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The Split
The British Darts Organisation (BDO) was formed in 1973. It enjoyed a boom time in the late 70's and early 80's before TV broadcasts started to dwindle.
In 1992 16 of the top players became dissenchanted with how the BDO was running events and promoting darts in general. TV coverage had been reduced to one tournament per year (the world championship), and sponsors were few and far between. As a result of this the 16 players formed their own organisation called the World Darts Council (WDC).
The BDO took offence at this and basically said that the players couldn't wear anything that would promote the WDC. This led to the WDC breaking away completely from the BDO, with the 1993 world championships being the last time that players from both parties would take part together.
The WDC eventually changed their name to the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and announced their own world championships.
The BDO then banned anyone from the PDC from playing in their events and also threatened to ban any of their own BDO members if they took part in any exhibitions with PDC members.
Legal action followed and at a major cost to both parties, but an agreement was made in the form of a Tomlin order. Since then the two organisations have run their own tournaments which have their own group of players (members), and subsequently there are now two world championships, one from each organisation.
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