{"id":7740,"date":"2018-01-28T21:39:45","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T21:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2018\/01\/column-552-the-pdcs-decision-to-ban-walk-on-girls-is-stupid\/"},"modified":"2018-01-28T21:39:45","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T21:39:45","slug":"column-552-the-pdcs-decision-to-ban-walk-on-girls-is-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2018\/01\/column-552-the-pdcs-decision-to-ban-walk-on-girls-is-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Column #552 The PDC\u2019s decision to ban walk-on girls is STUPID!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, January 28, 2018
\n<\/strong> Column 552<\/strong>
\nThe PDC’s decision to ban walk-on girls is STUPID!<\/strong><\/p>\n

With all the recent hoopla about the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) wilting under political pressure and giving their (much appreciated) walk-on girls the heave-ho, I got to thinking about the time\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 former Bulls Eyes News<\/em> editor\/publisher Jay Tomlinson says to me, \u201cI was wondering what you think: is darts sexy enough for American television? Would you consider the question and write something up \u2013 serious but from the Dartoid perspective?\u201d<\/p>\n

So I say back to Jay, \u201cAre you serious<\/em> about the serious part?\u201d<\/p>\n

And he says back to me, \u201cYes, and I need it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell,\u201d I replied, \u201cI can<\/em> be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

My first thought was of the incident with Jess Nicoll and the time she, the late Bucky Bakalac and I threw mixed triples together.<\/p>\n

So, owing to my pledge to Tomlinson, let me begin by setting the record straight about the rumors that have floated around since that fateful day: It was not Nicoll\u2019s fault that my left eye got poked out. It was just that she turned around kind of fast-like and my eye was too close to somewhere it should not have been.<\/p>\n

And there you have it folks, the answer to Tomlinson\u2019s question: While in my humble opinion darts is not currently sexy enough for American television, it easily could become so.<\/p>\n

Are you still with me? Are you lost? If you are, you ain\u2019t seen Jess Nicoll!<\/p>\n

The good news is that thanks to the creativity of former promoters like the PDC\u2019s Tommy Cox and Dick Allix and the connections and marketing genius of their chairman, Barry Hearn, the sport in America is moving in the right direction. It\u2019s just not there yet.<\/p>\n

The sport needs more than just fancy stages like that big orange and purple thing the PDC erects in Las Vegas. It needs more than a bunch of big money tournaments at casinos like the Mohegan and the Mandalay Bay. It needs more than tuxedo-clad Masters of Ceremony like John McDonald and booming voice callers like Russ Bray. It needs more than gigantic electronic scoreboards, fog machines, walk on music and walk-on girls (but it does need them!). As incredibly attractive as was the late, great Sid Waddell he was just not enough!<\/p>\n

The sport needs sex appeal and it needs it on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you build it, he will come,\u201d whispered the mysterious voice to Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams<\/em>. \u201cBring on the BABES,\u201d say I \u201cand the audience will tune in.\u201d Bring on Nicoll. Bring on Charity Buntz, Tee Ruleman, Melissa Wargo, Julie Heckman, Christina Oakley, Holly Young, Keri Stevenson, Michele Olson and Suzana Vaccaro. Find Lori Verrier for chrissake! Get some MUD!<\/p>\n

Okay, skip the mud.<\/p>\n

If you want to attract a television audience in America it is past time that somebody (besides the producers of American Idol<\/em> and Dancing with the Stars<\/em>) remembered that sex sells. It\u2019s selling tennis. It\u2019s selling golf. It\u2019s selling soccer. It\u2019s selling swimming. It\u2019s selling volleyball. It\u2019s even selling poker (Google \u201cShannon Elizabeth\u201d if you doubt me).<\/p>\n

Sex appeal is selling frickin\u2019 everything and it has been since the day Eve snagged Adam by sauntering into the Garden of Eden in that cute little Victoria\u2019s Secret number.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care how you do it. And it doesn\u2019t matter a whit where any of the ladies I have named are rated in the American Darts Organization\u2019s (ADO) points standings. If you want darts to pull in the television ratings you have to make darts sexy \u2013 and with all due respect to you ladies out there who don\u2019t fall out of your halter tops when you set up at the oche, this is just the way it is.<\/p>\n

Sex sells. Athletic performance alone is not enough to build strong ties between players and the fans. Men (who comprise over 70% of the sports viewing audience in this country) want to see near-naked women. We\u2019re sickos perhaps, but were not the only ones.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake about it \u2013 the ladies are sickos too.<\/p>\n

Just as Anna Kournikova, Lisa Harrison, Heather Mitts, Jenny Thompson, Lokelani McMichael, Michelle Wie, Gabriel Reece, Laila Ali, Ronda Rousey and Danica Patrick have contributed to the television appeal of their sports by drawing in the male audience, sexy men have contributed to the television appeal of their sports by drawing in the female audience.<\/p>\n

Just try telling me that women didn\u2019t tune in to watch Michael Jordan \u2013 or that they flipped the channel when he appeared in boxer commercials. Just try telling me that women are not drawn to David Beckham, Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, Ian Thorpe, Tiger Woods, Andy Roddick, Jason Taylor and Jose Theodore for more than their sporting skill (or their money). It\u2019s simply not so.<\/p>\n

