By Dylan MacIsaac
Darts today is an unrecognisable entity compared to five years ago. A certain teenager springs to mind, but Luke the Nuke is not the only thing to have a huge effect on the game. I’ll be exploring how darts has changed in the last five years, and how I foresee it changing in the next five.
The 2024 PDC World Championship final saw a total of 4.8 million viewers tune in to watch Luke Humphries defeat Luke Littler. The viewing peaked at 3.71 million, the highest of any non-football event ever on the network. Sports fans have always been excited for the World Championships, but the growth as of late was something no one could have predicted.
Luke Littler is the obvious catalyst, but other factors cannot be forgotten: the perfect leg between Michael Van Gerwen and Michael Smith, darts themselves becoming smaller which makes for bigger averages, and the emergence of ‘going to the darts’ as an event in itself.
Non-darts fans are becoming increasingly likely to attend darts tournaments as a social event with the darts secondary to partying. Darts purists may disagree with this development, but more exposure allows the PDC to use bigger venues and generate more income, meaning they can grow the game even further.
There seems to be no sign of this growth slowing down, with the PDC recently announcing that the prize money for the World Championships will double, with the winner receiving £1 million. The total purse for the season has increased from £7 million to £25 million, and this will be huge for the future of darts.
More young players will be encouraged to start playing darts in hope they can earn millions and be ‘the next Littler’, and the next generation will have more opportunities than ever to make a living in the sport.
The increase will also relieve the pressure on current professionals as they won’t have to put themselves through such a gruelling schedule to keep their tour cards and put food on the table. Darts outside of major events is far from glamorous, with events like Player’s Championships being played behind closed doors in tiny venues all across the country.
It was no surprise when Luke Humphries has recently revealed that he is experiencing burnout, and Luke Littler has spoken on how his managers have helped him select the right tournaments so he doesn’t suffer the same fate.
This is something I envisage becoming more commonplace in the coming years since players will be able to live a more comfortable lifestyle, playing less and earning more. This could also produce a jump in quality yet again as players will have more time to prepare for the major events.
Stars have come and gone in the last few years, but the next generation of dartists already looks to be one of the most exciting ever. Don’t be surprised to see the PDC dominated by young, hungry players in the next few years with huge averages flying in and more and more people falling in love with the game.