“It’s a darts tournament. Shut up and drink your lager” – Barry Hearn shuts down Luke Littler's request for in-house chef

Most of the attention in darts today is focused on world champion Luke Littler. The teenage sensation has become the face of a sport that has experienced enormous growth in recent years, both in popularity and prize money. According to Matchroom boss Barry Hearn, that also means players are increasingly behaving like elite athletes, although he sometimes can only laugh about it.

Hearn, who has played a defining role in both darts and snooker for decades, spoke earlier this week in Sheffield about the development of both sports. Initially, the discussion centred on snooker, after it was confirmed that the Crucible Theatre will remain the permanent venue for the World Championship until at least 2045. However, darts quickly became part of the conversation as well, partly due to the huge financial leap the sport has made in recent years.

While the winner of the World Snooker Championship currently receives £500,000, Littler took home £1 million earlier this year with his world title in darts. According to Hearn, that difference says a lot about the current status of both sports, but it does not mean that darts players no longer have anything to complain about.

“Even the dart players, even they moan,” Hearn told SportsBoom in an interview. “Someone said to me the other day, I won’t tell you who he was because he’s quite well known. But bear in mind he’s the current world champion. He said something about criticising the food in the Premier League venues.”

According to Hearn, the conversation went a step further when special requests were made. “You know, ‘Can we have a chef in?’ His manager, ‘can we have his chef in?’ I went, ‘for fuck’s sake, it’s a darts tournament. What are you talking about? Shut up and drink your lager.’”

With that anecdote, Hearn mainly wanted to illustrate how much the sport has changed. Where darts used to be known as a typical pub sport, it is now a multi-million-pound business in which players are behaving more and more professionally. He also sees that reflected in the earnings of the current generation.

The 77-year-old Brit, who remains actively involved in organising major tournaments, emphasised that he is still driven by growth. Not just financially, but especially by the ambition to further develop the sport.

“I mean, I’m 78 in June. I’m still grafting my nuts off,” Hearn said. “But not because I want the money, although I like it. I want to win. And winning in my world is making events bigger, making prize money bigger, even though they do still moan.”

According to Hearn, the amounts of money now involved in darts are barely comparable to the past. He also pointed to the potential earnings of Littler, who at just 19 is already one of the biggest stars in the sport. “I don’t know what Littler is going to earn this year. Six million? Ain’t bad for a game of darts, is it? Some of the old boys, people like Phil, look at the money. You know, Phil Taylor was throwing similar averages to Luke. Better even. But now it’s just time and place, isn’t it? How much are you worth on a specific day?”

Taylor dominated darts for many years, but did so in a period when commercial opportunities were far more limited than they are now. According to Hearn, the current explosion in popularity is not only thanks to major talents like Littler, but also to the timing of everything coming together.

The Matchroom boss points in particular to television contracts that had to be renewed around the same time as Littler’s breakthrough, creating what he describes as a perfect moment.

“I think you find with the sports businesses, you get that, and then you get a period of that, maybe just slightly that, and then you come to a quantum moment,” Hearn explained. “We did with darts. All of a sudden, three or four of our biggest TV contracts come up for renewal. Sky, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia. And it just came at the right time, where everybody’s going, ‘Oh, we can’t lose it.’ Look at the numbers. It’s about timing. It’s just straight after the World Championship, where they’ve all had, ‘Oh, fucking hell, I’m not going to tell my boss we lost the darts. We absolutely rammed it.’ And that was all. You only need one little moment, and you can just build on it from it and then concentrate on something else.”

According to Hearn, that created a chain reaction.