Darts fans claim Sky Sports were forced to mute Ally Pally crowd noise after X-rated chant heard

Fans watching the live coverage of the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship on Sky Sports have claimed the channel muted the crowd noise due to an X-rated chant.

On Monday afternoon, the PDC World Darts Championship continued at Ally Pally, with a star-studded afternoon session.

Chris Dobey kicked off the day with a 4-3 victory over Kevin Doets before Callan Rydz won by the same scoreline against Robert Owen.

During the clash between Rydz and Owen, fans flocked to social media after hearing a few X-rated chants on the broadcast, which apparently led to Sky Sports having to mute the crowd noise on the channel.

One fan said: "Sky muting 'sky TV is f***ing s**t' from the crowd at the darts."

Another tweeted: "Crowd on fire, wish Sky would stop muting it."

A third fan added: "Sky TV doing their best to drown the crowd out #darts #PDCWorldChampionships "We've got our fire sticks" is f***ing hilarious."

Sky Sports stated that they have range of techniques, such as changes to sound output, to mitigate offensive language being heard on air and that crowd noise was brought down during coverage of the afternoon session due to an offensive song about one of the players.

In the last match of the session, fan favourite Nathan Aspinall battered Ricardo Pietreczko 4-0 to seal his place in the last eight, where he will face either Ryan Joyce or teenage sensation Luke Littler.

Nathan Aspinall is through to the last eight. Image: Getty

Speaking after the match, The Asp said: "I feel for Ricardo. He didn't play the game he set out to play. But, wow, what an atmosphere! I have played in Premier League arenas but never heard anything like this today.

"I was so in control of the game but darts is weird. He lost lots of legs on the bounce but can still come back in set play. I thought, 'I cannot lose another leg' and then hit that 131 [with two double tops]."

He continued: "This is probably the first game of darts since the Matchplay where I have walked on stage and loved every minute - and that is down to the crowd.

"My biggest problem is going on social media - I can't do right for doing wrong. I play well, I get criticised, I say the wrong thing, I get criticised. Why am I bothered about the keyboard warriors when I have this support [from the crowd?] That is a lesson for myself."

In the evening session, Stephen Bunting will take on Luke Woodhouse, followed by Michael van Gerwen vs Jeffrey de Graaf and Littler vs Joyce.