EMMA PATON’S first World Darts Championship as Sky Sports presenter started by watching a fan dressed as a TRAFFIC CONE throw up into his shoe.
Now the 29-year-old will have been on telly for more hours over the festivities than The King, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale all rolled together.
She will be the lead presenter for 110 hours of Sky Sports coverage of the Paddy Power World Championship – with the final between Luke Littler and Luke Humphries taking place tonight.
Paton, a former 400 metre runner, admits that it’s one of the toughest gigs in front of the most outrageous and rowdy crowds in sport. She also revealed she stays quiet on social media, because she’s BORING.
Speaking before the tournament, Emma told SunSport: “I remember the first Worlds when fans were back after the pandemic.
“I was driving up the hill to Ally Pally and I saw someone dressed as a traffic cone and then actually threw up in their own shoe. I was like ‘what the hell am I doing here!’
“It is really loud. There are some occasions when it’s just a wall of noise.
“There are times when I actually can’t hear what Wayne Mardle, Mark Webster or John Part are saying. I can’t even hear the director in my ear. I just have to hope we are on the same page for running order and not too much has changed.
“Working with Wayne has helped me, he is someone who has always backs me. He’s one of those people who wants people around him to succeed.
“He’s like the Gary Neville of Sky Sports Darts. He’s so engaging and his analysis is second to none and his stories are ridiculous!”
CASINO SPECIAL – BEST CASINO WELCOME OFFERS
Paton has been a mainstay presenter of Sky Sports News since 2019 and Sky’s coverage of tennis, WWE and the host of Sky’s transfer deadline day.
Surrey-born Paton has a degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Loughborough University and a Master’s in Sports Journalism from St Mary’s University Twickenham.
She had previously worked as part of the media team for Team GB during the 2012 London Olympics.
But she admits that there was a lot of pressure taking over from former arrows anchorman Dave Clark towards the end of 2020.
She added: “It’s a fairly niche sport. You can look on X and people can pile in on certain things.
“In some ways I thought presenting football would be easier for me. It was a sport I had watched a lot more of by virtue of growing up as a football fan.
“In a way it felt more pressure because Dave had been so good for so long and had set the standard.
“It was probably a risk to bring me in as presenter, 100 per cent.
“It came at a time when there was a change in darts. It was 2020 and coming off the back of Fallon Sherrock having her run beating Ted Evetts and Mensur Suljović.
“In some way it had shifted the mindset. There were casual fans who had tuned in to watch the World Championship over Christmas. They were like ‘wow women can play darts, we didn’t even know that’. We had Billie Jean King tweeting about it.
“It came at a time where, not only when Sky were putting females at the front of certain sports, but in darts we had some brilliant females coming through. I felt it changed people’s expectations of the sport.”
Paton has 144,000 followers on Instagram and 69,000 on X but also admits she is happy to remain quiet on social media.
She added: “We had two million people watch the World Final last year. If I get one tweet saying ‘didn’t enjoy that’ or something, I’m not going to take it to heart. You’ve got to have thick skin.
“It’s just the world we live in. If I made a mistake or even had a certain opinion about something, it could be scrutinised more than maybe a male counterpart.
“If you respond to people, you go down a rabbit hole. You’re almost giving them something to come back with.
“I’m quite a private person anyway even with people fairly close to me.
“You know what, I’m fairly boring. Work is a huge part of my life, that’s what I spend the majority of my life doing.
“Other than that all I do is training, gym, running. There’s not a lot else really!”
As we approach the 16-day extravaganza Worlds, Paton can’t help but reflect on last year’s epic final with the greatest leg of all-time between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen.
She added: “I was in the studio in the glass box at the Ally Pally, it is the best seat in the house.
“We are watching the darts on screen. But when we get three darts into a nine, I’ll turn around and look at the actual stage.
“I remember a sound guy in the studio called Rory started filming, probably when we got to Van Gerwen’s last three darts. Then Smith nailed his and we were screaming in the studio. We got a view of the fans going absolutely mental.
“I came away thinking that was the best event I could ever present and be a part of.
“It’s one of those moments that will be talked about for decades to come, it’s part of history.”
