Sky Sports host Emma Paton booed by Premier League Darts fans for walking off stage
Sky Sports darts presenter Emma Paton was repeatedly jeered by Premier League fans in Rotterdam.
Sky Sports darts host Emma Paton was repeatedly booed by fans in Rotterdam as she previewed night 12 of the Premier League. As Paton, Wayne Mardle and Mark Webster looked ahead to another exciting evening of the sport, the crowd appeared frustrated whenever the cameras for the big screen panned away from Paton - and whenever she left the stage.
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Fans at Michael van Gerwen's home venue consistently cracked the punditry team up as their loud voices were heard early into the evening - before a match had even been played.
Mardle and Webster joined Paton on stage before Luke Littler lost 6-3 to Michael Smith in the opening contest in the Netherlands, as has become a tradition for Sky's coverage of the event.
And supporters were visibly enjoying Paton's analysis and the questions she posed to the two commentators, loudly cheering any time that she was on screen.
However, when the cameras panned elsewhere or a montage of a player other than Van Gerwen was shown on the big monitors inside the arena, the crowd booed as they wanted to see more of Paton.
The on-stage trio cracked up as Mardle joked "enough now!" before taking to X (formerly known as Twitter) to explain to fans why they heard jeering at the host.
He wrote: "The audience want to see more of @MissEmmaPaton apparently…and less of Webby and I. #RotterdamPL." To which Paton replied with three laughing emojis. The crowd then jeered again when Paton had to leave the stage ahead of the first match of the night.
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Paton has been a regular on Sky Sports and Sky Sports News, first joining the station as a journalist in 2012 before moving to become a presenter in 2019.
She has covered tennis, WWE and football for the broadcaster and admitted that her love for sport and athletics led her down this career path. “I’m someone who just loves sport," Paton told Sports Gazette. "Having an athletic background — national level 400m metre runner — that’s where it all came from.
“That’s a reason I got into journalism. If I’m not the athlete, why not be able to speak to the athletes. It was really when I was doing my undergraduate degree at Loughborough, I was doing more reading, more writing, doing more actual watching stuff."
