The Professional Darts Championship crowned two champions on Saturday to finish their fourth run at Madison Square Garden. Luke Humphries claimed the US Darts Masters championship, and Matt Campbell successfully defended his North American Championship.
Humphries, the top player on the PDC’s Order of Merit, earned his first US Darts Masters title with the victory. The run continued his dominating performance in 2025, with the Englishman winning the World Masters in February and the Premier League in May.
“I’ve won World Championships, World Matchplays, Premier Leagues, and these big titles, and I felt like I’d won another major,” Humphries said. “That’s how big it is, it’s very special, and you could see my relief at the end. This was the one in the World Series that I really wanted to win.”
His road to the title began on Friday in a 6-4 victory against America’s Stowe Buntz in the opening round. He came out of the gates hot on Saturday, romping Danny Lauby 6-2 in the quarterfinals and Gerwyn Price 7-2 in the semifinal. However, his Finals opponent, Nathan Aspinall, was his biggest test of the night.
Aspinall made several statements of his own en route to the final. After defeating Campbell in the first round 6-2, he upset world champion Luke Littler 6-4 in the quarters and routed Damon Heta 7-3 in the semis.
Humphries continued to roll early in the final match, taking the first two legs before pulling out to a 4-1 lead. After the two sides traded the sixth and seventh legs, Aspinall rattled off three straight wins to pull even with Humphries, nailing a bullseye on the final shot of a 90-point checkout attempt to seal the 10th leg.
Tied at five, Humphries finished a 142-point checkout to take the lead back in the 11th leg, but Aspinall refused to yield. He needed 15 darts to win the following game, checking out from 62 to make it 6-6 and force a best-of-three.
However, Humphries weathered the storm and was able to lock down the match from there. After dominating the 13th, he survived a late push in the 14th from Aspinall, finishing with a double eight to capture the US crown. After the match, he gave his flower to Aspinall, saying that darts are better when he’s on his game.
“Everyone knows that he’s such a credit to the sport, and you see that with the amount of support that he got from the crowd,” Humphries said. “He’s had a few injuries over the last two, three years, and it’s not nice to see he has a friend, and it’s just nice to see him back playing fluent and just the way he can.”
In the North American Championship, Campbell successfully defended his title as the top seed, becoming the first player to do so. The Canadian knocked off Jason Brandon 6-1 in the opening round and Stowe Buntz 6-2 in the semifinal, setting up a matchup with friend and countryman Jim Long in the final.
Long, the three seed, defeated Adam Sevada 6-4 in his first match of the day and followed up with a 6-1 win over Lauby.
Campbell was in control from the start, winning the first two legs. After the two sides traded legs 3-7, the champion won the final two games of the match, finishing off a successful title defense. Usually, the winner of the tournament receives an automatic bid to the World Championship and Grand Slam of Darts, but Campbell’s ticket had been punched ahead of the event. However, Campbell refuses to call himself the best.
“There’s so many players in North America that don’t have the chance to qualify,” Campbell said. “It’s so expensive to travel across the big continent. So I’ll never say I’m the top North American until everybody gets that same writing chance as I did.”
With the US Darts Masters in the books, it was a display of a niche sport under the bright lights of The Garden. Saturday night’s games set a new attendance record for the spot in North America, drawing around 4,000 fans, per the PDC. With fans celebrating every 180 point sequence, cheering, singing and dressing up in costume, it was a display of darts and what it can be in a growing market.
In fact, North American players had their fingerprints all over the weekend’s games. Brandon and Lauby each pulled off big upsets in Friday’s opening round, defeating top seed Stephen Bunting and defending champion Rob Cross.
“It’s amazing, like, to see North Americans beat professionals,” Campbell said. “It’s a great stepping stone, and back in the practice room, it’s an amazing feeling when those top A pros are watching the TV and not throwing guards because it’s so close to the double.”
Humphries embraced playing at MSG and says that events like these can only help the sport get bigger. With the United States a hotbed for sports, he believes darts could potentially grow to the level of some of the major sports in the country. “You’re going to create one of the best atmospheres the darts have ever seen, so it’s exciting for us as players to know that we can grow it over here and next year, if we can sell more, who knows? Maybe we go into the big arenas. That’s what I’m excited about.”
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