Is Luke Littler’s rise to greatness a guaranteed good thing for darts? | Jonathan Liew
You know what? I reckon this is the year Luke Littler could finally be ready for the Premier League. Obviously we all still want to wrap him up in cotton wool. Obviously we’re all still deeply concerned about how the attention and pressure could affect his game. But my bet – if the evidence of the last 12 months is any guide – is that he might just be able to handle it.Premier League champion, Grand Slam champion, a slew of victories across eight different countries in the Pro Tour, the European Tour and the World Series. Nine-dart finishes falling out of his sleeves. Had he not also gone on to win his first world championship at the age of 17, we would still be toasting one of the most remarkable full debut seasons ever seen in the sport’s professional era.Now, after beating Michael van Gerwen in Friday’s final, Littler talks of bridging the gap to Phil Taylor, a mere 15 world titles ahead of him, and maybe you think that’s realistic and maybe you don’t, but either way it’s a debate worth having. Imagine what more he might have been able to achieve if – as Gary Anderson so acridly warned this time last year – the media hadn’t been busy ruining him.For Littler, who looked utterly exhausted as he posed with the trophy on Friday night, there will be the briefest of respites before the 12-month treadmill starts again. In the short term the milestones will keep piling up: a first Premier League title defence, a first Masters appearance at the end of this month, an England debut in June as he and Luke Humphries take on the World Cup of Darts (yep, good luck to everyone else there).At which point we must pose a slightly pointed question: if Littler does start to dwarf the sport as Van Gerwen and Taylor once did, but now on a global stage to a global audience, is that a good thing for darts or not? Historically speaking, the last few years have been unprecedented in their flux and chaos, an era when the winners’ circle has felt more accessible than ever and yet the sport seems to have lacked a coherent narrative as a consequence. Now, perhaps, the edges are beginning to sharpen a little.View image in fullscreenLuke Littler has showed remarkable poise during his first proper season in professional darts. Photograph: Ian Stephen/ProSports/REX/ShutterstockPerhaps in time they may sharpen a little more. Even Humphries, still the world No 1 and World Matchplay champion, has said he expects Littler to dominate before long. The talent is clearly there and the hunger is still fresh. From a marketing standpoint all the evidence suggests that dynasties drive numbers: behold the halo effect of a Simone Biles, a Serena Williams, a Tiger Woods. But at what point does unassailability morph into uniformity? Does darts want to tell the world one story, or several?This is perhaps a more urgent issue than many in the sport currently recognise. One of the great virtues of darts was that different events always had a different feel. The Alexandra Palace crowd was day-trippers and hedonists; Minehead was holidaymakers and hardcore; Blackpool was for the cognoscenti, the place where you actually went to watch and applaud darts. English crowds were different from Scottish crowds, which were different from Dutch crowds, and so on.But these distinctions have come to feel less and less meaningful with every passing year. Wherever you go, from Glasgow to Graz to Wollongong, “The Darts” is now essentially the same basic substance: the same players playing pretty much the same format, the same fancy dress, the same football songs, the same fizzy beer, the same vaguely charged spirit of licentious escapism.The tendency towards monoculture has served darts extremely well from a commercial standpoint, allowing it to market the same battle-tested product in every new market. And while the faces at the top kept changing – a little Van Gerwen, a little Michael Smith and Peter Wright, a short Gerwyn Price interlude, the odd European bolter – it didn’t really matter, because there was always a fresh supply of storylines to keep the wheel turning.To be fair, on some level the PDC does seem to get this. The revival of the Winmau World Masters, with its unique first-to-two-set format and nod to the sport’s gravy-flecked past, is an acknowledgment of the need for greater variety, more textures and tones in an increasingly stuffed schedule. Arguably, though, they could go further still.Luke Littler becomes the youngest world champion in darts history – videoThe commentator Paul Nicholson – always a livewire source of ideas at times like this – has suggested a Royal Rumble-style winner-stays-on event, as well as a Ryder Cup-style team showdown. And why always 501? Why always double-out? If the future of darts really is Luke Littler stamping on a human face for ever, why not at least make him do it in as many different ways as possible?Meanwhile, it’s time for the chasing pack to step up. A rested Humphries, a rejuvenated Van Gerwen and a resurgent Stephen Bunting all have the opportunity to mount a challenge in 2025. I’d like to see the richly talented Damon Heta get a chance in the Premier League, and from the younger generation one of Josh Rock, Gian van Veen or Callan Rydz could easily make the big leap.But right now, the standard is being set by one guy: if, that is, he can escape the crushing yoke of pressure and expectation that has clearly been holding him back for so long.
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