Luke Littler and Beau Greaves in a world of their own as darts continues to thrive among the younger generations

Brilliant Beau

Beau Greaves produced ridiculous levels of domination in April that we may never see again.

She won 31 legs in a row over seven matches as she stormed to her second successive Women’s Series title and that run included averages of 99 against Fallon Sherrock and 100 against Lisa Ashton.

The calibre of competition in The Women’s Series is better than ever and the fact she managed 31 legs in a row is all about her and how good she is. I don’t think she survived one dart at a match double!

It just goes to show what planet she's on at the minute and nobody else is on it.

We’ve all given her so much praise over the last eight years or so since she was 12 but she’s now doing things in 2024 that nobody has before. Plus, I’m not just talking about women.

In the Modus Super Series nobody had ever gone a week without a defeat.

Beau has achieved that feat – against the men.

It's not about gender. This is about Beau. She's done something that nobody has done.

She averaged over 93 for the whole week which really puts her at a world class level. She’d mix it on the PDC Tour playing like that so consistently.

Beau endured a little wobble last year after other players fought back against her dominance but this is a very strong second wind and there’s probably more to come because she's only 20.

She’s a lovely girl who takes everything in her stride and doesn’t seek attention. It’s just another day of darts for her and that’s the secret to success in sport.

Littler achieving big things

Although we’re all so used to Luke Littler’s brilliance by now, that can’t take away from how astonishing it is that he’s won four titles by the end of April in his debut season.

No other player has won more than two and there’s a host of players on one.

He’s top of the Premier League with four nightly wins, banging in the 100+ averages for fun and perhaps even more impressively, he’s laughing in the face of any boos he’s receiving.

Luke has a very thick skin and he’s having an absolute blast.

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He’s only 17 and still effectively a kid so let him enjoy this stage of life whilst having fun. It’s refreshing to see and it’s sad that there are some people already trying to bring him down over how he’s handled the heckles from some crowds.

Although some of the Premier League players are getting tired and taking strategic breaks ahead of the summer, Littler decided to go to the Austrian Darts Open and came back with the prestigious green jacket.

That puts him in an exclusive club with Michael van Gerwen and Jonny Clayton.

He's having great fun and he's got the right attitude. I know that things will change over the next few seasons as pressure ramps up, especially if he wins a world title.

However, at the minute, let him keep doing what he's doing. Let him off this leash because it's great to watch – almost like when Wayne Rooney first burst onto the scene.

He’s also teaching players how to handle the boos because rather than get upset by them, he laughs and gives it back!

Phil Taylor once said that I invited the boos with my image but didn’t have a thick enough skin to handle it. He was right.

When it was at its peak, I found it quite hurtful. I didn't read the room properly and I didn't know myself properly. I should have recognised the fact that if I did this it was going to be derogatory to me.

I tried to put on a brave face when I was on the stage but if you speak to some of the lads backstage when I lost matches and was involved in horrible situations, the amount of players that consoled me with tears in my eyes is too many to count.

Littler certainly does have a thick enough skin – and he’s not even inviting the boos. Any negativity is just down to his confidence and his support of Manchester United sometimes.

It's good to see someone who can have a laugh with the crowd, have a bit of banter and at the end of it still succeed.

Darts reaching new audiences

The first ever MODUS Super Series Charity Influencer event took place in April featuring the likes of the Darts Referee, Pieface and George Scaife.

As well as a singles contest between themselves, they also teamed up alongside top players including Fallon Sherrock, Ted Evetts and Jarred Cole in a doubles competition.

The standard of darts was pretty much what you’d expect but we did see an incredible 180 from TikToker George Scaife with his very first visit.

Generally speaking, the novelty of watching any kind of celebrity play darts pretty poorly – compared to the elite level stars of course – tends to wear off pretty quickly, so these influencers deserve a lot of credit for the impressive viewing figures that Sunday.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but the numbers of people tuning in live or interacting in other ways on social media dwarfed anything that we've done here at the Modus Super Series before.

It was a real eye opener to me and now we’ve got to look how we move forward.

There’s already plenty of positive feedback about doing another one but we’re not stupid enough to think we need to stage it every month, for example.

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Too much of this could see it become stale too quickly unless the performance levels came on leaps and bounds. At the moment it seems more like an annual event which will hopefully attract even bigger names and different influencers.

It’s good fun, it was for charity and the fact we staged it on a Sunday meant it didn’t clash with any of the serious competitions that are staged in the studio.

The public do want to see it but we need to harness the demand and not overdo it.

Now the one big question from this is whether darts needs – or uses - the influencers to grow the sport or whether the influencers are using darts to build their audience?

How many of those who tuned in weren’t actually darts fans and were only watching because their favourite influencer was involved? And will those people realistically now want to go and watch the pros play?

From the Modus point of view we wanted to attract a different demographic and widen our audience but also to see if there were any gaps in the market that we can fill.

Fans of Pieface, for example, will know he’s into darts and could also love the sport – yet they might not have been familiar with the Modus product.

There was absolutely nothing lose and we can safely say it was a great success.

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