The PDC World Darts Championship is a few weeks away and there’s been plenty of buzz about this year’s iteration. While there’s always loads of anticipation for such a prestigious event, the lead up to the 2023/24 tournament has been a little different.
You see, the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) has itself a new financial backer, Paddy Power. For a lot of sponsors, it’s usually enough if their brand name is plastered all over advertising hoardings, interior sets and maybe a ‘brought to you by…’ TV insert. But not Paddy Power.
The famous Irish bookmaker and online bingo provider is known for going above and beyond what’s normally required of your typical sponsor. And a spot of cheeky gimmickry is often front-and-centre.
The Green Double Twenty Ploy
In the lead up to the Paddy Power World Darts Championship, the masters of hyperbole recently announced that they’d be introducing a new match-play dartboard featuring a green treble twenty. This was all given extra credence by being backed up in the press by the actual dartboard maker, Winmau.
This bold move was apparently backed by science – green, it was claimed, helps with throwing precision and eased eye fatigue. Naturally, this sent the darting world into frenzy, thus generating an enormous amount of interest.
So is the double twenty really going to been green for the PDC World Darts Championship?
No, it was all guff of course. The Big 180 campaign, as it’s called, will actually see Paddy Power donate £1000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every 180 hit – another brilliant and noble campaign by a company that’s turned sports promotion into an art-form. The firm hope to hit the £1m mark for the charity as the same theme last year would have raised just short of that amount.
Social Media Shenanigans
Paddy Power has also been busy on social media. To publicise the release of ticket sales info and tournament dates, a video was unveiled on YouTube. In it, some of the players are grilled by two Paddy Power minions regarding their ‘presentation’. And it was pretty funny in all fairness, with some of the players showcasing their acting skills.
2021 champion Gerwyn Price was the first to be put through his paces. The Paddy Power duo suggested that the muscular Price shed 50% of his body-weight so that he could be introduced as Gerwyn ‘Half’ Price.
The remark, “I mean, how strong do you have to be to lift a dart?’ was a particular highlight.
The colourfully-attired, Mohican-sporting Peter Wright was declared to be ‘too old for the funny hair and clown trousers’. Wright, who seemed quite miffed, was then presented with an AI image depicting him with short-back and sides.
It was all in good fun of course, even if some of the players (Wright, Smith) didn’t see the funny side. See the video here:
Events at the Paddy Power World Championship Darts Event
To add a further sense of fun to proceedings, the bookmaker will also be holding events throughout the tournament relating to the specific gambling areas that it covers. As we understand it, Paddy Power bingo events will be held on the first weekend – a clever way to promote one of the leading and most popular online bingo sites to a wider and more diverse audience.
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