Darts wants to crack America on back of Luke Littler fever, says Barry Hearn

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Luke Littler is preparing to play darts at the coveted high profile venue of New York’s Madison Square Gardens for the US Darts Masters.

It is the third leg of the World Series of Darts, and comes shortly after he beat Luke Humphries in the Premier League final in front of 14,000 pople at the 02 Arena in London.

Littler burst onto the scene as a 16 year old at the World Championships, and has lifted the sport to new heights. Over three million people tuned in to Sky Sports for his final, also against Humphries, the broadcaster’s heighest viewing figures for a non-foootball event.

“Fifty years I’ve been promoting and I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say I’ve never seen anything like it,” Barry Hearn, the President of Matchroom Sport, said, reported by The Times.

“Everywhere we go. We’ve sold out The Theater at Madison Square Garden for Friday and Saturday this week. And the Americans are dressing up the same as the English fans do at Ally Pally.”

Hearn added: “(We’re looking to) shift a lot more emphasis into America, to be able to do more events and make an attempt to get darts accepted within the collegiate system, which is a very good basis to take darts to a broader audience.

“Yes, we’re going to have to make the World Championship bigger simply because we’ve got more countries around the world saying, ‘Why can’t we have a spot?’ Simple as that.”

The World Championship currently features 96 players, after it was increased ahead of 2019, a big increase from the 68 when it first move to Alexandra Palace back in 2008. The venue will continue to host the event until at least 2025, under the current contract.

Hearn insisted that the long term goal was to remain at the north London venue, but to move into a bigger hall with higher capacity, rather than consider (as the World Snooker Championship is doing with the Crucible) moving elsewhere.