Gerwyn Price has called into question the huge prize money increase on the PDC Tour – believing the new World Championship prize fund will harm other tournaments.
The 2026 world darts champion will win a record £1million prize – double the amount Luke Littler received in January for claiming the 2025 title. It is the biggest cash increase in the history of the Professional Darts Corporation has been confirmed, with an expanded 128-player field at the 2026 World Championship competing for a £5m prize fund.
PDC prize money will be up £7m on this year’s figures in 2026. The Premier League prize pot will increase to £1.25m from 2026, with £350,000 for next season’s champion.
A £1m prize fund will be on offer at the World Matchplay and Grand Slam of Darts, with the latter also expanding to a 48-player field in 2026 to mark the 20th staging of the tournament. Four other Premier events – the World Grand Prix, Players Championship finals, European Championship and UK Open – will all increase to a £750,000 prize fund, with the World Cup of Darts and World Series of Darts Finals each adding a further £50,000 to their respective pots.
But, while the winner of the World Championship will take home £1m, the next biggest prize for a ranking darts event, the World Matchplay, stands at £225k. As such, Welshman Price fears the World Championship will solely dictate who claims the world No.1 spot and render a lot of the other competitions – as far as the Order of Merit goes – meaningless.
“It’s only one tournament heavy,” said Price. “As bad as my last year has been, even though I’ve started well this year, I could go on to win the World Championship and be world number one.”
The 2021 world champion added: “They’ve upped the Worlds [money], but they need to up everything else. Otherwise, they need to change the points. It’s not fair if someone wins the Worlds and they are world number one for two years. I will happily have the million. But they need to change the ranking points.”
Price’s comments came after a dominant display to win Players Championship Nine in Leicester on Monday.
The former world champion claimed his second win of this season’s series with an 8-4 victory over England’s Ian White. White, contesting his first ProTour final for five years, knocked out world champion Luke Littler 6-5 in the third round.
But Price, who produced a 114 average in his 7-0 semi-final win against Brendan Dolan, was too strong for the 54-year-old. Gary Anderson, meanwhile, compiled a nine-dart finish in his first-round match against Krzysztof Ratajski, before losing in the last 32.
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