Originally Posted by
Gray77
If Hearns thinks RL is a mess, fair enough. But I'd like to know what his knowledge of the game is. Saying something is a mess is one thing, but knowing why and knowing how to improve it whilst staying true to the culture and traditions of the game is another thing.
He's done well with other sports but they are mainly ones involving individuals and set piece events. People follow for the occasion rather than love of a team or some tribal connection. How many who attend the World Darts would want to do it every fortnight? And would people who attend big boxing events want to do that every other week? As big events he does well, but there is no real concept of history, tradition, the unique nature of different clubs, etc. All the darts players are now treated the same, all events (world darts, darts PL etc) have the same make-up and can be stuck in any arena and look the same because they're not dealing with unique backgrounds, differences in clubs, differences in fanbases in different towns etc. It's all glitzy, but very generic, and appealing to people that want to watch darts for one night a year is different to dealing with thousands of people who want to watch their club every week, and do so for very different reasons to the ones people have for going to the darts or a big boxing card as a big night out or a one-off event.
As I've said before, the amount of people who watch darts these days is a fraction of those who watched it in the 80s and 90s, and the same can be said of boxing. Ask the average person to name three darts players now and I reckon alot would struggle, and the same for naming any British boxers outside of Joshua and Fury. Compare to how many would have known Bruno, Benn, Eubank, Watson, McGuigan, Lewis etc. So, money for darts players and boxers is far higher and they're doing great, but behind the flashing lights and the 2,000 in Ally Pally or Wembley Arena has he made those sports bigger? Has he made them more popular? Short answer, not in any way.