Premier League Darts 2025: Dates, schedule and results, venues, players and format as defending champion Luke Littler returns

Premier League Darts 2025: How to follow

Night 1 of the 2025 BetMGM tournament will take place on Thursday, February 6.

It will be held in Belfast and will run for 17-weeks at venues around England, as well as Dublin, Glasgow, Cardiff, and the Netherlands.

The playoffs will begin at The O2 in London on Thursday, May 29.

Start times are yet to be officially confirmed, but coverage is set to get underway from around 7pm.

Sky Sports will once again be home of the Premier League in 2025, with their coverage expected to be shown on Sky Sports Action.

talkSPORT and talkSPORT.com will also keep you up to date with all the latest.

Littler is also the defending champion of the Premier League

Premier League 2025 darts line-up

Luke Littler

Luke Humphries

Michael Van Gerwen

Rob Cross

Chris Dobey

Stephen Bunting

Nathan Aspinall

Gerwyn Price

Premier League Darts 2025: Format

Each night of the competition will stage an eight-player knockout tournament, with all seven games played over the best of 11 legs.

Players will receive five points per final win, three points per runner-up finish, and two per semi-final finish.

The top four in the table will contest two knockout semi-finals at the end of the first 15 weeks before a final will crown the overall winner.

The format on Premier League Finals Night is slightly different with a best of 19 legs in the semis, and the final being a best of 21 legs.

The first thrower in the semi-finals is decided by standings in the Premier League.

For the final, players will have a bull-off in the practice room to decide the first thrower.

Littler won the Premier League on his debut season in it

How does the Darts Premier League work?

Eight of the world’s leading players go head-to-head over 17 nights, beginning in February and ending in a huge finals night in May.

Each of the players meet every week from 1-7 and then again in weeks 9-15 with weeks 8 and 16 drawn based on league standings.
The points system is explained here:

Nightly winner: 5 points
Runner-up: 3 points
Losing semi-finalists: 2 points

After week 16, the top four in the league standings contest the semi-finals and the final at The O2 arena in London.

First takes on fourth and second comes up against third in the best-of-19-leg semi-finals before a best-of-21-leg final.

Premier League Darts 2025: Prize money

The total prize pot for the Premier League this year is £1million.

The four to reach Finals Night is guaranteed at least £85,000.

That is the prize for the two losing semi-finalists while the winner and runner-up get more.

Second place will receive £125,000 while the winner gets a whopping £275,000.

For those who haven’t reached Finals Night, their prize money decreases per position with 5th place £75,000, 6th place £70,000, 7th place £65,000, and 8th place £60,000.

Each winner of the 16 nights of the Premier League will receive an additional £10,000 bonus.

Aspinall’s inclusion was questioned by De Decker

Premier League Darts 2025: What has been said?

Michael Smith has been advised to choose his events wisely in 2025 to regain his best form after being left out of this year’s line-up.

‘Bully Boy’ has plummeted to 16th in the PDC Order of Merit following his second-round exit at the World Darts Championship.

Ex-major winner Paul Nicholson told talkSPORT: “I’ve never questioned Michael Smith’s work ethic ever. And I never will. But I think he does.

“So if he’s not putting in the work and he’s not going to enough tournaments or the right ones, which are ranked, because you could, if you’re world champion, you can go to the World Series, you can go to the Premier League and you can go to World Series finals and win a whole lot of money.

“But if it’s not in your ranking, you’re going to find yourself in a position where you’re not in the Matchplay.

“Think about Johnny Clayton. When he won the Masters, the Premier League, World Series finals, none of those were ranked.

“It was the same for Luke Littler. Won the Premier League, won the World Series finals. That’s what, 350 grand in non-ranking money? He had to win the Grand Slam to get in the top four. If he didn’t, he was going to be someone in the fringes of the top 16.

“You’ve got to be crafty in that regard. I actually think this is a good thing for Michael Smith because I think this is a chance for him to re-establish a time away from the Premier League, because I don’t think he should be in it.

“Do a calendar for the year well in advance and say, ‘I’m going to these definitely’. Just leave a few with an asterisk against them. ‘I’ll go to these if I need to go to these’.

“This is how golfers prepare their seasons. When does Rory (McIlroy) ever play more than three weeks in a row? If he has to, that’s it. End of story.

“When does Tiger start his season? At the Farmers Insurance Open. Why? Because he wants to make sure he’s prepped for the season and he will cherry-pick everything.

“This is what dart players are going to have to do now. This has come at the right time for Michael because of 34 Players’ Championships in 2025, 14 European Tours, no guarantee of Matchplay, get the schedule right, get the work ethic right and I have every faith that the top ten will be his again.”