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Luke Littler is the Premier League champion

Capitalising on the darts boom in the Luke Littler era and how to spot the next potential superstar

By Sporting Life

10:48 · FRI August 30, 2024

Imagine if you knew who would be the next biggest sports star before anyone else.

Your first thought may well be the discovery of Grays Sports Almanac in Back To The Future II that made Biff filthy rich and powerful, but while we all wait in hope for an old version of ourselves to turn up in a time machine, we have to make due with our intuition and research of emerging talent or diamonds in the rough.

Luke Littler was 66/1 to win the World Championship at the start of the tournament last December and so nearly made a complete mockery of those odds when storming into the final with an incredible standard that he's continued to maintain into his maiden season as a PDC pro.

The 17-year-old has incredibly managed to pick up a title every month of the season and has also fired in four nine-dart finishes to cement his status as the biggest star in the sport by quite some distance.

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Those within the darting world have labelled him a 'generational talent' since bursting onto the scene at the Ally Pally and unless he suffers a dramatic fall from grace, then we'll probably never see him at 66/1 again for many years – if at all.

Go back 12 months and there were clear signs and evidence of what he was capable of in youth events, the WDF Tour and in the Modus Super Series but it still felt a leap of faith to expect him to reproduce his best for the biggest stage of them all at the age of just 16.

However it's not just punters who missed a profitable trick with Littler – and indeed with darts as a whole.

Darts hitting the big time

That’s why our partners at marketing agency at G79 Sport have developed a proposition called the ‘Win Window’, a meticulously crafted formula that helps brands to defy the odds and identify where – and when - they’re best to invest.

And the meteoric rise of Littler is a perfect example of how a ‘Win Window’ may slam shut before you ever realise it was open.

The Premier League champion's success over the past year, which has also coincided with Luke Humphries further modernising the sport's image with his major-winning exploits, transcended popular culture in a way that's never been seen in darts before.

The sport’s most successful player of all-time – Phil Taylor – had to win many world titles throughout the 1990s and 2000s before becoming a true household name in the sporting world, but Littler was hitting mainstream news headlines within the space of a few matches.

The World Championship final between the then 16-year-old sensation and eventual winner Luke Humphries was the most watched non-football event in Sky Sports history with a total audience of 4.8 million and while he didn’t walk off with the trophy and the first prize of £500,000, his stardom and earning power was only just beginning.

It wasn’t long before Littler became the first darts player to reach an Instagram following of over one million – which is over double of what his nearest rival Michael van Gerwen has despite the Dutchman winning titles at the highest level for over a decade – while he became a regular on primetime entertainment programmes such as the Jonathan Ross Show, where he was even asked to throw darts with Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown.

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Interview opportunities and media relationships with Littler were quickly becoming harder and harder to come by as everyone wanted a piece of him.

With top-level darts so heavily linked to Sky Sports over the past 30 years, the BBC hardly covered darts on TV, radio or online but even they quickly realised there was now a huge appetite for a sport that they’d previously overlooked.

Ever since Littler created a media circus at the Alexandra Palace back in December, they’ve joined many other major news outlets in staying abreast of all the action on the PDC Tour in a bid for priceless traffic.

Social media-wise, clips of his heroics are pure gold for influencers and mainstream content providers as they regularly go viral and earn the kind of engagement levels that another player would have to do something legendary to match.

Then came Littler’s groundbreaking multi-million fashion deal with BoohooMAN.

But just think what BoohooMAN would have paid if, hypothetically, they’d had their ear close to insiders in the world of darts who would have told them there was a teenager about to go viral in spectacular fashion?

If the clothing brand had partnered with Sporting Life and G79 Sport to implement the ‘Win Window’ and looked at data in two key stages – form and multipliers, they’d have already known when these pivotal moments were going to happen and could have capitalised ahead of time.

Experts within darts - including those at Sporting Life - knew he was going to be the big headline maker and the World Championship has a huge following beyond the ardent darts fans, especially with the football crowd demographic.

Fortunately for the clothing brand, Littler hasn’t stopped producing viral moments of magic darts in his debut season as a professional while he’s already won more titles than many top players have managed in their entire careers.

He’s so often described as a ‘generational talent’ by those within darts and nobody is expecting his climb to slow down any time soon – but those now trying to get on board the Littler train have to accept a huge hike in ticket prices.

To lift the lid on just how the landscape has changed so dramatically, we spoke to former major winner and regular Sporting Life columnist Paul Nicholson...

