🎯 The Growth of Darts is Insane

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Today, we explore the insane rise in popularity of Darts across the globe.

Darts is one of the biggest entertainment products in the UK.

In addition, the ascent of Luke Littler has propelled darts into one of the most profitable sports in Europe.

The 2023 PDC World Darts Championship Final between Luke Littler and Luke Humphries was watched by 4.8m people. At its peak 3.7 million watched it concurrently.

As a result, that event (which was won by Humphries) is the most-watched non-football broadcast in Sky Sports history.

Yes, more than The Ashes. More than any Formula 1 race. More than Andy Murray winning the US Open. More than any Masters Championship. More than any Ryder Cup. It’s also more than any boxing event in British history.

There aren’t many sports in the UK that can command an audience that big, especially behind a fairly expensive paywall like Sky Sports. But Darts did it in January 2024.

Thankfully for the Matchroom team, all of this happened just as Sky’s seven-year, £12m-a-year darts deal was due for renewal!

Sky Sports had been getting darts at a bargain.

The previous broadcast deal was a 7yr agreement from 2017 to 2025 valued at £12m/year. Early in 2025, Sky Sports renewed that deal in a 5yr/£125m agreement with the PDC, more than doubling the current arrangement! A watershed moment for the entire sport.

The PDC have already confirmed that the winners prize money for the World Darts Championship will now double from £500K to £1M. I firmly expect the Premier League to follow suit.

It’s worth pointing out that this popularity isn’t just a UK-only thing. Darts is booming across Europe.

• DAZN hold rights in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), with a deal until 2027

• Viaplay show darts in the Netherlands, also locked in until 2027.

Those deals are very likely to look a lot more expensive at renewal in a few summers time too.

Outside of the sport itself the Darts manufacturers are cashing in. Nodor Group, owner of Red Dragon and Winmau (very popular brand of Darts) sold a majority stake to Inflexion for an estimated £100m in 2024. This after seeing a rise in revenue for 4 years in a row.

Matchroom, who run the PDC also sold a minority stake in the business. Pitch International bought an undisclosed stake in the business in the summer of 2024. Reports suggest that deal is also for around £100m.

Their handling of the Littler stardom has been exceptional from Matt Porter and everyone at the Matchroom team.

The table below give an indication as to how much profit Darts contributes to Matchroom each year.

With the increase in the brodcast deal, you can safely expect those numbers to rise even further in the years to come!

It’s a fascinating story and one that I am following very closely.

I will leave you this week with a fascinating tweet from Kieran Maguire.

A lot of Premier League clubs released their financial accounts in the past few days.

Chelsea reported that they sold their Women’s Team to another entity under the Todd Boehly structure for £200m in an attempt to be compliant with PSR regulations.

The fascinating thing being the fact that the Women’s team was a loss-making entity to the tune of almost £9m!

I am no accountant but there aren’t many businesses in the world that lose that much money whilst being worth that much!

Lets see how this plays out.

See you next week.