The World Darts Championship for 2024 is underway but organisers did not allow one player to use the walkout song of his choice when he competed in the tournament.
Reigning champion Luke Humphries has not looked back since winning the ultimate prize last year but will need to once again see off the threat of tournament favourite Luke Littler.
Littler made history last year by becoming the youngest player in history to reach the World Championship final but came up short against Humphries in a thrilling encounter.
History suggests Littler could have the advantage over his rival given there has been no repeat winner of the world championship since 2016.
Fans have turned up in their thousands to watch this year’s competition and as well as the action on the oche, the crowd go wild for their favourite dart star’s walkout.
Walkouts have become iconic over the years and one former PDC competitor has revealed his suggestion for a song was shut down by the tournament organisers while giving fans an insight into how the tunes are decided.
Competing in the 2021 competition, Matthew Edgar was knocked out in the second round by Mensur Suljovic and revealed on his TikTok page that the PDC rejected his walkout song request.
“I was rejected this walk-on at the PDC World Darts Championship, the place where every person who’s picked up a set of darts wants to play,” he said. “I guarantee you’ve thought about the walk-on, even if you’ve just played darts at home.
“The walk-on is probably the moment we’ve all thought of, we’ve thought of the song we’re going to use. I’m going to give you some insight on how it all works.
“With this, you simply just present your song to the PDC who presents it to the broadcaster.”
“The copyright – we don’t worry about that too much, that’s to do with the licensing in the arena, we don’t have to think about that as a player. I’ve never really known of a player getting their song choice rejected.”
He continued: “Mine was rejected for a reason. It came in the second round, I was wearing a Hulk Hogan inspired shirt, I wanted to come on giving it all the Hulk Hogan stuff and wanted to use his ‘Real America’ song.
“It was rejected and the reason it was rejected was familiarity. They wanted people to be familiar with the song I was using at the time and not be chopping and changing throughout. Other than that, I don’t know another time a player has been rejected.”
The final for this year’s competition will take place on January 3rd 2025 with Littler entering the competition on December 21.