It could be the same in darts.<\/p>\n

Nicknames like The Power and Razor are not enticing enough and 180s and even perfect games are not spectacular enough to pull in the crowd. None of this, no matter how well framed with stage props and pizazz, can mask the reality that darts players, at least most of those at the top of the ranks, have an image problem.<\/p>\n

Anna Kournikova never won a Grand Slam (singles) tennis tournament but more television viewers turned in to watch her in her heyday than tuned in to watch the men. Jason Taylor probably has a trophy room the size of my house but I guarantee that women who didn\u2019t know the different between a touchdown and a home run started tuning in to check him out after watching him foxtrot in prime time.<\/p>\n

What the sport of darts in America needs to garner a viewing audience is players, men and women, with skill, personality and sex appeal \u2013 and not necessarily in that order. America is just not going to tune in to see some tattooed fat boy in a beer-stained shirt fill up the triple twenty. They just aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

But they will tune in \u2013 I flat-out guarantee it \u2013 if the promotion for a darts tournament were to feature the appearance of, say, Mieke de Boer, who posed for Playboy<\/em> in The Netherlands in 2005 and who won the World Darts Trophy and the British Open in 2002.<\/p>\n

Now, let me name some of the male darts players women drool over.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why exactly (really, I don\u2019t) but women I know frequently talk (just like the men do about some of the ladies), about Bill Bell, Rob Heckman, Dan Zimmerman, Bob Gargan and Brad Wethington. This however is absolutely all I\u2019m going to say about the men because it gives me the CREEPS!<\/p>\n

But the fact remains, whether people want to admit it or accept it or not: just as the sport needs to market the babes it also must market the pretty boys.<\/p>\n

Now there are some who say none of this matters, that there is no market for televised darts in America and they are \u2013 how do I put this diplomatically\u2026 idiots.<\/p>\n

Was there a market for women\u2019s basketball \u2013 of course there was, but it wasn\u2019t realized until there was professional marketing. Recognize, for example, that the market for women\u2019s tennis was much smaller than for the men until it was marketed with sex-appeal. No so long ago, the Wimbledon women\u2019s final pulled more television viewers than the men\u2019s single final. This didn\u2019t just happen. It has<\/em> been happening and it has been happening because of a plan. The same applies to women\u2019s golf. The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) actually has a formal five-point plan to attract more fans. And one of the points in that plan is to market sex-appeal. The same goes for volleyball. The transition to short skirts and skimpy outfits in these sports occurred by design and it opened up the television market.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is a market for televised darts in America! If there wasn\u2019t the PDC wouldn\u2019t have been tromping about from coast to coast years ago investing money trying to crack the market. Despite what many would call lackluster at best (in terms of both promotion and production) the World Series of Darts premier episode drew nearly half as many viewers as an average airing of the World Series of Poker.<\/p>\n

It was not a bust. The result simply underscored the opportunity that is there for the taking. And now the PDC is back. The sports business in this country is no less an entertainment machine than the film and music industries and just like the film and music industries the sports business is looking for sexy celebrities.<\/p>\n

Once the sport of darts is marketed to television executives with words and images the executives understand \u2013 yes, sex appeal \u2013 the market will expand and from that, since advertisers are interested in the exact same thing, will come the opportunity to convince potential sponsors to step to the plate.<\/p>\n

It all comes back to sex appeal. That\u2019s what sells. It always has and it always will. It is sex appeal that is the key to the future of televised darts in America.<\/p>\n

Now I know that to some the very concept of marketing sex appeal is an anathema. The promotion of athletes, particularly women, on the basis, even in part, of sex appeal is considered by some to diminish their abilities. It poisons the minds of little girls (apparently causing them to dream of posing nude for Playboy<\/em>). It\u2019s unfair for someone like Michael Jordan to make millions wearing next to nothing in commercials while Brandi Chastain was chastised for flashing her sports bra.<\/p>\n

Crap, all of it (and sorry little girls \u2013 your chance to pose nude for Playboy<\/em> has passed).<\/p>\n

Yes, sorry folks. Live with it.<\/p>\n

Athletes in the ancient Olympic Games competed in the nude. Today the majority of our female athletes, dressed modestly as most do, would probably be stoned in many countries in the Middle East. It\u2019s an inconsistent world.<\/p>\n

Anna Kournikova may never have won a Grand Slam tennis tournament but she\u2019s made millions off of her well marketed sexy image \u2013 and the number of Americans and others worldwide who watch televised tournaments have increased. Kournikova helped her sport and it was no accident.<\/p>\n

Her game plan was genius and it was founded on the one concept that is, always has been and always will be consistent in this world: sex sells<\/u>. This is the same game plan that is needed to take the sport of darts to the Big Time in America.<\/p>\n

And the PDC\u2019s decision to ban walk-on girls is STUPID!<\/p>\n

From the Field,<\/p>\n

Dartoid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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