William Hill Extend Their Partnership with PDC

The World’s Darts Championship is one of the main highlights of the 2015’s sports calendar, with over 66,000 tickets sold and a £250,000 prize for the winner. William Hill was this year’s main sponsor of the event and it was soon announced by the CEO of the leading bookmaking company, James Henderson, that they will be extending their partnership with the Professional Darts Corporation with another five years. The deal will be running between 2016 and 2020.

The announcement came as no surprise after the successful year of William Hill’s sponsorship with the PDC. Actually, the event attended just a few days ago, between 17th December and 3rd of January and it was held at the Alexandra Palace in London. The tournament was broadcast on Sky Sports Darts channel and was one of the sports highlights during the festive period. The PDC World Darts Championship is organised by the Professional Darts Corporation and is one of the two annual events in the world of the sports of darts. The other one is owned by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and usually starts in January. The PDC championship was established back in 1994 after the split in darts. There was a settlement between the BDO and the WDC, which later became PDC. As a result, the professional players are now allowed to choose which one of the two championships to join. The current winner of the PDC championship is Gary Anderson (also a champion for 2015). The second place is for Adrian Lewis, who’s the darts champion for 2011 and 2012. A record 66 000 tickets were sold for this year’s tournament, and the prize fund was over £1.5m. The championship’s reward will be given a further boost as a result of the agreement with William Hill. As part of the deal, the prize pool will continue to grow each year. It is expected to reach anything between the mind-blowing £2.8 and £3m by 2020. For example, in 2014/2015, the fund was totally £1.25m but by the next year, it has increased up to £1.5m (for the 2015/2016 competition). The CEO of the William Hill company announced that he’s delighted by the fact that they will continue their partnership with the PDC. William Hill has been the major sponsor of the event and as it seems they will extend the period with another 5 years. As the tournament has experienced some great success for the last couple of years and has hit record ticket sales and prize fund, it is expected the next championship to be the biggest ever.