GSoD (Grand Slam of Darts)….will the prestigious event prevail?
GSoD - The Grand Slam of Darts. It’s the ultimate of all rivalries. With every passing year, the heat, the temperature, and the intensity of the event mounts unprecedentedly.
The battlefield at Civic Hall, in Wolverhampton, echoes with the war anthem as contestants from Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and British Darts Organization (BDO) face one another in nail biting matches of the Grand Slam of Darts (GSoD).
When talking about GSoD, it is important to mention that it is the very first of its kind which is being held in the United Kingdom. However, clashes between PDC and BDO share much in common as there have been a number of events that featured head-to-head matches and overseas tournaments between the players of the two organisations.
Apart from GSoD, players from both these organisations have been competing against each other in various events. Between the years, 1998 and 2001, many BDO players have participated in events like the World Matchplay.
This event was an outcome of the Tomlin Order of 1997 that provided darts’ players the liberty of taking part in more events organised and managed under the umbrella of the Tomlin Order.
However, this liberty for dart players was soon restricted after the formation of the Professional Darts Players Association and the new eligibility rules and regulations it defined, regarding the participation of players in multiple events.
Since its inception in the year 2007, GSoD has been the eye candy of all darts tournaments, held locally and overseas. The mouth watering prize money of the event, which was 80,000 pounds in 2007, and now increased to 1 million pounds, acts as the main catalyst for the thrill and exhilaration accompanying this event.
Nevertheless, a key source of disappointment for the audience has been the continuous dominance of a single player, Phil Taylor, who has emerged as the champion of darts in all GSoD tournaments since 2007 to date.
Irrespective of the intensity and the excitement the game has, it is after all Phil who takes the champion title.
In order to maintain audience for the event, it is important that the organising committee of darts arranges events more frequently and line up fresh talent that can rejuvenate the spirit of the game and the event.
The question arises, why these rivalries are so intense, or to rephrase it, why they are most comprehensibly manifested or expressed in GSoD? To answer this question, it is important to have a look at the very nature of the event.
Since GSoD is a continuing event, it is an invitational event for players who have succeeded in reaching the semis or final stages of the tournaments they have competed in. In addition, the recent GSoD also included darts’ players that have been at top positions in the game while representing their respective countries.
All these factors, on one hand, collectively contribute to the pumping of adrenaline level of darts’ fans, while on the other hand, also make the whole event a matter of prestige and honour for the contestants.
Another important dimension regarding the GSoD that needs to be understood is related to the sponsorship of the entire event.
Every dart has a cost. This cost mounts with the level of precision and accuracy a darts player can demonstrate.
In the 2011 GSoD, the cost of these skills was sponsored by William Hill, a highly reputed and prominent publishing group of Britain. Previously, websites like Partpoker.com and Partybets.com have also sponsored the event in 2008 and 2007, respectively.
What will be interesting to see is whether the GSoD and the competitive heat that it fuels between PDC and BDO players remains at a high flame, or will it fizz off in the juicy and mouth watering commercial prizes?
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