Luke Littler’s Long Game
In the blink of an eye, darts prodigy Luke Littler has become a sporting sensation. But while fame has upended his young life in less than two years, this 18-year-old is focusing on staying the distance
By Nick Reilly
After becoming a millionaire at the precocious age of 17 following his Grand Slam of Darts win last November, you might expect Luke Littler to be living a justified life of Lamborghinis and Lanson in the increasingly rare moments that he steps away from the oche. But ask the youngest world champion in darts history how he chooses to spend his downtime and, refreshingly, you’ll receive the same answer that you’d get from millions of teenagers across the land.
“You know what it’s like,” the 18-year-old reflects as we sit down in a dressing room just off the vast corridors of Berlin’s Uber Arena on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in early April, a day before the Premier League Darts tournament arrives in the German capital. “You come home, and you just want to chill. A bit of playing Xbox, speaking to my friends, and going out for some food.”
This down-to-earth response is remarkable when you consider that Littler is one of the most recognisable faces in the UK and — just months into adulthood — already a sporting icon. He is riding a wave that has seen him go from relative obscurity to becoming the PDC World Darts Champion and transforming the sport in a way that no other player has managed in a generation.
For years, Littler toiled in youth leagues and playing games with The Bogey Flickers, the darts team at his local golf club in Runcorn, Cheshire. But his life changed forever when he made his first stab at the 2024 PDC World Darts Championships, which began in December 2023. In a remarkable run to the final, the then 16-year-old claimed the scalps of previous champions Raymond van Barneveld and Rob Cross in emphatic fashion, before eventually losing to Luke Humphries.
He went one better a year later when 3.1 million people tuned in to watch him defeat Michael van Gerwen in January, with those figures — Sky’s highest in the previous year for a non-football event — acting as a perfect indication of what has been called ‘Littlermania’. The ‘mania’ suffix is always pulled out when tabloid newspapers sense the start of a cultural moment and that’s certainly the case when it comes to Littler. He has near single-handedly ignited a passion for darts rarely seen this century. His impact has seen the number of junior academies doubling across the country, while an estimated 100,000 kids woke up on Christmas morning last year to open Littler-branded dart boards.
“That’s one of the biggest things that has happened to me,” he reflects. “Just to see where I’ve come from and the academies that are now starting up through the JDC [Junior Darts Corporation], and hopefully seeing kids going onto a development tour that will let them get their tour card [the requirement needed to compete in ProTour tournaments]. Within the next few years, there’s going to be loads of fresh talent.”
Sky Sports darts presenter and broadcaster Polly James — who personally witnessed Littler’s miraculous rise at the 2024 Worlds — tells Rolling Stone UK: “Darts is changing. The fact is that you’re getting these players who are 14 or 15 and throwing nine-darters and delivering a lorry load of 180s. You’ve got players like Luke who have been throwing arrows since they were in their nappies, effectively. It’s not a pub sport anymore.”
Some critics may baulk at the notion that this game — honed in pubs up and down the land — is now a bonafide sport. But the fact of the matter is that Littler is capable of producing moments of transformative magic in the way that, well, only sport can. In his first attempt at the PDC Premier League last May, he sent 20,000 fans inside London’s O2 Arena into a frenzy when he memorably hit a nine-dart finish — one of the hardest achievements in the whole sport — as he emerged triumphant against Humphries in the final. It would be a remarkable feat for any player, let alone one who had months before faced questions about his age and whether he would be able to keep up with the rigorous travel demands of the Europe-wide competition.
There is an additional argument that moments of magic and impact like these deserve to be mentioned alongside memorable sporting feats like 16-year-old Wayne Rooney’s arrival with a screamer for Everton against Arsenal in 2002, or Ronnie O’Sullivan’s triumph against Stephen Hendry in the 1993 UK Snooker Championships. Like O’Sullivan, Littler also became a title-winning champion at just 17 years old. These moments made an entire generation want to boot a football or pick up a cue, and Littler — similarly — has inspired youngsters to pick up the Tungsten tips.
Put those comparisons to Littler, though, and you’ll face a modest answer that somehow downplays his achievements.
“Well, all of that is just down to my age,” he bluntly puts it. “I know I’ve been compared to them [Rooney and O’Sullivan], and it’s mad to say that, but what we’ve done for our sports is crazy. I just know I’ve got plenty of years left in me. Longevity is the key.”
On that last point, this idea of the long game pops up frequently during my conversation with Littler. It would be easy to write him off as another robotic sports star, but his incredible displays — which will usually see him engage the crowd with an emphatic air punch and a celebratory shout — suggest otherwise. He’s simply happy to let his darts do the talking and instead gives off the air of a confident young man who is acutely aware of his youth and the laser-sharp focus he must maintain if he wants to go the distance.
“I’ve said plenty of times that I want to win one of every major tournament, including the World Cup of Darts, which I’ll be playing in with Luke Humphries this year,” he explains. “I want to win one of every major and then I can look at myself and think ‘Now I’ve completed the lot.’ Then it’s time to just add onto it and win more.”
There’s a similar theme when Littler tells me about the modest celebrations that took place in the wake of his history-making win back in January.
“We came back to the house, ordered some food, and I was up the next morning for media duties at 7am,” he remembers. “But I did get an Instagram DM from David Beckham saying congratulations, and a follow too. So that was good!”
He adds: “You’ll sometimes get downtime, and obviously I’ll look at the trophies in the cabinet and what I’ve won and done for myself, my family, and the world of darts. But usually, it’s a case of playing a tournament, returning home for a day, and you’re back on the road.”
