Picture your stereotypical darts player. Middle-aged and overweight, with a gut spilling over a waistband, cultivated through years of swilling beer during tense matches.
However, a radical transformation is taking place and the game has been reborn in the 21st century, with teenagers and young adults flocking to dedicated darts bars.
A new breed of young player has emerged, playing a high-tech version of the game complete with flashing lights, electronic bleeps and a computer that does all the troublesome math for you.
Photo: AFP
Welcome to the world of soft darts, which has been big in Japan for some years, but is now hitting the bullseye as it sweeps across Asia, with a rapidly swelling fanbase and its own high-profile tournaments, the most lucrative of which is this year offering a prize pot of HK$5 million (US$650,000).
One of the game’s top players, Singapore’s Paul Lim, describes the differences between the traditional game and soft darts — where the arrows’ steel tips are replaced with plastic points and the electronic board calculates your scores — as similar to those between snooker and pool.
“If you look at snooker and pool, how many more people play pool? It’s a lot easier. People get a lot more enjoyment because it’s a far simpler game,” said Lim, who was the first ever darts player to throw a perfect nine-dart finish during a world championship, in 1990.
“I’ve been playing steel-tip for 38 years and I’ve been involved in soft-tip for about 15 years. Soft-tip is much faster and simpler. This is made for people not to think, just to have fun,” he said.
While soft-tip darts have been around for decades one company in particular is blazing a trail around the world.
Dartslive, which both manufactures and distributes soft tip boards, is linking up all the machines they provide to venues worldwide electronically, allowing players on opposite sides of the planet to take each other on in real time.
Launched in 2003 in Japan, the company expanded its operation overseas in 2009 when it opened a venue in Hong Kong. Since then it has spread to 14 countries.
“When we started in Hong Kong, every month I would say we would have about 500 new players. It’s a cool atmosphere, almost like clubbing. People come in for a few drinks. It’s entertainment. It’s fun,” said Lim, an early proponent of the game.
Players each pay a small fee per game and have the opportunity to swipe their own membership card, which then records all their scores for the various games that can be played.
Dartslive International’s Hong Kong-based CEO Steve Ngu said the firm’s aim was to bring the traditional game into the electronic age.
“Dartslive is a company combination of real and virtual world. You can physically play each other and then you can come and chat online,” he explained.
The business turned over US$100 million a year, according to Ngu, in a growing industry he estimates to be worth US$200 million worldwide.
In an effort to further dominate the soft-tip market, Dartslive organizes the Soft Darts World Championship. This year’s competition began in Hong Kong in April and, after legs around the world, the final will be played in the city in December where the winner will pocket HK$1 million of a total HK$5 million prize pot.
Impressively, Ngu believes that the sport is growing at such a clip that its total prize pot will eclipse that of traditional darts tournaments within just three years.
Indeed, many big names in the traditional game are seeing there’s money to be made through prizes and sponsorship and are travelling to Asia to take on Japan’s best.
However, for the average player the draw of soft darts is the ease of the game and its hip image, according to Eric Chu, CEO of the iDarts Group, which runs a dedicated soft darts bar in Hong Kong.
“The Japanese darts players are very cool, like male models. They appeal to more people than traditional darts players, it’s more glamorous,” he said.
“Playing steel-tip you have to have good maths, but this does it all for you. Everyone can play, you don’t need to calculate while you play,” he said. “It’s fun, it’s positioned as entertainment.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite