Luke Littler’s darts final was the most watched non-football match in Sky Sports history.
Luke Littler’s darts final was the most watched non-football match in Sky Sports history.
Luke Littler’s World Cup final against Luke Humphries drew a record crowd for Sky Sports on Wednesday night.
World number one Humphries won 7-4 in front of a packed Alexander Palace, but only after his 16-year-old opponent gave him a serious scare. Littler had an outstanding performance on the biggest stage, narrowly missing an arrow in the doubles to lead 5-2 at one stage.
The Warrington teenager captured the nation’s imagination, with Sky reporting his match was watched by more than 3.71 million viewers. This represents a 143% increase on the 2023 final and reached 4.8 million registered viewers on Sky and NOWTV, making it the biggest audience for a single non-football event in the broadcaster’s history.
Littler came second, securing a life-changing £200,000 and is likely to inspire many spectators to pick up a dart and try the sport for themselves. En route to the final, he should have won over millions of fans by defeating five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld and 2018 champion Rob Cross.
Sky 2.3 million watched his 6-2 semi-final win over Cross, which was the channel’s most-watched darts match before it was pulled out of the water on Wednesday. Previously, Gary Anderson’s 1.65m victory over Phil Taylor in the 2015 final topped the charts.
Littler and Humphreys certainly didn’t let their huge crowd down and put on a great show including 36,180 and an impressive cash draw between the two players. With the men’s Ashes match between England and Australia and the Ryder Cup, the ratings for the final are even more impressive.
PDC chairman Eddie Hearn has been delighted with Littler’s new audience and has tweeted his approval in recent weeks. The teenage superstar has 124,000 followers on Twitter and 453,000 on Instagram and is clearly a huge asset to the sport of darts.
His talent and character were summed up after Humphreys took five sets to win. “I’m not saying it because everyone likes it,” he told Sky Sports. “Luke had great talent, not just on the dart board. He was very good at the media he created with it.
“He took the loss well at that point. He said, “Go and celebrate.” You’ll never see a more ordinary 16-year-old than him. He is a different person. I think he will play in the Premier League. It’s fair enough if he doesn’t want to play there, but I think it will be fun to play with him this year because he’s one of the best players in the world. There is no doubt about it.”
Littler is now waiting to hear if he will be included in the Premier League darts squad. “I’d rather be in the top 32 than play in the development tournament,” he said. I’m very happy that I debuted and placed 32nd and 2nd. I made it to the finals, but I might not make it for another 5 or 20 years. “I could say I’m second, but I just want to win.”
