The GOATs of Darts

A single trophy count flattens the argument. A player who dominated a weaker era is not automatically ahead of one who won less but competed against deeper fields. A player who peaked for two seasons and vanished is not the equal of someone who stayed elite for fifteen. And a player who changed what darts looked like on television, or changed how the sport was paid and organised, earns credit that does not sit on any trophy.

For that reason every player below is scored against four weighted criteria. The weighting is unapologetic: titles still matter most, because darts is a results sport, but the rest of the frame stops the exercise collapsing into a stat dump.

Scores below are editorial, out of 100, combining the four weighted categories into a single overall figure. They are a frame for discussion, not a league table.

Phil Taylor's case does not depend on a single argument. It depends on how many arguments end with him. He won more world titles than anyone else, across more decades than anyone else, in more major events than anyone else. When the PDC split from the BDO in 1993 he was one of a small group who chose the new tour, and he then proceeded to define it for a generation.

From 1995 to 2002 he won the PDC World Championship eight years in a row, the longest such streak in televised darts. He added further titles in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2013, taking the PDC total to fourteen and his combined world-title haul to sixteen. He won the World Matchplay sixteen times, a record that sits in a category of its own because no other player has won a single major that often.

The case against Taylor is thin. Sceptics argue that the PDC field of the late 1990s was less deep than today's tour, and there is some truth to that. But the counter is that Taylor kept winning as the field deepened. He reached the 2018 World Championship final at Alexandra Palace at the age of 57, losing to Rob Cross, and walked away from televised darts still capable of beating almost anyone on his day.

For longevity, dominance and sheer title accumulation, there is no serious rival. Read the full Phil Taylor profile.

Born in Boxtel in 1989, Michael van Gerwen burst into public view at seventeen by winning the 2006 World Masters, at the time the youngest player ever to win a major televised tournament. He then endured a difficult professional adjustment before re-emerging in 2012 as the player who would dominate the post-Taylor era.

At his peak, from roughly 2014 to 2019, Van Gerwen was the best scorer in the sport by a distance. His three-dart averages in televised finals regularly exceeded 110, and his match record in non-World-Championship majors was historically extraordinary. Seven Premier League titles is a record nobody has approached. Five World Grand Prix titles in the punishing double-in format is similarly unrivalled outside Taylor.

Where the case weakens is the World Championship itself. Three world titles is an elite number in any era, but it falls short of Taylor's sixteen and is also currently equalled or bettered by several all-time names when BDO worlds are counted. For the overall GOAT argument, the combination of the highest peak the sport has probably seen and a quieter second half to the career keeps Van Gerwen just behind.

Eric Bristow, the Crafty Cockney, was the first player who felt like a bona fide television star. Between 1980 and 1986 he won the BDO World Championship five times in seven attempts, missing only the 1982 and 1983 events. That run coincided with the peak of darts as a mainstream British entertainment fixture, and he did as much as anyone to drive the audience it attracted.

The case for Bristow in a modern ranking has two parts. The first is the trophy haul across the world championship, the World Masters and the British Professional, all while playing a schedule with fewer major tournaments than exist today. The second is mentorship: Bristow famously financed and mentored the young Phil Taylor, producing the player who would go on to break all his records. That chain of succession is a piece of the Bristow case most ranking exercises undercount.

Dartitis disrupted Bristow's later career and is often held against him. It should not be. His peak output relative to the field of his era is on a par with anyone except Taylor, and his cultural footprint may be unmatched. Read the full Eric Bristow profile.

John Lowe is the only player to have won the World Championship in three separate decades: 1979, 1987 and 1993. That statistic alone places him in the sport's all-time conversation because it shows a standard of play that bridged the original BDO boom, the television peak, and the fractious run-up to the 1993 split.

Lowe also threw the first ever televised nine-dart leg, on 13 October 1984 at the MFI World Matchplay, claiming a then-enormous £102,000 bonus. He was a foundational figure in the Professional Darts Corporation when it was established, captaining the first breakaway and lending the new body serious competitive credibility.

His title total is lower than Taylor's or Bristow's, but the spread across three decades and his role in the PDC's formation keep him firmly in the top five of any honest ranking.

Jocky Wilson's two world titles, in 1982 and 1989, would place him on any credible shortlist. His inclusion in the GOAT conversation rests on more than just trophies, though. Wilson embodied the working-class pub-hero archetype that gave early televised darts its commercial punch, and his 1982 final win over John Lowe is still one of the most watched sporting moments in Scottish television history.

He was the first Scottish player to win the world championship, and he remains a folk figure in the sport. The Dexys Midnight Runners "Jocky Wilson said!" moment on Top of the Pops in 1982, during a performance of Come On Eileen, became a cultural marker that outlived the era's sport-and-pop crossover.

On pure results Wilson does not outrank Lowe or Bristow. On impact and identity, he belongs in the top five. Read the full Jocky Wilson profile.

Several current-era players deserve GOAT-conversation recognition even if they sit below the top five. Their cases will evolve as careers play out.

This page is updated when new majors are won or when an existing player materially changes their ranking case. Last editorial pass: 15 April 2026.