Darts godfather Barry Hearn is planning to lead sport's escape from lockdown – with an expanded tournament from the players' own homes.
Less than a week after being released from hospital after heart surgery, Professional Darts Corporation chairman Hearn is expected to announce the launch of the PDC Home Tour in the next 24 hours.
With all scheduled competitions on the PDC circuit postponed in April and May, all 128 PDC Tour card holders will be invited to take part.
Hearn is close to finalising prize money and streaming rights and he told the Weekly Dartscast podcast: “We'll announce a major move on 'in your own house' development.
“It will lack the atmosphere of a crowd, of course, but it will give us a regular supply of darts to watch.
“This (lockdown) is going to go on for the next three or four weeks before there's any chance of anything happening.
“We are looking at three or four stages: One is behind closed doors, in your own house.
“The second is behind closed doors, as in tournaments without crowds.
“The third might be limited crowds but standard tournaments before we go on to the utopia of four, which is back to normal.
“It's not just a question of, 'OK, can we have Players Championship games behind closed doors?' We're a global sport now and if some of our players can't travel, it wouldn't be fair.”
Meanwhile Phil Taylor suffered another sudden-death defeat by old rival Raymond van Barneveld as the 'Power' was pipped 7-6 from his living room in a contest which raised £15,000 for the NHS Heroes charity.
And the 16-times world champion said: “Where we were rivals, now we are good mates – and this is probably the only game I've ever played where winning or losing didn't matter.
“It's important that the whole country gets behind the NHS during this crisis, and I'm happy to do my little bit.
