From the period between December 19th and January 28th, Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler’s player profile was opened 348,837 times by 166,608 unique users, breaking with traditional behaviours across the platform in which major European football clubs and their stars usually lead the charts.
This staggering number - which coincides with the then 16-year-old’s transcendence into national headline news and a significant boost in his social media followers - not only signifies Littler's skyrocketing fame but also indicates an overall growing interest in darts among sports enthusiasts.
January’s World Championship final at London's Alexandra Palace - where Littler narrowly missed out on becoming darts' youngest world champion after his defeat to Luke Humphries - was viewed by a total of more than 4.8 million on TV in the UK - with broadcaster Sky labelling it the most watched darts event ever on its channel.
Up to the 28th of January, Littler outperformed all the usual world-renowned sports stars, even pipping Mohamed Salah (211,918 profile visits from 129,721 unique users) as the most viewed athlete during the period.
Other big names such as Artem Dovbyk, Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Willy Kambwala, Oscar Bobb, Mohammed Kudus, Chris Wood, and Emilio Nsue, all failed to come close to Littler’s overall profile view figures.
The feat is all the more surprising given that football was by far the most followed sport on Flashscore in 2023, accounting for 88.8 per cent of 11.75bn total app and web views - darts was fifth with only 1 per cent!
Bigger than the big clubs
But the Warrington-raised darts disruptor wasn’t done there: his name was looked up more than the vast majority of European football’s elite teams.
You could argue this big fish was swimming in a big pond when you look at the clubs he was keeping company with, but amazingly Littler drew more attention from sports fans across the flashscore.co.uk network than the likes of Premier League sides Aston Villa (345,661 profile views), Tottenham (345,335 profile views) and Newcastle (290,625 profile views).
Only Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Real Madrid were remotely clear of Littler in terms of overall profile views, while surprise La Liga challengers Girona also narrowly out-performed the die-hard Red Devils fan.
Littler tops the darting world
Amongst his colleagues in the world of darts, it comes as no surprise that Littler had plenty of daylight between himself and the rest of the sport’s biggest names.
Newly-crowned world champion and Littler party-pooper Luke Humphries is next on the list, with his profile attracting a still-impressive 132,437 views from 79,980 unique users - helped by the sheer amount of attention placed on his 7-4 final victory on January 3rd. Semi-finalist Scott Williams also drew an increase after ousting the in-form darting royalty that is Michael van Gerwen.
