(Thomas Blackburne is a freelance journalist and blogger at www.thesportbag.tumblr.com)

Does anyone really care about darts?

When someone - like me, for example - says, "I follow the sport that is DARTS!" most normal or garden-variety sports fans curl their face into a look of absolute horror.  

Darts is reserved for dingey, dark pubs where a constant waft of stale vomit and strong cleaning agents fills your nostrils. Hobo-esque, out-of-shape drunkards throw darts at the dart board as a sort of break from their unwavering ambition to get blind drunk. 

When the casual pubgoer heads to the board, they do so with a great sense of uncertainty about how to actually play the game, how far away to stand (7 feet, 9-and-a-quarter inches, if you must know), and how the pros hit the bullseye and triple 20 with such regularity. 

It's all just a bit of fun - a hobby. Darts is not a real sport, and who'd seriously want to follow any competition based around a pub game, right?

Wrong!

Darts is big. It's massive. And people care!

All BDO (British Darts Organisation) events have been televised on the BBC in the UK for the past 33 years, with SKY Sports televising all World Professional Darts Corporation events since 1994. Now ESPN is jumping on board and will televise events for the 2012 professional calendar.

The World Darts Federation has 67 member countries and two member organisations, the competing BDO and PDC. Both run several world events offering serious cash for men's and women's competitions. 

Over the past 10 years, the BDO World Darts Championship has had an average viewing audience of 2.5 million British fanatics cheering on their country's many darts champions.

So why do so many (admittedly British) louts follow this sport with such passion and fervour?

Here is why I think darts has gone beyond a game reserved for social misfits in the back corner of a dingy pub and into a mainstream sport people really care about:

1.       They have kept the professional game in the same place it gained prominence - the pub. All pro competitions in England are played in pubs fitted out to allow a viewing gallery - and lots of drinking.

2.       It's the game of the everyman, the ‘Average Joe' or even Joe's slightly off kilter cousin Larry who works as a labourer and spends majority of his cash on tattoos, beer, big TV's and action movie DVDs, but geeez he's a top bloke! 

It's the game of the pub larrikin and loud mouth. People like this guy and his antics in the pub and on the pro-darts tour. Importantly, they appreciate his skill with a dart (because it is bloody hard to hit those little double and triple sections all the time).

3.       Nicknames - any darts player worth a damn has a great nickname! Exhibit A: 15-time PDC and BDO world darts champion Phil ‘The Power' Taylor. A cheeky nickname for a portly, thin haired bloke the wrong side of 45. He certainly doesn't embody the word power at first sight, but on the darts scene he's an all-conquering colossus who rarely loses. 

There's a host of others: Eric ‘The Crafty Cockney' Bristow, Simon ‘The Wizard of Oz' Whitlock, Jamie ‘Bravedart' Harvey (yep, he's Scottish), Wayne ‘Hawaii Five-O-One' Mardle (he plays in Hawaiian shirts) and Tina ‘The Golden Girl' Gulliver.

With their nicknames, these players have a greater persona than just another person standing at the line. They own their nickname and this creates theatre for the sport. It's like mixing 8 parts darts with 2 parts WWE wrestling. People love to see this, and love getting around their favourite player. 

Darts is a sport where fans can really admire - and aspire to be (within reason) - their idols. Darts is a sport where followers can loosen up and enjoy a quality display of skill down at the local pub. It's a fun and light blue-collar sport for the drinking masses. It's simple enough for anyone to enjoy but can be over analysed enough for die-hard fans to really sink their teeth into.

Ok, so you're thinking: ‘some people care about darts, but why do I have to read this junk? I hate darts'.

Maybe you do, but do you hate Australian sportsmen? Do you want to be patriotic and support a fellow everyday Aussie in his quest to become the world champ? I'm going to go ahead and assume you do. 

Then get behind Simon ‘The Wizard of Oz' Whitlock who is on a journey to be crowned world No.1. 

This is a man with an astonishing mullet that has some serious business going on at the front, too, who was knocked out of the world championship in a desperately close semi-final this week. 

Simon has vowed to continue his quest for glory and I am imploring you to get behind the ‘The Wizard of Oz' as he takes on the world. That would bring some much-needed magic to the sport in this country.