How the Luke Littler effect made darts the sport of 2024
From Freddie Flintoff’s Bullseye revival to the must-have dartboard Christmas present, the sport is riding the crest of a wave thanks to Luke Littler’s unique blend of mesmerising talent and natural showmanship, writes Lawrence Ostlere, and it’s not slowing down
In one of the all-time great pieces of nominative determinism, the man at the epicentre of the poker boom was called Chris Moneymaker.
Moneymaker found himself in the eye of a perfect storm: interest in poker surged after the 1998 film Rounders starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton, at a time when the internet’s arrival spawned poker websites which drew millions of American players. In 2003, ESPN took a punt televising the biggest event in poker, the World Series.
They struck gold with Moneymaker, an accountant from Georgia who became the world champion, beating 852 opponents and turning his $40 buy-in into the $2.5m winner’s prize. He was an ordinary American Joe and his story had an inspirational effect. People who’d never before picked up a deck of cards suddenly wanted to be the next Moneymaker.
Two decades on, there is something of Moneymaker in the Luke Littler story. Like Moneymaker, Littler doesn’t necessarily look like the archetypal sporting superstar, and there is something relatable in that. Moneymaker was an ordinary accountant, and Littler is an ordinary teenager who likes computer games and junk food. Against the backdrop of his humanity, his godly talent is all the more mesmerising to watch.
And right now, Littler is having a similar effect on the game of darts as poker once felt, a niche game going mainstream. The PDC World Darts Championship final last January, which Littler lost to world No 1 Luke Humphries, drew 4.8 million viewers, Sky Sports’ highest ever non-football audience. The Premier League Darts season enjoyed its best ever figures since its inception in 2005, and its astonishing final – Littler got his revenge against Humphries and threw a breathtaking nine-dart finish en route to victory – played out in front of a record 14,000 fans at a sold-out O2 Arena.
Not everyone has been enamoured by the Littler story. Several lower-ranked players complained in those early months that his popularity was buying passes to events he hadn’t yet earned the right to enter. Littler channelled the negativity into producing some of his best darts yet, saying as he held the Premier League trophy: “For all the doubters, hello? I’ve just picked up this. You’re not doubting me any more.”
It is this side of Littler that has taken some people aback. His talent is extremely rare – is there a more gifted 17-year-old sportsperson on the planet right now? – but that it’s coupled with a natural bravado and a sense of showmanship on stage is marketing gold.
As 2023 world champion Michael Smith said: “The people at 70, 80, 90 [in the rankings], all they should think about is that their money is going to keep going up and up and up. The more this kid is playing, we get better sponsors … My money is just going to keep going up because some kid is doing it for me. I’m not annoyed and the other players shouldn’t be either. The kid is doing nothing wrong.”
It might get to the point in 10 years where everyone wants him to lose
There were moments during the Premier League season when he toyed with his opponent, with the board, with the entire arena just for the fun of it. Like the time he needed 120 in Sheffield, and instead of the orthodox treble 20, single 20, double 20, he attempted three double 20s and didn’t only find the bed with all three but put them on a pinprick, so they fanned out like one dart had been perfectly spliced in three. Littler grinned and his opponent, Peter Wright, was so dumbfounded he spilt his drink.
Or when he finished off a leg in Belfast with an outrageous 125, throwing bull, outer bull, bull. His rival Nathan Aspinall laughed, and a few minutes later Littler won his first night of the season.
Or that stunning nine-darter, which had grown men standing and staring in disbelief in the crowd, while others leapt into the arms of total strangers. This is the Littler effect, to take the viewer to a place of utter disbelief, one they will talk about for years to come. No one inside the O2 will ever forget the rising noise that accompanied those final three darts.
It pointed to one of the most startling impacts of Littler’s short time in the sport. The nine-darter has always been a hallowed, sacred thing, a near-impossible sporting act statistically more unlikely than a hole-in-one in golf or a maximum 147 break on a snooker table. And yet the frequency with which he threatens to perform one, completing four nine-darters so far this year and missing the ninth dart another five times, has recalibrated that difficulty, to the point that the new wave of darts fans must assume it is an almost daily occurrence.
Fans at the world championship last week were treated to a typical showing, in which Littler pulled off a record average of more than 140 for a single set, throwing four 180s in three legs. Alexandra Palace has been heaving every afternoon and evening, and a big reason is the sport’s teenaged superstar.
And the signs of new life go well beyond north London. Littler’s magnetic board was a hugely popular Christmas present this year with over 100,000 sold in the UK. On the weekend before Christmas, by far ITV’s most popular show was its one-off special reboot of Bullseye, hosted by Freddie Flintoff and featuring Littler at the oche, with 3.3 million viewers, prompting calls for a full-scale return of the show.
There are still challenges for the sport’s organisers. Demographics are tilting dramatically younger, and one quandary for the PDC is how to get young fans to taste a live event like those at Alexandra Palace when it is currently something akin to a giant stag do. There is certainly the interest, with kids’ clubs popping up all over the UK and applications overflowing.
That interest persisted well beyond last year’s world championship. Littler was the most googled athlete in the UK in 2024, more searched than the King or the prime minister and only just behind Donald Trump. Venues have been sold out all year round and the sport’s social media accounts have been growing, none more so than Littler’s own, with nearly 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
Littler’s most-liked post is a photo of him in black tie, holding his Sports Personality of the Year trophies. He won the young athlete’s award and finished second in the overall public vote behind Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson in another sign of just how popular the teenager has become. Darts is basking in his warm glow, and reaching the world championship final on Friday 3 January would create another huge sporting event of royal proportions. Humphries stands in his way in the semi-finals.
Littler is only just getting started, bringing with him an entire sport swept along by an unceasing momentum. So perhaps the only thing that can kill it is a sense of apathy one day setting in when he wins year after year after year. As Humphries said after defeat earlier this year: “It might get to the point in 10 years where everyone wants him to lose, like Phil Taylor, because he just wins everything.”
A version of this article was first published on 24 May 2024
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