Jonathan Liew, an award-winning sports journalist for The Guardian, offers a compelling look into his surprising passion for darts. This article delves into his journey from a childhood fan to a leading voice covering the sport, revealing his unique approach to journalism that goes beyond mere scores. Liew argues that darts is far more than a “working-class game,” having evolved into a global cultural phenomenon with immense, sustainable growth. He shares personal anecdotes, discusses the challenges of writing about such a visual sport, and proposes bold ideas for its future, including giving a voice to the sport’s unsung heroes – the losers.
From Aspiring Writer to Award-Winning Sports Journalist
Jonathan Liew’s path into sports journalism wasn’t straightforward, but it was always clear. He always harbored a desire to write, especially about sport, a dream that felt somewhat distant in his teenage years. His journey began by writing for the student newspaper at Edinburgh University, gradually accumulating experience.
A pivotal moment arrived in 2008 when he secured a spot on The Telegraph’s graduate scheme, just before the financial crisis hit the industry hard. Liew often tells aspiring journalists that “it’s as much a matter of luck and timing as it is about talent,” a testament to his own fortuitous entry.
His career trajectory since then has been impressive:
- Eight years at The Telegraph
- Chief Sports Writer at The Independent
- Six years and counting at The Guardian
A Deep-Rooted Love for Darts
Liew’s connection to darts isn’t a professional assignment; it’s a lifelong passion. He grew up watching the BDO in the 1990s and vividly remembers the “magical Sky set-top box” that opened up a “futuristic universe” of darts. He has fond memories of the Taylor/Priestley era, enjoying the colorful characters like Jamie Harvey and Cliff Lazarenko, and even attempting to model his own throw on Graeme Stoddart.
While his passion for darts was undeniable, covering it professionally was a different challenge. For a long time, darts was merely a personal escape from the other sports he wrote about. The Telegraph initially showed limited interest in darts coverage. However, Liew’s persistence and compelling ideas eventually won them over. He successfully pitched stories about intriguing figures like James Wade and Peter Wright, proving that there was more to darts than met the eye.
Memorable Moments at the World Championships
Attending the Darts World Championships has provided Liew with some unforgettable, and sometimes frustrating, experiences:
- The Near Miss: He famously almost witnessed Michael van Gerwen’s 17 perfect darts live. Scrambling from the media area to the stage as van Gerwen hit 12, he got lost in the venue. Just as he approached the stage door, he heard the crowd’s groan, realizing he had missed the final dart. “That’s probably my strongest memory, even all those years later,” he recalls.
- Unavoidable Absences: He missed Rob Cross’s legendary victory year while covering the Ashes in Australia, and the “greatest ever leg of darts in 2023” due to recovering from the Qatar World Cup in Germany.
Despite these misses, Liew makes an effort to attend as many championships as possible. In recent years, The Guardian’s coverage of darts has “ratcheted up to a ridiculous degree,” a testament to the sport’s growing appeal and Liew’s influential role.
The Art of Writing About Darts
When covering darts, Liew’s primary goal is to offer readers something they can’t get just from watching the game. This involves:
- Good Writing: Crafting engaging narratives.
- Sense of Narrative: Uncovering the deeper stories within matches and careers.
- Underlying Trends: Exploring the broader social and cultural elements of the sport, which he believes are still “underexplored.”
He’s not explicitly writing for a non-darts audience, as he believes the sport’s core appeal is visual. However, he aims to provide context and insight that enriches the viewing experience for both dedicated fans and casual observers.
Navigating Reader Expectations
Liew assumes a certain level of knowledge from his readers, believing that “paying the reader that respect pays dividends.” He acknowledges that The Guardian’s online audience is diverse, ranging from fervent fans to those who only tune in for a few major tournaments a year. For the latter, a well-timed interview with a rising star like Gian van Veen, a household name in darts but unknown to a wider audience, can be highly impactful.
A Unique Journalistic Challenge
Writing about darts demands a fundamentally different approach compared to other sports. Liew highlights several reasons:
- Intensely Visual Sport: Darts’ growth is entirely rooted in the TV/internet age, meaning there’s no long-standing tradition or “canon” of great darts writing to draw from.
- Lack of Cliches: Unlike football or cricket, there aren’t established journalistic clichés to either use or subvert.
- Format Challenges: Its leg-based, alternate nature makes blow-by-blow descriptions ineffective on the page.
- Diverse Audience Knowledge: Readers span from complete novices to experts who might criticize missing obscure details like “PDC’s Euro Tour qualification changes.”
- Numbers vs. Narrative: Darts is inherently numerical, but too many statistics in prose can be “visually quite off-putting.” Finding a balance between fair analysis and getting “bogged down in double this and treble that” is crucial.
While newspaper readers are often not regular darts fans, the online audience is more mixed, driven by algorithms that direct people to their interests. Liew sees himself as an “evangelist” for darts, believing more people would embrace it if it were treated as a serious sport. He strives to foreground its “social and cultural elements,” using darts crowds as a reflection of society, offering a perspective often missing in more insular sports journalism.
Darts: A Global Phenomenon Transcending Class
Liew argues that darts has transitioned from a perceived “working-class game” to a major international sport by “transcending class.” He views traditional class analysis as outdated in modern society, where a plumber might earn more than a university lecturer. Other countries, free from the UK’s class baggage, embrace darts as an accessible pastime. Its universal appeal is undeniable: “a double goes in or it doesn’t, and it means everything, and even a child can understand that.”
The sport’s brilliant marketing has also played a key role, presenting it as an “egalitarian piss-up to fans in Europe” while simultaneously offering “unimaginable riches” to players worldwide. “That’s the beauty of darts – it can be all things to all people,” Liew states.
The Sustainable Future of Darts
Liew firmly believes that the massive increase in interest in darts is not a fad but a sustainable trend. He points to the continuous expansion of events like the Euro Tour and World Series, and draws parallels with the growth of MMA and e-sports, suggesting that “the old gatekeepers of sport are beginning to crumble.” The audience, he asserts, is “king,” and its size is undeniable, with significant growth in regions like the Philippines and Mongolia. Once roots are established and a constituency found, sustainable growth is inevitable.
Keeping Darts Relevant: Innovation is Key
To maintain its relevance, Liew suggests that darts needs to “reimagine its monoculture” and start experimenting with different formats and ideas. He notes a “clamour for fresh product,” such as:
- Pairs competitions
- “Double-in” formats
- Even “Royal Rumble-style” formats advocated by some experts.
The sport’s versatility, with “one board, thousands of different permutations,” offers vast potential beyond the standard best-of-seven or best-of-eleven legs that dominate professional play. Liew also reveals his intention to write a book about darts, aiming to fill a market gap for a “long-form, highbrow, big-picture treatment of darts as a modern cultural phenomenon.”
A Call for Change: The Voice of the Losers
If Liew could influence one change in the sport, it would be to “start hearing from the losers.” He passionately argues that sport isn’t solely about winners; it’s also about “pain and disappointment.” These raw emotions are essential to make winning truly meaningful. Currently, the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) typically only makes winners available to the media, except for the final. Liew would change this “overnight,” asserting that “if you’re only hearing from the winners, you’re only telling half the story.”
Source: Based on an article from Darts Planet TV.
