The World Masters is a darts tournament, initially organised by the

British Darts Organisation The British Darts Organisation (BDO) was a darts organisation founded on 7 January 1973 by Olly Croft, and dissolved in 2020 under the stewardship of Des Jacklin. Made up of 66 member counties, it oversaw professional, semi-professional and ...

from 1974 and later by the

World Darts Federation The World Darts Federation (WDF) is a sport governing body and (along with the PDC) a tournament organiser for the game of darts Darts is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small projectile point, sharp-poin ...

. It is one of the longest-running and most prestigious of the BDO/WDF tournaments. The tournament was originally sponsored by Phonogram before changing its sponsor in 1975 to darts board manufacturer,

Winmau Winmau, pronounced "win more", is a Welsh manufacturer of dartboards, other darts equipment and title sponsor of the oldest darts tournament still running, the Winmau World Masters. Founded in 1945, Winmau was acquired by rival dartboard manufac ...

. The World Masters was originally contested as the best of 5 legs (first to 3) before later transitioning to the set format. It was previously the final leg of the BDO's Grand Slam title of televised majors, along with the

BDO World Darts Championship The BDO World Darts Championship was a professional darts tournament organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and held annually from 1978 to 2020. The championship was first held at the Heart of the Midlands Nightclub in the Englis ...

International Darts League The Topic International Darts League was a darts tournament held at the Triavium in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Raymond van Barneveld dominated the tournament, held in his home country, winning it on three of the five occasions it was held. Gary Anders ...

and World Darts Trophy, until the latter two tournaments were axed in 2008. The champion is referred to as the World Master. The tournament was unseeded for most of its history and all players entered the main draw in the first round. Seedings were introduced for the first time in 2007 at the behest of the BBC to ensure the top players were present for the televised stages of the event. Thus, the top eight ranked players received a bye to the last-16. After the collapse of the British Darts Organisation in September 2020, the

announced plans to launch the WDF World Masters. In December 2020, it was announced that the 2021 tournament will be held at De Bonte Wever in

Assen Assen () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands, and is the capital (politics), capital of the province of Drenthe. It received City rights in ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. This was then pushed back to 2022 due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions. The new WDF version of the event changed the format from setplay to legplay for the first time, with significantly shorter matches. The event also moved to a biennial format. In 2024 a new host nation was announced as Budapest, Hungary was the host for the 2024 WDF World Masters. For 2025 the

Professional Darts Corporation The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is a professional darts organisation in the United Kingdom, established in 1992 when a group of leading players split from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form what was initially called the Wor ...

will rebrand their existing Masters tournament as the Winmau World Masters.

List of tournament finals

Men's World Masters

Women's World Masters

World Youth Masters

Boys' World Masters

Girls' World Masters

Records

Most men's tournament wins 5 - Eric Bristow. Bob Anderson and

Martin Adams Martin Adams (born 4 June 1956) is an English professional darts player who plays in World Darts Federation (WDF) events. Nicknamed "Wolfie", he is a three-time BDO World Champion and three-time World Masters champion. He represents Cambridgesh ...

have both won 3 times (also both achieving 'hat tricks' by winning in three consecutive years), while Dave Whitcombe, John Lowe,

Raymond van Barneveld Raymond van Barneveld (born 20 April 1967) is a Dutch professional darts player who competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, where he was ranked world number one from January 2008 to June 2008. Nicknamed "Barney", he is a five-t ...

Stephen Bunting Stephen Bunting (born 9 April 1985) is an English professional darts player who competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, where he is currently ranked world number four. Nicknamed "the Bullet", Bunting formerly competed in Brit ...

Glen Durrant Glen Durrant (born 24 November 1970), nicknamed "Duzza", is an English former professional darts player who competed in British Darts Organisation (BDO) and Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. Durrant is a three-time BDO World Champi ...

and Wesley Plaisier have all won the Masters twice. Youngest champion

Michael van Gerwen Michael van Gerwen (; born 25 April 1989) is a Dutch professional darts player, who competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, where is currently ranked PDC Order of Merit, world number three; he was ranked world number one from 20 ...

(2006) aged 17 years, 174 days, who eclipsed the record of Eric Bristow Double Champion Leeanne Maddock (1992) aged 17 years won both the youth title and the women's title. Joint World Championship & Masters Champions Only seven players have ever won the World Masters and the World Championship in the same season. Eric Bristow achieved the feat three times (1979 Masters 1980 World, 1983–84 and 1984–85). Bob Anderson (1987–88), Richie Burnett (1994–95), John Walton (2000–01), Martin Adams (2009–10 and 2010–11), Stephen Bunting (2013–14) and Glen Durrant (2016–17) were the others. There have been two other instances of players holding both championships at the same time (Phil Taylor 1990 and Raymond van Barneveld 2005) - but these were not during the same season which is considered to end with the World Championship. Not Dropping A Set Stephen Bunting's 2013 win was achieved without dropping a set. There are 15 players who have won the Masters and the BDO World Championship during their careers: John Lowe, Eric Bristow, Bob Anderson, Phil Taylor, Dennis Priestley, Richie Burnett, Steve Beaton, Raymond van Barneveld, Les Wallace, John Walton, Andy Fordham, Martin Adams, Scott Waites, Stephen Bunting, and Glen Durrant. Additionally, Michael van Gerwen won the Masters in 2006 and has since won the PDC World Championship three times, but not the BDO World Championship.

Media coverage

*1974–1988 ITV *1989 Not broadcast *1990 The Sports Channel (part of the short-lived satellite TV service BSB) *1991–1992

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

*1993–1994 Wire TV *1995 L!VE TV (highlights on the ITV night time programme 'Sport AM' as well as on the HTV Wales programme 'Top Sport') *1996–2000

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

*2001–2010

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

*2011–2012

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

*2013–2015

*2016 Premier Sports *2017

*2018 No TV Broadcaster (streamed on YouTube and Winmau TV) *2019

*2022 No TV Broadcaster (streamed on YouTube) *2024 Sport 1 & Sport 2 (Hungary) & Streamed on YouTube *2025 ITV4 The 2011 tournament was also shown in the United States for the first time with

ESPN3 ESPN3 (formerly ESPN360 and ESPN3.com) is an internet, online streaming media, streaming service owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) an ...

broadcasting it.

References

External links

World Darts Federation Official Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:World Masters (Darts) 1974 establishments in England British Darts Organisation tournaments World Darts Federation tournaments