16-year-old has made it to the final of the PDC World Championship

darts

Sky Sports has revealed that 16-year-old Luke Littler’s surprise run to the final of the PDC Darts World Championship has seen it break viewing figure records for the sport.

The semi-finals, which saw Littler defeat Rob Cross and Luke Humphries beat Scott Williams, drew an average audience of 1.48 million - which is more than any previous PDC World Championship event, including finals.

Specifically, the Littler-Cross semi-final averaged 1.79 million with a peak of 2.32 million, which is 165% up on last year’s semi-finals between Michael Smith and Gabriel Clemens plus Michael van Gerwen and Dmitri van den Bergh. It is also 106% higher than the previous semi-final record set in 2017, when van Gerwen and Cross made it to the final.

It is also 40% higher than the most-watched final, which took was part of the the 2015 tournament and saw Gary Anderson defeat Phil Taylor. The 2.32 million peak is in line with live coverage of Premier League, Carabao Cup Finals and Championship play-off peaks.

Littler will be in action again tonight, 3 January, facing off with Humphries in the final to potentially become the youngest ever winner of the competition.