Broward-Palm Beach - News - Thunk! You Lose - browardpalmbeach.com

From time to time I wonder why the sport of darts has such a bad image problem, but then I stumble across an article like this that makes it clear to me...

On a recent Tuesday at Turn 3, a West Boca Raton dive bar that hosts dart league play, a representative from the Florida Dart Association is trying to persuade New Times to omit the best part of this story.

"Please don't print that," begs Ivan Hulan, a short, spiky-haired man with the shifty-eyed look of William H. Macy playing a salesman.

Sorry, man. That's our job.

Hulan takes a step back, arms akimbo, and bows his head. Hulan believes in darts with all his heart. Darts are moving up. People are excited about darts. It's got the Everyman appeal, the gritty bar setting, the possibility of big, corporate-sponsored tournaments. And now, it's as if this newspaper is going to publish the first-ever negative story about a darts league. (All right, there was that 6,000-word story in Sports Illustrated in 2001, showing how the game, even at the highest level of play, is inseparable from beer. This infuriated dart enthusiasts everywhere, including those I'm now interviewing, who are pretty much breathing Amberboch.)

This could be bad for darts.
Broward-Palm Beach - News - Thunk! You Lose - browardpalmbeach.com

If we ever want to bring the sport of darts into the main stream we will have to combat situations like the one in the article. We will have to try very hard to highlight the good that we do in our sport, show off the charitable work that we do and promote the outstanding class individuals that help build the sport.

....

There are now letters to the editor about the article....

I have teams with doctors, engineering managers, airport controllers, corporate executives, etc., and they don't act "stoopid" and throw darts at each other (although I think they'd want to sometimes when they meet the crazies).
Full content of the letters at:
Broward-Palm Beach - News - Letters for May 10, 2007 - browardpalmbeach.com

Maybe darts could learn a thing or two from billiards:

Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co., largest U.S. manufacturers of billiard and bowling equipment. Brunswick, which has done a lot to make bowling respectable, is now out to do as much for pool. Brunswick is well aware that many of the nation's 32,000 pool halls are only fronts; they are often gambling and bookie joints, or at best, no place for a lady. B-B-C employees are fined $1 every time they say "pool"; they must say "pocket billiards."

In trying to get out from behind the eight-ball,* B-B-C has made a big decision : to give up on the present generation of pool players.
....

B-B-C is concentrating its crusading efforts on 300,000 Boys' Club members and sending experts like Mosconi, Crane and trick-shot specialist Charlie Peterson to college campuses to demonstrate and stir up interest. There are now some 130 college billiard teams (including Cornell, Princeton, Ohio State). The current champion: University of Minnesota. This summer B-B-C will open its first model billiard room in the Midwest. It will have air conditioning, indirect lighting and a swanky soda bar. Stroy Link...