For his family, as Littler has alluded to, the impact of his success has clearly been huge. The star tells me he didn’t splash out on himself for his 18th birthday earlier this year but has been able to “give back to my mum and dad after everything they’ve done for me”.
If newspaper reports are to be believed, part of that success has meant the ability to move his family from a humble two-bedroom semi in Warrington to a five-bed mansion nearby, which he reportedly rents for a cool £6,000 a month — a proper bricks-and-mortar reflection of how transformative this sport can be.
It was his mum and dad — scented candle shop worker Lisa and taxi driver Anthony — who told him to put his efforts into the oche in the very first place. One of Littler’s current PDC rivals, the Mancunian Nathan Aspinall, recently recalled defeating a then 12-year-old Luke at a tournament in Chester — with Anthony dishing out some critical words to his son. “That hard talk over the years has probably produced one of the best players in our sport,” admitted Aspinall.
“My dad pushed me to the limits even when I was at a young age, but it has paid off,” Littler insists. “If it wasn’t for him pushing me, then I probably wouldn’t have got off the Xbox. I was playing football when I was a kid too, and it was him that told me to stop playing football and focus on the darts. But I’m now World Champion at my second time of asking, and I’ve been able to share that moment with them, and they travel with me all over the world.”
Paul Carr, a close friend of Littler and a teammate of his on The Bogey Flickers, adds: “I remember when we turned up to a local darts tournament, and this little kid turned up with his own shirt [with his name] on, and we thought, ‘Who the hell is that?’ It didn’t take long for us to see his talent — he was 11 or 12 when he started playing with the mens team, and he just fitted in straight away.
“You could see his talent was there, but we didn’t expect it to be that quick. But when he comes back and plays for us, he’s still got time for everyone too, and he’s always happy to sign an autograph or take a photo with the kids.”
But for all the financial spoils of being a world champion, there is also the intense spotlight — both media and public — that comes with an irresistible story like Littler’s. It was reported earlier this year that he had hired a bouncer to protect him from “overzealous fans” and it’s this same man — a proverbial brick shithouse of a bloke called Peter who has a head tattoo and could snap me like a twig — who sits quietly in the room throughout the interview. It’s a clear sign, even if Littler underplays it, that his life has very much changed.
“I just do what I’ve always done, and we get spotted more often, and that’s all down to me, but that’s part of the life and the journey that me and my family are on,” he insists.
“But my friends haven’t been different with me since I’ve become world champion. There’s a small group, nine or 10 of us, maybe a bit more, but that’s all I need. They’ve always been the same with me, which has massively helped.”
James adds her perspective: “Luke has had to do so much growing up within a real short space of time,” she says. “I think he learnt very early on about some of the challenges that come with being in the public eye. I was working for Sky at the Premier League Darts in Cardiff, and Luke had just turned 18, so I asked if he was going out on Chippy Lane [a colloquial term for the city’s Caroline Street], where you end up at the end of a night out. He just said, ‘I can’t go out because I’ll probably get jumped on.’ And that’s his reality now; he can’t do that. More often than not, you’ll see Luke in an Under Armour hat, and he does have a bodyguard with him. People will wonder if that’s over the top for darts, but the fact is that a darts tournament can be savage and you do get pulled from left, right and centre when the fans are on you. It can be a bit overwhelming, and he definitely needs someone like that. “
She adds: “He was a minor until a couple of months ago and he’s become a household name overnight. It’s because of him that darts is attracting record audiences for Sky and that people are talking about it all over the world. The fact that you [Rolling Stone UK] are interviewing him, and I was asked to go on CNN Sports in America a little while ago — this doesn’t [usually] happen, but people really want to know all about this boy.”
There is also the added pressure of Littler’s playing form. In the wake of his record-breaking championship wins, he is being put under the microscope and scrutinised in a way that few other players have to deal with in the modern game. When Rolling Stone UK watches Littler in Berlin, he faces a surprise 6–2 loss to Geordie star Chris Dobey. Littler wrote off the defeat as part of a “bad week at the office”, but media reports described it as a “shock”, which feels somewhat dismissive of Dobey’s talent.
“Luke has to remain in a happy frame of mind where he continues to love playing darts,” explains James. “It’s a massive order for him to take on Phil Taylor’s records and not get burnt out, so let’s hope our media don’t pick him up and throw him down like they do with a lot of people. This is a guy who is going to grow up in front of our eyes, and he’s going to make mistakes. There’s going to be phases where he will hate the press and he will hate being in the spotlight. But that’s the nature of the beast.”
As for the future, many hope that Littler could be the man who, in time, matches Phil Taylor’s remarkable record of 16 World Championship titles and 214 professional tournament wins. Only time will tell if that’s the case, but for now it’s time for Littler to defend his Premier League crown at the end of May, play more tournaments across the year and — in December — vie at Ally Pally for the World Championships, where the prize fund has gone up to a cool £1 million. Oh, and even a date at London’s Hyde Park for a Pro-Am tournament, gracing a stage that will host the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and Neil Young in the preceding days. Rock and roll indeed.
After he picked up the Young Sports Personality award last year, there is also every chance he could bag the BBC’s coveted Sports Personality of The Year gong. And every step of the way, a darts-crazy nation will be tuning in to see the next episode in the story of a remarkable youngster whose everyday life, in the past two years, has done a complete oneee hundred and eighty…