EMMA PATON will appear more times on TV over Christmas than the King, Wallace & Gromit and Strictly Come Dancing stars.
As the face of Sky Sports Darts, Paton will be front and centre over 20 evenings of action as the sport’s first £1MILLION champion is crowned on Super Saturday next month.
Yet her first experience of Ally Pally was not with a microphone in hand but holding a drink while dressed as a NUN.
Paton laughed as she revealed: “Oh, I’ve been to the darts before as a fan, yes.
“As a nun. Well, it was in a group of nuns. It was years ago.
“It was with my best friend, who still goes now. She goes every year. She’s always asking me for tickets.”
Little did Paton know, as she was dressed up like Mother Teresa, that a decade later, she would end up as the Mother Superior of the oche.
The days she went as a punter, she was a junior member of the Sky Sports website team.
Paton joined the media giants in December 2012, not long after finishing a Master’s in sports journalism.
At the London 2012 Olympics, she had her own seat for Super Saturday — the famous night Brit trio Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Jessica Ennis-Hill won gold medals in 45 stunning minutes — thanks to her “incredible internship” on Team GB’s media desk.
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World Darts Championship 2025/26 – all the info
LUK OUT!
Christmas decorations going up and the nights drawing in can only mean one thing… the return of the World Darts Championship!
Several superstars will be determined to slay defending champion Luke Littler at the Ally Pally spectacle.
And the world No1 is set to have his work cut out with an expanded 128-player field competing for a share of the huge prize fund.
But after recently completing the TV darts trophy haul, Littler is a nailed-on favourite to retain his title.
Here’s everything you need to know for this iconic competition…
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She also had a “front-row seat” as Jamaican legend Usain Bolt claimed the 100 and 200 metres sprint double in East London.
Track-and-field was her first love and Paton was a decent 400m runner — a contemporary was former European indoor champion Perri Shakes-Drayton — but her sporting dreams were ended by a ruptured ankle ligament.
Athletics’ loss was sports journalism’s gain and Paton has worked her way up, through writing and production roles, presenting Transfer Deadline Day and covering the US Open tennis.
She has put in the hard yards, with plenty of 3am starts and deserves her success as the face of darts, following Jeff Stelling, Dave Clark and Laura Woods.
Ultra-professional and diligent, Paton does her homework and studies the form book while juggling a director in her ear.
There is no autocue or script, everything is prepared in the four-five hours before live transmission.
In the future when TV historians replay the moments of January 3, as the winner of the Sid Waddell Trophy is handed a £1m cheque, Paton will be calling the shots.
She added: “I feel nervous anyway at finals. Maybe I’ll be even more nervous this time around.
“Maybe there’ll be a slightly different feel in the room and it will just be this added, I don’t want to say pressure but more weight on it this time around.
“Whoever’s in that final will be, ultimately, just thinking about winning the world title.
“But I’m sure they’ll have thought about the money as well.
“Over the last couple of years, darts has been elevated massively.
“It feels like the interest has doubled, if not tripled.
“We’ve seen that with the viewing figures on Sky.
“The final a couple of years ago [when Luke Humphries beat Luke Littler in 2024] was the highest ever, the most watched outside of football.
“I’m lucky to be working in a sport that has really skyrocketed over the last few years.
“And I’m lucky to be part of a wonderful team.”
l Sky Sports will be the exclusive home of the World Darts Championship, with 20 days of unmissable action starting on Thursday.
