PDC Premier League Darts Line Up And Tournament Format Confirmed

Following on from this weekend’s PDC Masters 2022, which saw a surprise winner in the shape of 11^th seed Joe Cullen, who added a first televised PDC title to a number of those that he has won on the floor, the PDC has also announced the new format and who will be competing in the 2022 PDC Premier League Darts tournament.

The eight players who will compete across several venues in the UK and Europe over the coming weeks have been confirmed, as has a brand-new format for the tournament, which is radically different to the former league table format that had been used in previous years.

We’ll now take a look at the major changes made to the tournament, which begins on Thursday in Cardiff, as well as the eight players that will be competing this year and of course, the odds (as the are at present with bet365 Sports) on who will win the title.

Premier League Darts – A History

The Premier League Darts tournament was first contested in 2005. The brainchild of the PDC Supremo Barry Hearn in conjunction with Sky Sports, who wanted regular darts action after the World Championship, the tournament saw an initial group of seven players competing weekly across the UK.

The original tournament saw a league format adopted with each player playing the others in the tournament twice in the opening phase.

After this stage, a certain number of players would be eliminated from the competition depending on their position in the Premier League table. The Premier League Finals would then be played in May with semi-finals and a final used to decide the winner.

The number of players competing in the event started at seven, rose to ten for many years but has now been reduced back down to eight for the 2022 tournament (more on that to follow).

Initially, the prize fund for the tournament was £265,000, but by 2021 it had risen to £855,000, one of the biggest prizes in the PDC Tour.

• Premier League Darts Winners

Phil Taylor holds the record for Premier League Darts title wins, having won it on six occasions (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012). Michael van Gerwen comes next with five wins (2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019).

Gary Anderson is the only other multiple winner of the event winning twice in 2011 and 2015.

Several players have won the title once including James Wade (2009), Raymond van Barneveld (2014), Glen Durrant (2020) and last year’s winner Jonny Clayton (2021).

Changes To The Tournament For 2022

After the 2021 tournament, the PDC announced that it was looking into making changes to the format of the event for 2022 and those changes were announced after The Masters tournament at the weekend.

The changes are pretty radical and while there is still a league element to the event, how the players earn points that contribute towards it has changed radically.

Rather than each player playing once each evening and playing each league opponent twice throughout the early stages of the tournament, then once more again after Judgement Night, the new format will see a knockout tournament played every Thursday.

All matches will be played over the best of 11 legs with four quarter finals, two semi-finals and a final played to decide the winner of that week’s tournament.

The winner will then receive £10,000 for winning the event and also will pick up 5 points. The runner up will take home three points and if you reach the semifinal but lose, you will win 2 points.

Judgement Night has been scrapped, meaning all eight players will play through until Week 16, with the top four in the table making it through to the playoffs.

Weekly Schedule For 2022 Tournament

As has been the case for every Premier League tournament, the fixtures will be played at a wide variety of venues across the United Kingdom and Europe every Thursday night from 3^rd February.

The sixteen weeks of action will then be followed by the Playoffs and Final, which take place on Thursday 26^th May.

Here’s the full schedule of events and venues for 2022.

• 3^rd Feb – Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff
• 10^th Feb – M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool
• 17^th Feb – SSE Arena, Belfast
• 24^th Feb – Mercedes-Benz Arena, Berlin
• 3^rd Mar – Westpoint Arena, Exeter
• 10^th Mar – Brighton Centre, Brighton
• 17^th Mar – Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham
• 24^th Mar – Ahoy Arena, Rotterdam
• 31^st Mar – Utilita Arena, Birmingham
• 7^th Apr – First Direct Arena, Leeds
• 14^th Apr – AO Arena, Manchester
• 21^st Apr – P&J Live, Aberdeen
• 28^th Apr – 3Arena, Dublin
• 5^th May – SSE Hydro, Glasgow
• 12^th May – Utilita Arena, Sheffield
• 19^th May – 02 Arena, London
• 26^th May (Playoffs) – Utilita Arena, Newcastle

In addition to the revised tournament, the PDC has announced that the prize money on offer will increase from £865,000 to £1,000,000 for the tournament.

But, the number of players competing in the tournament has been changed back down to eight players, who will play every week of the tournament, bar the Playoffs when only the top four in the league table will qualify for the title deciding week in Newcastle.

Who Will Compete This Year?

At the same time as announcing the changes to the tournament for 2022, the PDC also announced the eight players that had been selected to participate in the tournament.

The top six players in the World Rankings as of the 31^st January 2022 were included, Gerwyn Price (1), Peter Wright (2), Michael van Gerwen (3), James Wade (4), Michael Smith (5) and Gary Anderson (6).

The other two players are last year’s Premier League winner Jonny Clayton (8) and the winner of The Masters at the weekend, Joe Cullen (11).

Last year’s runner up Jose de Souza (7) missed out on selection this time around, as did a number of other stars including Rob Cross, Dmitri van den Bergh, Dave Chisnall and more.

Fallon Sherrock was rumoured to be set to be offered a place, but after being unable to land herself a tour card through qualifying school, the PDC decided that it would be unfair to allow her to play ahead of other players that may have merited it more due to their performances.

The qualifying system for the Premier League still remains a very bizarre system and it is something that in future, the PDC would do well to make far more straightforward, so players know where they stand.

Of the players in this year’s tournament, four are previous winners, two others have been runners up (Wright and Smith), while Gerwyn Price’s best finish has been fifth in 2019 and 2020. Joe Cullen is making his first ever appearance in the tournament.

Tournament Odds

Gerwyn Price is the tournament favourite at 3/1, but it is an open market with Peter Wright 7/2, Michael van Gerwen 4/1 and Jonny Clayton 9/1. Michael Smith is 13/2 with Masters winner Joe Cullen 11/1, Gary Anderson 16/1 and James Wade the 20/1 outsider.

The action begins in Cardiff on Thursday and it should promise to be a very interesting 17 weeks of darts action to decide the winner!