Luke Littler final becomes Sky Sports' most-viewed non-football event in history
Luke Littler’s showdown against Luke Humphries in the World Championship final attracted a record audience for Sky Sports on Wednesday night.
World No1 Humphries prevailed 7-4 in front of a packed Alexandra Palace, but only after his 16-year-old opponent had given him a huge fright. Littler was exceptional on the biggest stage and narrowly missed one dart at double two to take a 5-2 lead at one stage.
The teenager from Warrington has captured the imagination of the nation and Sky have now reported that an impressive peak audience of 3.71million people tuned in to watch his match. That is a 143 per cent increase on the 2023 final and makes the event the largest non-football audience for a single event in the broadcaster's history, with 4.8m registered across Sky and NOWTV.
Littler has secured a life-changing payday of £200,000 by finishing as runner-up and is sure to have inspired plenty of viewers to pick up the arrows and give the sport a go themselves. He had to beat five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld and 2018 champion Rob Cross on the way to the final and he picked up millions of fans along the way.
Sky had 2.3m people watch his gripping 6-2 win over Cross in the semi-final and that game was the channel’s most-watched darts match ever until Wednesday blew it out of the water. Before that, the 1.65m who watched Gary Anderson’s win over Phil Taylor in the 2015 final had topped the charts.
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Littler and Humphries certainly didn’t disappoint their bumper audience, putting on a wonderful spectacle, which included 36 180s and some impressive checkouts between the two players. The viewing figures for the final are even more impressive considering they have topped the men’s Ashes between England and Australia and the Ryder Cup.
Luke Littler pulled in a record TV audience (Tom Dulat/Getty Images)PDC chairman Eddie Hearn has been delighted with the new audience Littler is reaching, tweeting his approval throughout the last few weeks. The teenage superstar has racked up 124,000 followers on Twitter and 453,000 on Instagram and is clearly a huge asset for the sport of darts.
His talent and personality were summed up by Humphries after he reeled off five sets to win. “I’m not just saying this because it will please everyone,” he told Sky Sports. “Luke has been an unbelievable talent – not just around the dart board. He has been fantastic with the media that has come about with him.
“He took defeat so well just then. He said ‘go and celebrate’. You will never see a more down to earth 16-year-old like him. He’s just something else. I really hope he’s in the Premier League. If he doesn’t want to play in it, then fair enough, but I think it would be a pleasure to play alongside him this year because he’s one of the best players in the world, there is no doubt about that.”
Littler is now waiting to see if he will be included on the Premier League Darts line-up. He said: "I would rather be in the top 32 than play the development tour. I am happy, top 32 and runner-up on my debut, it's unbelievable. I got to the final and might not get to another for the next five or 20 years. I can say I'm runner-up but I just want to go and win it."
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