:
60 Nick Fulwell England £6,550
61 Michael Barnard England £6,100
62 Remco van Eijden Holland £5,933
63 Steve Grubb England £5,875
64 Russell Stewart Australia £5,600
65 Warren French New Zealand £5,600
66 Hannes Schnier Austria £5,430
67 Colin Monk England £5,383
68 Charles Losper South Africa £5,300
69 Mark Stephenson England £5,200
70 Lionel Sams England £5,100
71 Marko Kantele Finland £5,000
72 Per Laursen Denmark £5,000
73 Shi Yongsheng China £5,000
74 Nandor Bezzeg Hungary £5,000
75 Steve Hine England £4,797
76 Ray Carver USA £4,600
77 Steve Brown England £4,455
78 Simon Whatley England £4,400
79 Sam Rooney England £4,375
80 Alan Warriner-Little England £4,225
81 Mark Lawrence England £4,150
82 Dave Askew England £4,025
83 Steve Evans Wales £3,683
84 Kevin Dowling England £3,608
85 Roger Carter USA £3,600
86 Shawn Brenneman Canada £3,450
87 John Ferrell England £3,375
88 Steve Smith England £3,050
89 Shane O Connor Ireland £3,025
90 John Kuczynski USA £2,850
91 Larry Butler USA £2,825
92 Jason Clark Scotland £2,783
93 Anastasia Dobromyslova Russia £2,700
94 Martyn Turner England £2,675
95 Darren Johnson England £2,625
96 Martin Burchell England £2,575
97 Ben Burton England £2,533
98 Lourence Ilagan Philippines £2,500
99 Sudesh Fitzgerald Guyana £2,500
100 Akahiro Nakagawa Japan £2,500
Not fortunes by any means, but it still goes some way to covering some of the expenses for the year.
Interesting to see at #93 Anastasia Dobromyslova, the Russian female player. You can call it a marketing gimmick, but she's shown she can compete. Just wondering if and World Snooker allow female players to compete?
i dont think that theres that much difference between the person in the "exact same" numerical position in darts as scott is.
ReplyDeleteat least, we are not talking sustainable income.
in darts those from 60 down dont make a "job" income and the most part of them will not be sponsored with any great amount (the majority, not them all)
so, even though the top flight of darts is sky high at the moment, it seems that those in the 50 or lower bracket dont make a living at it.
tennis and snooker are different, but when you consider how popular darts is at present against how lowly their players get "paid" when not high in the rankings then its no surprise snooker players at that position dont get too much money
think scott is a butcher also? or helps?
Yeah I believe that is the case.
ReplyDeleteIt would help snooker greatly if the money was split a bit more evenly between ranking events instead of having a massive fund for the WC (did the winner get £250k last year?) and far smaller prize funds for 'less esteemed' events.
ReplyDeleteThis is what appears to happen in darts, with Taylor receiving only! £125k last month for winning the WC, although the prize money is due to increase substantially over the next 3/4 years for this particular event.
i agree the pot could be split more evenly but in the case of the WC i would leave it as is, as i dont like to think of the "worth" of the WC going backowards too much, even if it stays still (which would only mean a comparaive year on year drop)
ReplyDeleteThere's another bit in that interview that leaves me scratching my head. MacKenzie says he got a good draw for the Worlds. Well unless he's looking at a different draw sheet to me I notice he's playing Judd Trump in round 3. I can save him the expsense of travelling now and tell him he's got no chance of qualifying. He'll be lucky to beat Joe Delaney in Round 2. Unfortunately there's a lot of deluded players out there who time would have been better spent studying at school.
ReplyDeletevery easy to be funny and cheeky with the benefit of hindsight Rich.
ReplyDeleteJust shows you want kind of person you are
Knowing Scott myself i can assure you he is a polite unassuming guy who has worked hard at his game.
No player knows for sure when they are 14 if they will make it to the top 16, and obvioulsy very few do make it there where the "job" money is, so youre just a wee bit out of order with that comment IMHO
Here are some statistics from the past two seasons on the WSA Main tour WSA have put £650,000 of their own money into the tour over the last two seasons .Almost all of this has gone into the latter rounds.
ReplyDeletePRIZE MONEY SHARE (APPROXIMATELY) 2006-2007 SEASON. TOTAL £3.26 MILLION
Players ranked 1-16 £2,200,000 AVERAGE £137,500 HIGHEST £288,000 LOWEST £52,000 (over 2/3rds of £3.26 MILLION total prize money)
17-32 £500,000 AVERAGE £31,250
33-48 £350,000 AVERAGE £21,875
1-16 EARNT 4x AS MUCH PRIZE MONEY AS 1-32
2007-2008 prize money
1-16 £2,685,000 AVERAGE £167,800
17-32 £885,000 AVERAGE £55,300
33-48 £368,000 AVERAGE £23,000
Anonymous, he's obviously a little deluded if he thinks he's got a good draw for the World Championshiops when he clearly hasn't got a chance. It's that mentality that's cost him all this money, someone should have told him. You can usually tell if a player is going to make it or not.
ReplyDeleteRich
ReplyDeleteyoure talking rubbish WRT telling if a player will usually make the top 25
WRT his draw, it is a good draw considering who he has came up against in the past. he didnt say it was an easy draw, just a good one
ie he thinks hes got a chance but knows he has to play well
your "putting words into his mouth" by suggesting he thinks hes going to walk through and has that attitude all the time
he hasnt got it now and hasnt had it in the past
by good draw hes not saying easy
he is saying they are all hard (cos he knows they are) but this one isnt as hard as it could be for the worlds
you obviously dont know him well and are just guessing