The impact of the prize money changes

[Dannyboy]

So I've done some sums over the last few days to see how the prize money redistribution will affect the players going forward.

My takeaway - the players around the 9th to 16th place and the 33rd to 80th position are going to do well out of this. And the second takeaway is that first round loser money is not the holy grail that others think. The obvious thing is that the ranking list is pretty much a non event because of the way it is structured around the Worlds.

This is the prize money breakdown (not just ranking money) based on 2024 tournaments up to and including the last World Championship, including where info is available for the affiliate tours. **Caveats: This is not an exact science and is based on ONE year, not the 2 year list. There are changes in formats, qualifications coming and additional events where you can't really simulate based on history, so I've essentially added prize money for added events based on their current positions. I have also added 50% onto the affiliate money but this could be based on additional tournaments and regions.

-Luke Littler remains World No.1 by nearly £1M. He would have around £2.15M in 2026.
-Luke Humphries would be in 2nd, short of £1.2M.
-Michael van Gerwen would also get in excess of £1M in the season in 3rd.
-The Top 8 includes all of the Premier League players bar Nathan Aspinall. Peter Wright would make around £470,000.
-The Top 16 is a huge annual increase. I have Ross Smith in 16th at £338K. The Top 8 could argue that the next 8 players are getting a disproportionate increase than them.
-Martin Lukeman would be 32nd with £219K. Remember when £50K per year got into the top 32?
-Robert Owen would be the last player to win £100K in that season in 52nd. Over 50 players will get 6 figures.
-Stephen Burton would be 64th with over £75K.
-Simon Whitlock would be the last player with £50K annual winnings in 87th.
-Ben Robb is the final player with £25K in the year in 129th place. Again, in reality, this threshold could go lower if they distribute the Worlds qualifying spots outside of the Pro Tour.
-If you ignore the Tour Card holders list and just look at pure money, players outside the top 128 will make £2.8M (over 10% of the total amount) which is a £500K increase, 20% YOY. For that reason, no one cannot say that the PDC isn't darts for all.
-112 players would win at least the average UK full time salary (£37,000)
-185 players would win over £10,000 in the year.
-266 players would win over £5,000 in the year.
-680 players would win over £1,000 in the year.
-Beau Greaves would be the highest earning female player taking £82K in the year - this assumes she would take one of the additional 32 Worlds spots.

So the first round losers money - how does that impact? The unexpected thing - it doesn't make a difference bar giving the lower ranked players some comfort.
-Per the above examples, there are small decreases at the top end: 16th place: 1% cut, 32nd place: 2% cut, 64th place: even, 96th place: 1% cut, 128th place: 4% gain.
-The scenario here is that the vast majority of players are making decent money by winning a handful of games.
-There is only so much cash to go around. The assumption that I have used is that a Last 128 place would be £250 (+£250), Last 64 would be £1000 (-£250), Last 32 would be £1750 (-£250), Last 16 would be £2500 (-£500). It would cost £544,000 over a year to give players money for those who lose first match each event. If you never won a Pro Tour event, you'd be guaranteed £8,500 over a year which doesn't seem overly fair to me.
-Caveat again: This doesn't take into account calendar management - I would say that the top players will be missing far more PT and ET events next season leading to more redistribution.

[Randall]

The last point is very valid
It's going to disensentify smaller events for the super well off

[willem0000]

the amount of new spots going to card holders will be big in the sense of being a proper pro, if the PDC want players to trully live from darts than that would be the easiest way.

Both Modus, Seniors and Lakeside don't seem to be in the best place, ADC is getting better, but both the WC and GC being at the same time. I wonder how that affects players choices of going for a card or not, adding that cardholders arent allowed to qualify thru local PDC events for Ally Pally from their second year on the tour.

[James4]

The scary thing about Littler’s here is:
This assumes first round exits at the Matchplay, Grand Prix and European Championship.

[oche balboa]

Very interesting post. Would be interesting to see how the prize money pays out in the next 2 years

[James4]

- Top 8 includes Peter Wright who would make around £470,000.

The £100k from the World Championship would make this happen?

Even then, top 8 seems a bit high.

