Darts has grown exponentially in recent years -- in fact, no non-football audience has ever attracted more than the 51.2 million viewing hours in the UK for last year's World Championship.
Finances are booming and the prize money for the World Championship has risen from a total £1 million pot in 2010 to £5 million in 2026.
There is no one factor that has contributed to the sport's growth more than Luke Littler who has become something of a working class hero and could well be the sport's first genuine global sensation.
Sponsored by Target Darts since joining their Elite 1 youth programme at the age of 12, in January he signed a record 10-year, £20 million deal with the equipment manufacturer who have also become his management team.
The Littler love is objectively good for business, that much is clear with numbers alone -- Target's revenues have increased more than sixfold in the past four years, from £17 million to £106.5 million and they are now among the fastest growing private companies in Britain, according to The Times.
And from their perspective, why stop at Littler?
Potential stars of the future Beau Greaves, Charlie Manby and 15-year-old Scottish prodigy Mitchell Lawrie are also onboard at Target as they look to tighten their grip on what is a competitive market.
Target are clearly looking towards what comes next, and so their views on the next stage of darts' development carries plenty of weight. ESPN was among a group of reporters invited to Target's Essex headquarters for a look into the darts manufacturer's version of the future.
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Social-style product innovation
Having been born in pubs, darts has struggled to shake off the association with its culture, but that is changing.
These days, darts' stars of the future hone their craft throwing at boards in bedrooms without a fruit machine in sight.
For the vast majority, though, darts is a bit of fun and Target are looking to capitalise on that by bringing in more games than just the traditional 501.
Of course, the purists will want to continue playing the same format and that will remain very much a part of the darts landscape.
But, seemingly building on the success of Flight Club which offers arcade-style alternatives to traditional darts formats, Target are also bringing in new options that work with their Omni autoscoring dartboard rings with games such as 'Board is Lava', 'Battlesplash' and 'Alien Invasion'.
Target have also partnered with Power League, introducing dartboards at the UK's most popular 5-a-side football operator as they look to bring new fans -- and paying customers -- to the sport.
"For us, the future of darts has always been about looking beyond the board," Target CEO James Tattersall says.
"For decades, the shape of darts was fixed. You stood at the board, you threw, you scored by hand on the chalkboard next to the board, and you played alone or with whoever was in the room.
"While almost every other pastime has been transformed by technology, darts has remained largely disconnected.
"We believe that is about to change. In the same way Spotify connected music and Strava connected running, we believe a connected ecosystem will transform participation in darts.
"Why? Because darts is arguably the only major sport where you can play online without changing the rules.
"For us, the next chapter of darts isn't just played in pubs. We're on a mission, not just to upgrade the pub game, but to bring darts to social environments that are designed around community and participation."
Treating Luke Littler and Co. as leading sports stars
To varying degrees, almost every sport has become significantly altered by advances in science, technology and data tracking over the last 20 years, whether that be how it is consumed on television, the tools available to officials or how teams and players prepare and train.
Tattersall is adamant that darts needs to up its game in this regard.
"Now is the time to professionalise the sport -- a dedicated performance coach working directly with our players, a nutritionist supporting the physical demands of competition, a sports psychologist helping players perform consistently under the pressure of live crowds, television cameras, and major titles," Tattersall said.
"This isn't a traditional endorsement model; it's a support system that helps players perform at their best.
"I think darts needs to see it itself [that the sport is mainstream], and that aspiration for the sport needs to come in and needs to be driven.
"We've got to look at how players are treated, for example, like the same way as Roger Federer expects if he walks into Wimbledon, and that's like that's the challenge, we've got to believe it ourselves.",
Targeting new frontiers
Darts' expansion in the UK has been formidable but the next challenge is to take that momentum elsewhere.
The professionals are already hard at work, with 45% of PDC events now taking place outside of the UK, compared to 27% 10 years ago.
But outside of professional darts, Tattersall and Target are hoping to make real inroads in the amateur game and truly take the sport worldwide.
Outside of the two biggest hubs of the sport -- The UK and the Netherlands -- where darts has been ingrained in culture for a number of years, Tattersall is now looking to take over two of the very biggest markets there are.
"For us, the really important growth markets are Germany, we've talked about the whole of North America, including Canada, that feels underrepresented for where it needs to be," he explains to ESPN.
"One of the interesting ones is China. We've got a major presence in China, over 300 employees, and you know we've seen sales there double year on year for the last three years.
"Small things at the moment and it's fascinating seeing darts develop in a market with no cultural relevance to darts, or a cultural understanding of it.
"In America, east coast, you've got Boston. They know what a pub is. They know what a dartboard is.
"In China, it's a completely new concept. So, there we have an academy in Shanghai, and they're crying out for someone to tell them how we teach the kids to play darts.
"They don't have that innate cultural understanding of how to throw it, and so you know they're looking for training programmes, and that's something that we feel we can provide. So yeah, China for me is another really interesting one."
Of course, Target do have one issue with America -- the retail giant of the near-identical brand name.
"It's on our minds. Yeah, it's something we've looked at and what we're going to do about it," Tattersall admits.
"I think at the end of the day, we are Target Darts. I think for us in America, it's being Target Darts a lot more than just Target. I think that's important."
Rising price of Tungsten could lead to falling darts profits
One issue all darts manufacturers are having to overcome is the skyrocketing price of Tungsten.
Tungsten is a naturally occurring element which known for its density and strength. This strength allows it to stand up to repeated use and the density -- only six naturally occurring elements on earth are more dense -- means the darts can be manufactured with smaller barrels which helps with grouping on a board.
The price in April was up 900% compared to 12 months earlier due to several factors such as rising demand, sanctions on Russian exports and slowing supply from Chinese mines.
The average cost of tungsten darts have increased in recent times as a result, but not as dramatically as they could have due to a variety of initiatives such as stockpiling in cheaper periods.
"It's been a mega issue this year, you can see on a graph of tungsten, the prices on Google search.
"It's been growing in price over the last year or so quite aggressively and then there was a huge, huge spike earlier in the year.
"We had to react really quickly in terms of our pricing, and just recently the prices have come back down again.
"We've immediately lowered our prices back down again, but yeah, it's volatile at the moment."
While the price of Tungsten is so high, Tatttersall insists that his company are looking at ways to make its usage more sustainable in the long term.
"Tungsten is a really unique material. It's brilliant for darts and the reason is because you know it's very, very dense, so you can create quite a lot of weight with quite a small area, which means you can get more darts in a very small area, i.e. a treble 20," he tells explains.
"So that's why tungsten is so important for darts. You know, all the other materials that are that dense are radioactive.
"Tungsten is really the only option, or gold, but that would probably be even worse option than tungsten.
"So that's where we are. But we're looking at new ways of manufacturing, how we can reduce waste, and how can we improve it to help try and protect the retail prices as much as possible, and that's our challenge."