2020 Premier League Darts

2020 Unibet Premier League Darts
Winner
Glen Durrant
Runner-up
Nathan Aspinall
Score
11–8
Dates
6 February–15 October 2020
Edition
16th
Number of players
9 (plus 9 guests)
Venues
8
Nine Dart Finish
Michael Smith  Peter Wright
Premier League Darts
< 2019 | 2020 | 2021 >

The 2020 Unibet Premier League Darts was a darts tournament organised by the Professional Darts Corporation – the sixteenth edition of the tournament. The event began on Thursday 6 February at the P&J Live in Aberdeen and ended with the Play-offs at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry on Thursday 15 October, after a delay was caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Michael van Gerwen was the four-time defending champion after defeating Rob Cross 11–5 in the 2019 final. However, he was eliminated from the competition in week 16, after an 8–2 defeat to Daryl Gurney, and a poor run of form saw him slip out of the playoffs, for the first time in his career.^[1]

Glen Durrant, who was making his debut in the tournament, finished the regular season in 1st place (becoming only the third player to do so at the time, after van Gerwen and Phil Taylor) to set up a semi-final meeting between Gary Anderson. Durrant claimed a narrow 10–9 victory (including surviving 4 match darts from Anderson), before eventually winning the competition, by beating fellow debutant Nathan Aspinall 11–8 in the final to claim his first televised PDC title.^[2]

This was also the first time in Premier League Darts history that the four players that qualified for the finals had not appeared in the finals of the previous year's edition (the four players being van Gerwen, Gurney, Cross and James Wade).

On 12 March 2020, it was announced that the double-header due to be played in Rotterdam had been postponed due to coronavirus concerns.^[3] The following day it was announced that the Rotterdam dates would be moved to September, with the culmination of the tournament taking place there instead of London.^[4] On 16 March 2020. it was announced the round to be played in Newcastle would be moved to October, taking over as the tournament's final round.

The May dates were postponed on 9 April 2020, with the PDC announcing a fully rescheduled calendar, the play-offs now taking place in Sheffield.^[5] Further changes were announced in July and August, with the cancellation of the events in Birmingham, Belfast, Leeds, Berlin, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and the double header in Rotterdam; and the reinstatement of The O₂ Arena as the host of the final. Ten nights were added to the calendar to be held behind closed doors at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.^[6][7] The play-offs were subsequently moved to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and also played behind closed doors.^[8]