Phil "The Power" Taylor cocked his head slightly, eyed the dart board and, ignoring the soused crowd and the fog of cigarette smoke, sealed the match with a perfect flick of the wrist. But this was no ordinary game of darts relegated to a quaint local pub, where the stakes are more often measured in frothy pints than in pounds sterling.
Showcasing the game's newly acquired razzle-dazzle, tournament players including Bob "The Limestone Cowboy" Anderson, Wayne "Hawaii 501" Mardle and Kevin "The Artist" Painter -- tramped into the spacious Circus Tavern in London's Purfleet suburb last week with all the flourish and gusto of heavyweight boxers.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
With buxom blondes on their arms, theme tunes pulsating from loudspeakers (I Got the Power) and colored spotlights swirling, the players, clad in boxy custom-made shirts, ambled to the stage through the screeching crowd of 900 mostly drunken fans. The winner, the legendary Taylor, who cornered his record 12th world title, took home ?60,000 (US$112,000), a sliver of what he earns on the circuit and from endorsements.
More important, the match was broadcast by Sky Sports, seen by at least 2 million British viewers, and was piped into 500 million households worldwide. Darts even registered its first pay-per-view head-to-head match last November, between Taylor and the much-loved Andy "The Viking" Fordham, with the promise of another not too far off.
"Darts is a cross between a Springsteen concert and professional wrestling now," said Sid Waddell, a longtime commentator, embellishing just a smidge. "It's a sport that needs dramatic lighting and heavy rock music punctuated by the intensity of the crowd."
While purists may tut-tut, there is little doubt that this new formula -- not so different from the repackaging of poker in the US -- has revitalized the ailing game of darts and captured international attention. China and Japan, where fans enthusiastically mob British dart players for their autographs, have embraced the sport with particular vigor. China formed its first national dart organization last September, and 250,000 members signed up right away.
Darts can even be seen regularly in the US now, where it is most popular on the East Coast, on Fox Sports Net, which has televised marquee tournaments and the Vegas Desert Classic.
"What darts has become is a television phenomenon," said Barry Hearn, a former boxing promoter and the chairman of the Professional Darts Corp, a breakaway group that formed in 1992 and spearheaded the revitalization.
Groupies, too, are budding, most notably a set calling themselves Tarts for Darts.
The game's appeal is rooted in its working-class sensibilities and lager-fueled ambiance, which helps explain why there are 100 million dart players worldwide. There is no game that can be played as easily -- in a pub the weather is irrelevant, fees are laughably low and obesity is hardly a disqualifier.
The game's success has now prompted efforts to try to sober up its image and get it introduced as an Olympic sport, or at least a sport recognized by the Olympic committee. After all, synchronized swimming, table tennis and badminton are Olympic sports, and no one questions the skill and mental focus required to play darts at a top level.
Some consider it unlikely the game will ever make it to the Olympics, and point to its Cockney roots as the biggest obstacle.
"In my view, the exclusion of darts is down to class-based prejudice," Martin Kelner wrote in The Guardian last year. "Because the drug of choice among darts people tends to be lager, and true Olympians like to go for something with a few more syllables in it, other sportsmen get all sniffy about darts."
Taylor, the champion who practices six hours a day, said the game's boozy pedigree was unshakeable and a big part of its appeal.
"You can take darts out of the pub, but you can never take the pub out of darts," he said the day after winning his latest title. "We will always have that label. You can never change it. But I don't think it's a bad thing. It's now a professional game, and people are realizing it."
"Plus, we've cleaned up the image a lot," he added, pointing to the fact that drinking alcohol is not allowed during a match.
Even the players, particularly the older ones, are trying to get trim. Taylor, 44, whose paunch hangs over his pants, has been working out with a body-building expert.
It is Fordham, though, who is taking fitness the most seriously, because whenever he stepped on his home scale, as he put it, "it read `error."' At 212kg, Fordham -- a pub owner whose theme song is I'm Too Sexy -- is the first to tell you he enjoys the "relaxed" life.
To relax before a match, he used to drink 25 bottles of Holsten Pils. When he broke his wrist last year, his physical therapy consisted of lifting a beer bottle to his lips (the therapy worked beautifully, he said).
When he nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion at the pay-per-view showdown with Taylor in November, he went outside, took off his shirt, iced himself down and reportedly sipped a beer to recuperate. Too sick to continue playing, he was forced to concede.
The health scare was a wake-up call. He has joined the cast of "Celebrity Fit Club," a reality television show airing now that features celebrities trying to get in shape.
"Drinking goes part and parcel with darts," said Fordham, 42, whose affable wife, Jenny, owns The Rose, a pub in Dartford. They live upstairs. "But I'm cutting back to as much I can." His initial goal is to reduce his daily intake of beer to 12 bottles.
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