‘Luke Littler is the Tiger Woods of darts. He’s made the sport aspirational’
When Target Darts, which supplies and now manages Luke Littler, decided to test the sport’s popularity with younger audiences by exhibiting at the London Toy Fair for the first time earlier this year, the company hit a bullseye.
“We made quite a bit of noise,” Target managing director James Tattersall tells City AM. “We put ourselves next to Hasbro and Lego and then got Luke Littler down for the day, just after he won the World Championship, and completely shut the venue down. Everybody came to our stand.”
The frenzy caused by Littler’s appearance at the show caught the eye of Disney. Within months, the entertainment behemoth and Target had collaborated to launch Star Wars-themed darts, flights and even a Millennium Falcon dart board. Use the force, Luke, indeed.
“Disney were very interested in the audience, in darts and what’s going on in the sport,” he adds. “We’re always adding depth to a product and the Star Wars universe gives us a wealth of inspiration to play from. It’s probably one of the biggest pop culture pieces of IP in existence.”
As a measure of how far the sport has come in a few years, Disney’s investment in darts is stark. Once dismissed as a pub game played and watched only by middle-aged men, it has become a cultural phenomenon that is increasingly being embraced worldwide.
Promoter Matchroom’s canny stewardship lit the flame but the emergence of Littler, who reached the 2024 World Championship final at Alexandra Palace, aged 16, and returned a year later to become its youngest ever winner, provided the kerosene to send the sport skywards.
Why Target Darts became Littler’s manager
This week Littler will be back in north London to begin his title defence in front of the raucous crowds that flock to Ally Pally, plus millions more watching on Sky Sports, eager to see the sport’s 18-year-old superstar cement his world No1 status.
“He is the front page of the sport, he is absolutely driving it. His fan base is enormous. He has lowered the age of the darts spectator significantly and our own data suggests there was a 10-year drop in the average age of our customers, within a year,” says Tattersall.
“Luke is absolutely the poster boy and he’s comparable with a Tiger Woods, in terms of breaking through and then redefining the sport. Not only that – he’s backed it up by winning all of those majors this year. It’s a phenomenal achievement.
“I think Luke has brought that aspirational point into darts. In the past if your 16-year-old said, ‘I want to be a professional darts player’, I don’t think the connotations would be right. Luke’s made it acceptable. Youth academies across the country are bursting at the seams.”
Target supplies dozens of top players, such as Nathan Aspinall, Rob Cross and rising female star Beau Greaves, and has worked with Littler since he was 12. In October the company became his manager after he split with previous representative ZXF.
“We’ve built up a lot of trust and a great relationship over the period with Luke and our chairman, Gary [Plummer], but also Luke and the business. We saw that Luke needed some help, and he was changing management, and we stepped in to shore that up,” says Tattersall.
How darts boom boosted profit 10-fold
Target has no plans to manage the careers of other players, he adds, but he does believe the company can help to professionalise the industry and make Littler “the best managed player that there’s ever been” by giving him more support “because darts is in a different place now”.
“We want to sing the praises of darts, of the people who watch it, who play it. It’s a fantastic audience, and I think it’s been an under-served opportunity for other sponsors to come in and look to market their products to that darts audience,” he says.
The perfect storm of Littler’s explosion onto a thriving scene in late 2023 was a huge boon for Target, whose pre-tax profit grew 10-fold to £6.5m in 2024. The firm has mushroomed further in 2025, thanks in part to being better prepared to capitalise, says Tattersall.
“We doubled in size as a business last year and we’ve done it again this year. The momentum was so strong and Luke’s breakthrough year, that was instant and enormous.” Stockists of Target products now include Smith’s Toys and Selfridges.
Target also cites new tech, such as its Omni auto-scoring ring and Virt dual camera system which allow players to compete remotely, as key factors in its growth. With those, and the success of social darts venues showing demand for participation, it spies more opportunity.
“While Flight Club and things like that are great and have a place, what people also want is the authenticity of darts they see on TV, and they want that experience when they’re socialising in their day-to-day lives,” he concludes. “We’re going to reinvent darts in the pub.”