Former world champion Stephen Bunting has credited “megastar” Luke Littler with lifting darts to new heights as he prepares for the beginning of one other raucous PDC World Championship at Alexandra Palace later this month.

Bunting admits the game’s reputation is a world away from when he received the now-defunct BDO title in 2014, and says the 17-year-old’s extraordinary rise has rubbed off on his rivals.

“What Luke has completed for our sport in such a brief area of time is simply unimaginable, and he’s the title on all people’s lips,” Bunting informed the PA information company.

“He’s a megastar and he’s taken our sport to the highest echelons. We had been already up there for viewing figures behind Premier League soccer, however it’s now at one other degree.

“I discover it after I buy groceries and I get younger children asking me for autographs and footage, which by no means actually occurred earlier than. It simply reveals how Luke’s success is bringing the demographic of darts followers down.”

Such is the game’s present reputation – final yr’s closing, through which Littler was pipped by Luke Humphries, was probably the most watched non-football occasion in Sky Sports activities historical past – it has even been afforded the honour of a Panini buying and selling card set.

Present stars, together with Littler and Bunting, and among the sport’s most well-known champions function within the set which for avid collector and staunch Liverpool fan Bunting is one other signal of its extraordinary evolution.

“I keep in mind taking place the outlets to get a pack and getting the shiny crests,” added Bunting. “I all the time had the sticker e book for the yr and I’ve nonetheless bought them now.

“It’s surreal that darts has its personal set now, and I’ll definitely be attempting to get the Luke Littler one as a result of that could possibly be value a bit of cash in just a few years’ time.”

Bunting goes into this yr’s match as a reside contender after successful The Masters in Milton Keynes final February, though he may run into defending champion Humphries within the quarter-final.

A protracted-time favorite of the Ally Pally crowd, the St Helens-born star cautioned in opposition to recommendations by the game’s supremo Barry Hearn of a future transfer away from the venue which has hosted each World Championship since 2008.

“In my eyes it could be unhappy to maneuver away from Ally Pally as a result of it’s an unbelievable place for darts,” added Bunting.

“You go there every year and there’s folks dressed as Christmas timber and Batman and Robin. It’s a particular place for gamers, officers and followers and it’s only a particular venue.”

:: Panini has at the moment launched the first-ever PDC Buying and selling Card assortment that includes present stars and historic legends forward of the 2024/25 PDC World Darts Championship.