PDC chief Barry Hearn has spoken out about Luke Littler’s impact on the world of darts.
Luke Humphries has been told by Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) chief Barry Hearn that there are ‘dozens of other Luke Littlers’ training to fight for the sport’s top prizes.
Humphries and Littler have established a gripping rivalry since the latter burst onto the scene at the World Darts Championship last year. Littler lost against Humphries in the final at the age of just 16, but got revenge by winning Premier League Darts five months later.
Cool Hand’ Humphries is comfortably clear at the top of the PDC’s Order of Merit, but Hearn is convinced that other young guns will emerge to try and take his throne over the coming years.
This young man (Littler) has got his feet on the ground,” the PDC chief told Sky Sports. “He’s got the right attitude and behind Luke Littler are dozens of other Luke Littlers coming from all over the world and that’s the excitement.
This game of darts hasn’t really started. Everyone thinks it’s massive and it is but there’s a long, long way to go. Littler took us from a sport to mainstream.”
Humphries is no veteran at the age of 29, and he will no doubt still be playing competitively when waves of up-and-comers try to emulate Littler’s success, but the reigning world champion has already made it clear that he won’t be hanging around for longer than he needs to
For me, I hope I’m not playing darts professionally in 20 years because it’s a busy sport, you’re playing all the time,” he told Express Sport ahead of the Premier League final this year. “I’m thinking I’ll retire by 50 at the most, hopefully with three or four world titles. But it’s not easy to do
There were questions over whether Littler would even make it onto 2024’s exclusive eight-player Premier League roster. The world’s top-four-ranked players are automatically selected, with four other wildcards chosen.
And Hearn is thankful that he put his faith in Littler to step up to the plate. “There was some feeling within the Professional Darts Corporation, ‘Is this a bit too early to put a youngster under that type of pressure?’ There were going to be 10,000 fans minimum every Thursday night for 17 nights – ‘Can he cope?’ ‘Will it affect his long-term future?’ blah, blah, blah.
Eddie (Hearn) and I sat down to discuss it and the first thing Eddie said was ‘It doesn’t matter what age you are, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough’ and our job is to give people a chance and roll the dice. And my word, didn’t that pay off in spades!?
