Phil Taylor vs Michael van Gerwen ᴴᴰ | Week 15, Betway Premier League Darts 2016
Phil Taylor vs
Michael van Gerwen ᴴᴰ | May 12,
Week 15,
Rotterdam, Betway
Premier League Darts 2016
The Premier League Darts is a darts tournament which launched on
20 January 2005 on
Sky Sports.
The league is now played weekly from February to May, having originally started as a fortnightly fixture. The tournament originally featured seven players and now sees ten of the biggest names from the
PDC circuit competing in a double round-robin format, with matches held across the
United Kingdom and Ireland at different venues. The top four players in the
PDC Order of Merit are joined by six wildcard selections to make up the ten-man field. The current sponsor is Betway.
The previous sponsors were McCoy's,
Whyte and Mackay, who succeeded
Holsten, having signed a three-year contract to support the event in
October 2007,[1] and
888.com. The prize fund rose from £265,
000 to £340,000 in 2008, steadily increasing each year for a prize fund of £550,000 in 2014.
The winner currently receives £
150,000.
Phil Taylor has dominated this event, winning six of the eleven competitions to date. He went unbeaten throughout the first three seasons before
James Wade ended his 44 match run in the first match of the
2008 season. A new champion was to be crowned after
Mervyn King defeated him in the 2009 semi-finals. Wade defeated
King 13–8 in the final, to pick up the £125,000 first prize. Phil Taylor defeated James Wade the following season to claim his fifth title in the competition in
2010, however he was defeated in the semi-final of the
2011 tournament.
Gary Anderson became champion in his debut season. by defeating
Adrian Lewis in a repeat of the world championship final earlier that year. Phil Taylor reclaimed the title the following year, after defeating
Simon Whitlock in the
2012 final, but lost the
2013 final to Michael van Gerwen. A year later,
Taylor - who lost four of his first five games of the season and only secured qualification to the playoffs on the final league night - lost to eventual champion
Raymond van Barneveld in the semi-finals.