One Hundred And Eighty (Stats)
The newest star of World Darts
Now, a lot of readers may not have come across Darts, other than struggle to hit the board in a casual game down the pub
But the recent run of Luke Littler at the World Darts Championship, held annually at Alexandria Palace in London, UK, has captured the imaginations of plenty of first-time viewers
The 16 year old made it all the way to Wednesday’s final, losing to Luke Humphries, but still becoming the youngest player to reach the final stage
So how much do you know about Darts’ newest name, and the sport in general?
But first, what is the Darts World Championship?
This year’s competition is the 31st iteration, organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC)
The PDC competition first took place in 1994, following its split from the British Darts Organisation - which ceased to exist as a competitor to the PDC in March 2023
The competition is held over the course of almost 3 weeks at Alexandra Palace (or Ally Pally) to a live audience of 3,200 people, most of whom attend in fancy dress and are rather well inebriated (for example, the average fan drank 8 pints of beer in a single day in the 2015 edition of the competition)
For most of its first few decades, the PDC’s annual showcase was dominated by one man - Phil “The Power” Taylor. Taylor won 14 world championships, including 8 titles back-to-back between 1995 and 2002
In total, 12 people have won the world championship, including Mr Humphies, the PDC’s newest champion
What happened in this year’s World Championships?
There were 95 matches, involving 96 players, that took place over 16 days of action (the competition itself lasts for 20 days, but there are no matches on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Eve
The two finalists, as you might expect, performed the best throughout the tournament
They both achieved higher average scores than any other player, with debutant Littler (already the youngest player to reach the final) scoring more average scores above 100 than all other players. Before the final, he’d also hit 293 centuries (scores of 100+) and 70 scores above 140
Some of the next best performers were:
- Humphries, scoring 3 averages of 100+, achieving the highest average score of any player in the semi-final vs. Scott Williams (108.74) and scoring more 180s than any other player (73)
- Chris Dobey, who also scored 3 averages scores of 100+, but went out to Rob Cross in the Quarter Final
It is worth noting though, that these averages aren’t quite as high as the records from previous tournaments. Michael van Gerwen holds the record for a single match average when he achieved a score of 114.05 in his 2017 semi-final vs. Raymond van Barneveld
A record 4.8 million people tuned in to watch the final, a 143% increase on the previous year and the highest ever non-football peak audience. Other sporting events, and major television moments, comparatively achieve better viewership, such as:
- 22 million people in the UK tuned in (or used a streaming service) to watch the Football World Cup final between France and Argentina (this was 1.5 billion globally)
- 11.3 million people watched the 2023 men’s Wimbledon final
- 20+ million viewers saw King Charles’ coronation in May 2023
The event sponsor, Prostate Cancer UK, offered to donate £1,000 for every perfect ‘180’ score during the competition. With a record 914 maximum scores across all matches, £914,000 was raised for charity
So what’s next for Littler?
First of all, I’m sure he’ll be collecting his £200,000 prize money, a great return considering he’d only earned £2,500 in winnings before this tournament (although with the total prize pot remaining flat for the 6th year in a row, at £2.5 million, others may be less happy with their winnings)
On top of this, Littler will be rising significantly up the PDC ranking from 164th to at least 32nd. On top of this, he’s been offered a place in the Darts Premier League, a PDC mini-tournament involving 8 of the top players in the country, achieving another record as the youngest player to be given a place
Check out more GoodStats about Sport:
- An All Black upset; Some scrumptious World Cup stats
- La Roja overcome chaos in the Women’s World Cup; The Lionesses roar is put out
- All upsets at the All England Club; Did you climb Murray’s mound this year?
Sources: Sky Sports; BBC; Sporting News; FIFA; BBC; Daily Star; Wikipedia; Sky Sports; Financial Times; Wikipedia; Sky Sports; Wikipedia; Independent;
