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In this blog post we deal with the biggest darts association in Germany - the DSAB. There are many associations in darts. But before steeldarts experienced a boom in recent years, far more players played e-darts. The DSAB gave these players a home. The Dart League organizes all major tournaments in Germany in the field of electronic darts and is considered a pioneer. The number of members is far higher than any other darts association in Germany. Softdart has been on everyone's lips for much longer than is the case with steeldarts.
The abbreviation DSAB stands for Deutscher Sportautomatenbund e. V.. As the name suggests, the DSAB is an e-darts association. In every league of the darts association you play on so-called dart machines - which, as is well known, can be found in an extremely large number of pubs and restaurants in Germany. And this is exactly the reason for the enormous size and popularity of the association. After all, dart machines have been around for decades in pubs, while the steeldarts in restaurants is still trying to assert itself - also due to financial attractions, but more about that later.
The DSAB provides a structure in the electronic darts scene. In each state there are several local leagues in which the respective resident teams compete against each other. Now the official website of the federation is dsab-vfs.de. The second abbreviation - i.e. vfs - here stands for Verein zur Förderung des Automatensports e. V. (association for the promotion of slot machine sports). VFS DSAB is therefore not only an association, but also an association for the promotion of this sport. This fact gives the whole construct more structure and ensures the steady expansion of the league system.
The beginnings of the DSAB Dart already lie some years back. In September 1989 the German Sports Association was founded to promote and structure the sport of e-darts. As there were always enormous differences in quality between the opponents before, the DSAB also pioneered a league system in which the players or teams are divided into A, B and C classes - depending on their strength. This allowed each team to compete against an opponent in its weight class.
The rapid rise of the darts association reached its first peak around the turn of the millennium. Nearly 18,000 teams were registered with the DSAB in 2000 - an insane number for a niche sport in Germany. But this also shows that the German Sports Association recognized the need very early and drew the right conclusions.
The reasons why the DSAB is so large are many and varied and usually relatively simple. That's how it often is in life. Such an association can only offer a place for as many people as possible if membership is simple and attractive.
Above all, pay attention to the quality and material when buying.
So it was not for nothing that in 1999 more than 800 teams took part in the DLMM, the German League Team Championships - which incidentally was the biggest darts tournament in the world at the time.
But beyond that, there are other multifaceted reasons for the success and size of the DSAB. One of these reasons is the age. So the darts association exists for 31 years by now. This of course shows that the association has been picking up interested members in the sport of darts long before the darts boom in Germany.
But there are also two completely practical examples of why the DSAB has grown in this way. But first of all, it is probably interesting for you to know how many members this association has in total.
The answer: a whopping 80,000 members!
One of the main reasons is definitely the attractiveness for pubs. This means that a pub earns money with e-darts. But how exactly?
Sure, once about the sold drinks and food during a game of darts. But also the dart machine offers the possibility to generate money, because from the deposit money for each game the innkeeper of the pub gets a part paid out. For this reason, the sport of e-darts is often far more interesting for pubs than is the case with steeldarts.
A final point for the success and greatness of DSAB Dart is that people can join very easily. It is very easy to become a member of the DSAB. All that is required is a lion dart machine and a minimum number of players for a team. The financial outlay to field a team in an official DSAB league is also manageable.
In the last chapter about the biggest darts federation in Germany we take a close look at the rules, the rankings and the leagues and tournaments. How exactly is the federation organized?
The leagues are organized according to the federal state. In each state, there are a number of local leagues in which teams can compete locally without having to travel too far.
One example: In Rhineland-Palatinate, there is initially a division into many major regions. In a major region, there is a subdivision according to quality - depending on the number of teams in several A classes, B classes and C classes. A league structure that has worked successfully for several decades.
For each of these leagues there is then also a corresponding individual, team, result and round ranking list, which the players of the league can look at. In addition to this league system, there are also other tournaments. The biggest of these tournaments is the already mentioned DLMM - the German League Team Championship, which takes place in Geiselwind.
The DSAB Tour, in which a Germany-wide ranking is used, is also particularly interesting. But let's get back to the venue in Geiselwind. Because not only the DLMM takes place here, but also the Masters of Masters, where you compete against your opponents in the singles and the German Championships.
Finally, let's have a look at the rules of the darts federation. These are currently hardly different from the rules in steeldarts - with two exceptions. As always, those darts that fall out of the dartboard also count in e-darts. And secondly, the distance to the board was adjusted a few years ago. Previously, darts were thrown from 2.44 meters. In the meantime, the throwing distance is at 2.37 m, analogous to the stone darts.
So for all dart players there is no big difference anymore to switch between the two sports even once.
