By Cameron Gray

Luke Littler at the first night of the 2024 Premier League Darts (gettyimages)

The third night of the Premier League of Darts takes place in Glasgow at the sold-out OVO Hydro arena tonight and the crowd are eager to see 17-year-old darts star Luke Littler in action.

Littler who has averaged 101.77 across his five Premier League Darts games so far, is looking to go top of the table with a historic win tonight.

It is an achievement in itself though that the teenager will be competing in Glasgow, as no one would have predicted his astronomical rise to fame at the beginning of the recent Darts World Championship where he came into the tournament ranked 164th in the world. After hitting 63 180s in the tournament and reaching the final Littler climbed the rankings all the way to 30th.

This was a huge achievement for the then 16-year-old as he was the youngest person to ever win a game at the Darts World Championship never mind getting all the way to the final. A 16-year-old achieving all of this got the attention of people all around the world, including people who had never been interested in darts previously.

A peak audience of 3.71 million people tuned into his final against Luke Humphries, making it the most watched non-football event on Sky ever. Growing personalities in the sport like Littler have brought more eyes to the sport than ever before in the UK with the peak audience for this final growing by 143% compared to the 2023 version between Michael Smith and Micheal Van Gerwen.

Littler with his second place trophy after an unfortune defeat against Luke Humphries in The Darts World Championship (gettyimages)

Former world champion Gary Anderson when asked about Littler’s growing media attention said: “Let the boy play darts. If it all goes wrong, give yourselves a pat on the back”.

The number of eyes Littler brought to the sport and his impressive performances were some of the reasons he was selected to take part in the Premier League over the likes of Chris Dobey, Gary Anderson and Danny Noppert, who are huge names in the world of sport.

Being selected for this tournament is a huge accomplishment for Littler and just his appearance in the competition earns Littler a cool £60,000, which could rise to £275,000 if he manages to win the tournament.

Tonight, he takes on former world champion Gerwyn Price in the quarter final as he aims to qualify for the playoffs at the end of the season, who he has already beaten twice in his career so far. If he wins in this match and he will face Nathan Aspinall or Luke Humphries in the final. Littler has already beaten Humphries three times since he was defeated in the final of the World Championships including knocking him out of both nights in the premier league so far. So Littler will be hoping if he faces him again tonight he can knock him out for the third time on the bounce.

Last year in the Darts Premier League in Glasgow ‘Bully Boy’ Michael Smith took home the five points for winning the night and he will be out to repeat that as he looks to extend his gap at the top of the table tonight.

The favourite for the whole tournament is still Michael Van Gerwen who will want to win the tournament for the 8th time despite Smith taking an early lead at the top.

Although we are only on night 3 out of 15 in the premier league it’s still shaping up to be a big night in Glasgow and we could maybe start to see a slight gap open up in the table between the bottom 4 and the playoff spots.

Darts ‘Wonderkid’ takes to the stage in Glasgow tonight