Hitting the Bullseye: Sky Sports Readies Itself for the Biggest PDC World Darts Championship to Hit Ally Pally Yet

Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts Championship to hit Ally Pally yet By Heather McLean

Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:34

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World darts champion Luke Littler is a headline act once again during a bumper year in 2025

Sky Sports is readying itself to embark on the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Darts Championship this winter, which will hit the bullseye once again at Alexandra Palace in North London from 11 December 2025 to 3 January 2026.

A bumper £5 million prize pot is on offer at Alexandra Palace, with £1 million going to the winner the biggest payday in darts history - in this expanded 2026 tournament that will see everyone enter the competition from the first round as 128 players vie to get to the top of the darting world.

It always comes around extremely quickly, says Joe Clark Smith, lead producer for Sky Sports' darts, on the Ally Pally extravaganza. All the work starts almost from when the previous one finishes. There are lots of discussions that start taking place about what we can do differently, what we could try, and that starts in January and kind of builds all the way round [to the next event]. We feel like we're ready, but there are always a few things to iron out before we get to 11 December.

Darts is a huge, huge priority for Sky, states Clark Smith. It's always been a really big event, and a really important event for Sky, and over the last couple of years it's kind of exploded and got even bigger; you can feel the whole Sky business pull behind it.

Bringing the party atmos

Clark Smith's strategy and goal in creating the darts coverage at The Worlds is focused on both viewers at home as much as the people in the venue. It is about bringing the party vibe from Ally Pally to the viewers on their couches, and making sure everyone in the venue is able to follow every dart.

He explains: One thing that I've always kind of kept in my mind that I think is really important is you're not just making a show for people sitting at home; you are making a show for people that are in the venue.

Some of the seats in the venues can't see the board and they can't tell when something's gone in or not, Clark Smith continues. What they're actually watching are the big screens in the venue, which is our coverage, it's our graphics, it's our replays, it's everything.

Obviously, you've got 20 times as many people watching it at home as you have in the venue, but what's so important for the darts is the atmosphere and bringing that party, that fun atmosphere, to the coverage. You've got to keep that atmosphere up in the venue in order to translate that to the viewer at home, so we are always trying to keep that balance of making sure that the viewer at home is getting the experience that you should get from watching a Sky Sports programme. They're getting great analysis, they're getting interesting features and VTs and graphics, but at the same time you are keeping that energy up. You are keeping things dynamic and moving so that the atmosphere and the energy levels in the arena don't die down.

I think that's the way you get the best show and you keep both viewers, both sets, both audiences engaged and happy. Making them all feel like they're watching and enjoying the same show and are part of the same show. That's our ethos and our strategy of how we approach it.

The cut used in-venue is almost identical to that broadcast to viewers outside of the venue. Even when we're doing a studio segment, if we're doing a chat with a presenter, Emma Paton, she's talking to Wayne Mardle [pundit and commentator] in our studio, or they're talking to a player that goes out to the arena. That goes out to the arena so that they still are getting the full show, so it's pretty much one show for both audiences.

Sky Sports is bringing viewers a whole lot of sport over this winter season, including the PDC World Darts Championship live from Ally Pally

Little creative update

On what Clark Smith is changing and evolving from the previous Worlds, he says, we've had a little creative update .

He explains: This is mainly onscreen graphics and our studio set up. On the graphics, there's been some typography changes, font changes, and with that, a few innovations on the score clock, like bespoke checkout animations. A checkout is the final scoring sequence a player uses to end a leg of the game, by finishing on a double or a bullseye.

If someone hits a nine-darter that'll animate on the score clock along with the player name, he says. A nine-darter is the perfect leg of darts, where a player scores 501 points in nine consecutive darts, which is the minimum number of darts required to finish a game.

Read more Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with Sky Sports

Continues Clark Smith: If they hit a Big Fish [the slang term for a 170 checkout, the highest possible score to finish a leg in a traditional game of 501], that will animate. I really like graphic and creative updates because I think the viewer really notices them, he notes. I'm not sure many viewers notice if a camera's changed or a camera's been added, but I think they notice graphics. As a viewer, I'm always watching the score clock with darts because there's so much information there, so I'm really pleased that we've got an update there.

AE Live provides the graphics for Sky Sports, with the broadcaster covering the creative design, then handing over to AE Live for the execution.

Adds Clark Smith: It's a hybrid workflow, so we have the person looking after our graphics on site with us, and then there's a team that look after the score clock and

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