Sponsoring a player

"When you watch darts on TV, you’ll notice players have room for up to seven sponsors on their shirts. There will be two on the top right of the front, two on the top left, one on each sleeve and sometimes one on the back of their collar. However two of those are taken up by tournament sponsors that the PDC have arranged, with the other five being available for player sponsors.

"The bottom right spot – from the TV viewer’s perspective - is seen as the prime advertising space and you can, for example, claim it for a whole year at a set price that won’t change until the contract is up for renewal. Sponsors can also look for availability on a tournament-by-tournament basis on players who don’t have all their slots filled up for a season. They can be as little as £500 from what I’ve heard.

"If a brand had the foresight to get a spot on Littler’s shirt before last year’s World Championship, they still might have had to pay up to £10,000 given his management team would have expected him to make some kind of impact. My biggest deal was around the £10,000 mark for a year but that was after I’d won a major title and reached the world’s top 10.

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"However, when you think of how many millions of views of Littler’s winning moments and nine-dart finishes are getting on social media – including clips which will circulate for many years to come – as well as the imagery that accompanies endless steams of stories about him online, then £10,000 would have been the deal of the century!

"Before he exploded onto the scene, he didn’t have a full quota of yearly sponsors and some may have just been for the tournament.

"BoohooMAN are one of his new shirt sponsors, occupying the bottom right spot and I believe that’s for a year. As for how much, I would say they probably paid £100,000 – minimum.

"One of his other shirt sponsors will be his darts manufacturer – Target – and that will be on different terms, but the others are for big money.

"Being a sponsor isn’t just about your logo appearing on the shirt. You’ll work in other commitments from the player such as getting them to be involved in marketing campaigns, public appearances and a set amount of social media posts, for example. It’s a package, not just a patch.

"Again, anyone who’d done that with Littler would now be getting astronomical reach and exposure for their brand.

Ticket sellers

"Another big source of income for a player is the exhibition circuit – and Littler can earn upwards of £25,000 per night now just for an appearance fee, which is completely fair considering his talent and appeal.

"A fair chunk of his 2025 calendar will probably be filled but just imagine if a venue had booked him relatively cheaply last year – he’d have to honour it at the price agreed, which again is only fair.

"Before he became world champion Luke Humphries organised an exhibition in the south west of england for this year at a much lower price than he can command now but he still did it. Image is everything and players will always stick to their agreements.

"As for the actual darts that players use, they will have a contract with their manufacturers for a certain amount of years.

"They are all very honourable companies and won’t try and steal players away from each other for more money. Despite manufacturer rivalries, they’ll always wait for players to be out of contract."

Who is the next Littler?

While darts can bask in Littler’s glory and look forward to a huge rise in youngsters playing the sport and an increased level of media coverage in the televised events, brands with smaller budgets who want to capitalise on the darts boom will now have to look out for the ‘Win Windows’ of the next rising stars.

Nicholson added: "Given the longevity of darts players, who can often compete at the highest level well into their 50s and go through plenty of peaks and troughs during their careers, the other option is to look at existing pros that may well enjoy future rises to prominence.

"Brands don’t just have to look at how successful a player is, but also their image, reputation and ability to talk to the press with charisma. Who is social media savvy with a growing army of fans?

"One player I think ticks the boxes right now for anyone who has around £25,000 to spend on sponsoring a player for a year is Ross Smith. He looks good, he hits a lot of 180s, lots of charisma and is starting to challenge regularly for the big titles having already won the European Championship. At the moment he won't be too expensive - but that will change soon I’m sure. Ross is a great example of what a dart player should be right now, and I’ve said that publically many times.

"What’s already clear though, is the stereotypical image of how a darts player looks and behaves has changed a lot in recent times - and the younger ones climbing the ranks now are much fitter and mentally strong than ever before.

"The female game is also growing at a very fast rate as are the youth structures due to the sport being seen as a viable career opportunity more than ever."

Darts is not all about Luke Littler. But the sport as whole has boomed thanks to Luke Littler and brands from inside and outside of the sport still have plenty of opportunities to capitalise upon and find future 'Win Windows'.

The questions for brands wanting to enter the market now is whether you board the Littler train despite the price hike or wait for the next to come along.

Utilising G79 Sport’s ‘Win Window’ harnesses the power of flagship Noise Reports, media intel and analysis, unique search data, insightful social metrics, and top-level consumer insights alongside clever tracking around performances of teams and athletes to get you ahead of the game. Head to https://gold79.co.uk/news/introducing-gold79-sport/ to find out more.