He’s got £100k from 2026 worlds, £50k from 2025 worlds, £35k from 2 Euro Tour wins. Which is £220,000. There can’t be that much missing.

[Dannyboy]

- Top 8 includes Peter Wright who would make around £470,000.

The £100k from the World Championship would make this happen?

£238K from TV events + World Series aside from the Worlds.

[James4]

- Top 8 includes Peter Wright who would make around £470,000.

The £100k from the World Championship would make this happen?

£238K from TV events + World Series aside from the Worlds.

Oh this is non ranked earnings included as well. The prem will make a lot of that, which he’s not in. He’s probably not in a lot of the World Series events as well hopefully.

That explains a lot of the missing earnings.

[willem0000]

"-Caveat again: This doesn't take into account calendar management - I would say that the top players will be missing far more PT and ET events next season leading to more redistribution."

You could argue that the expected value is now to high to not participate, or that in the cases where they had to choose between an exebition and a tournament that the expected value is now higher on the tournament. ET money is quit a bit higher now. There seem to be more and more PC tournaments outside the UK, I get the feeling that the Brits dont like to travel abroad (or atleast complain a lot about it), so those tournaments might have less Brits.

[Dannyboy]

The PDC's YE 30 Jun 2024 accounts will likely be filed with Companies House tomorrow. They will make interesting reading.

I would predict that PDC turnover will exceed £50M for the first time. Yet, players will probably get less than a third of that income.

More and more tickets are being sold, TV companies can't get enough and darts is probably one of the world's fastest growing sports. I would argue the players deserve a better deal. I will be curious the levels of post tax profits and dividends being paid out.

This is the disadvantage of being owned "for profit" against being the sport.

For comparison, the Premier League will pay out around 90% of TV distributions (it's sole income) to it's shareholders. The PDC pay out the low 30s% per year. Under the new TV deal, this will go up to the mid 30s%.

If the PDPA weren't completely ineffective, I'd be arguing that the players deserve a bigger payout, reducing pre tax profits (and of course corporation tax back to HMRC) back down the high 7 figures. YE 2023 had a pre-tax profit of nearly £15M and over £32M over 3 years, the last period being heavily Covid impacted. I would assume similar profits in 2024.

Under the new TV, the PDC would be capable of paying out between £34M (50% of income) and even £41M (60%).

[willem0000]

PL and the teams have to pay that much because otherwise players will move elsewhere, top darts players can not really go elsewhere. Although the NFL, where players also don't really have other options, does a better job with about 48% of total revenue. I would assume that PDC's costs in relation to revenue is also higher.

[Dannyboy]

I would assume that PDC's costs in relation to revenue is also higher.

Clearly there are huge operational costs aside from the prize money. If there are more events, more matchdays, the costs go up. Of course there's inflation, staff pay rises and logistics costs.

Their other costs may rise 10% a year - the TV deal has added an additional £13M a year from 2026.

[willem0000]

Top 32 could breakaway, tv will follow

[Cooking with Sandra]

No.

[Greipel]

ETM there.

[willem0000]

Greipel, who is currently on Safc's ignore list, made the post above

[Cooking with Sandra]

Greipel, who is currently on Safc's ignore list, made the post above

[terraHawk]

The worlds skews the ranking far too much, only going to get worse with the increase. Need to revert to a model such as tennis where tournaments carry ranking points. Would give as clearer idea of ability.

[The Thorn]

BDO was right

[Dannyboy]

So as I mention a few posts up, the PDC filed their accounts this week. To be honest, it exceeded my own expectations...

Turnover: £54.2M (up 11%), of which 62% was in the UK. Note that income outside Europe decreased by 10%, but note that the World Series and PDC USA are seperate entities and have their own P&Ls.
Total Costs: £36.4M (up ~10%)
Pre-Tax Profit: £18M (up 20%)
Post-Tax Profit: £13.5M (up 13%)
Dividends Paid: £11M (£27.5M over 2 years)
Cash in Bank: £4.9M
Highest Paid Director: £1M.
Turnover:Prize Money Ratio: 30p in £1 offered as prize money.

If Mr Daisy Mac is lurking, I hope your next PDC meeting will include the question, when are the players going to get a bigger slice?