Darts career no longer a flight of fancy
ROB Cross only picked up his first pay cheque from darts in February 2017.
It was a miserly £250 (about $450) in his first tournament as a professional.
Now the former electrician from Hastings on England’s south coast, is the Professional Darts Corporation world champion and last year earned about $1.2 million – not bad for a bloke who used to change plugs for a living.
Cross defeated darts legend Phil Taylor to take out the world title in January, earning about $720,000 in the process.
That figure obviously pales alongside the pay cheques for superstar sportsmen such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe but put into perspective the top darts players in the world have the potential to get paid more than the highest-earning footballers in Australia (per annum).
Our top rugby league players earn around $800,000 a year.
The last world championship, held at the Alexandra Palace in London, had a record high $3.3m in total prizemoney.
The World Series of Darts, which is coming to Melbourne and Brisbane in August, might not be at that level just yet but with the winner of the series netting $35,000, runner-up $17,000 with a total of about $108,000 in prize money at each event, then it’s not a bad pay day.
For Rob Cross, a family man with three children, darts has given him a chance to turn his passion into his career.
“I spend a lot of time away from my family but they are so supportive and have been brilliant,” he told Sky Sports after defeating Taylor in the world final.
“It’s the confidence you get from them, cheering you up when you feel a bit low.
“Winning helps. I can treat the kids and hopefully provide a better life for them. That is the ambition.”
Professional Darts is one of the fastest growing televised and arena based sports in the world.
Over the past five years the PDC has turned the traditional pub-based game into a globally recognised sporting franchise, where games are now played in large sporting arenas in front of thousands of spectators (of all ages) and televised globally as fans follow their favourite players who each have their own unique look and brand.
The World Series events in Melbourne and Brisbane are part of a larger global tournament that sees events played in Germany, Las Vegas, Shanghai and Europe.
The opening event for the 2018 Series also went down in history as officially the largest ever crowd to attend a darts tournament when 20,210 fans flocked to Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany to see the series opener.
Cross will be joined by some of the top players on the planet, including world No.1 Michael van Gerwen, twotime world champion Gary Anderson, world no.2 Peter Wright and five-time world champ Raymond van Barneveld on the Oceanic leg of the World Series tour, which will begin in Auckland on August 3.
Simon Whitlock and Kyle Anderson, who earned about $730,000 between them in the past year, will lead the Australian charge alongside rising star Corey Cadby.
Eight professionals will be joined on the big stage by qualifiers from around Australia and New Zealand, all looking to one day join those professional ranks and one day make a decent living out of darts – something that could not have been said some 30 years ago.
I SPEND A LOT OF TIME AWAY FROM MY FAMILY BUT THEY ARE SO SUPPORTIVE AND HAVE BEEN BRILLIANT Rob Cross