Picture Credit: Netflix
Netflix’s first live darts event is in the books, and it ended exactly the way the critics feared it would: the £501,000 went to the most famous name on the card. Fallon Sherrock, the 15th of a planned 20 challengers, won the bull, hit a 180 and checked out on double 20 in 15 darts to become the only person to beat Luke Littler on the night.
Two days on, we’ve got the first batch of top 10 data, a fresh round of “was this a con?” discourse, and a quote from Littler himself that suggests Netflix is going to be asked to run this back in 2027.
If you missed our earlier coverage, we broke down the original announcement in July and covered the line-up backlash a week before the show.
How the night played out
Hosted by Gary Lineker from Manchester Central, with Richard Osman, Lee Mack and Laura Turner on the panel and Angry Ginge roaming the floor the simple format worked relatively well: one leg of 501, beat The Nuke, walk away with £501,000.
For most of the evening, nobody came close. Littler swept the first 14 challengers, including:
Jayden Walker, the 14-year-old who beat Luke Humphries in an exhibition at 12, dispatched in 12 darts via a 158 checkout. “I couldn’t give him a chance,” Littler said. A bin man, a Nando’s manager and an Australian jockey, who were, in the words of The Telegraph’s review, “lambs to the slaughter.” Pearse Mackle, the 21-year-old Cavan student who came closest. He had a dart at the bull for the half a million and threw it wide by a few inches. “You’re a bit sickened,” was his verdict.
Then Sherrock stepped up. She won the bull, hit a 180, and after Littler’s 140 left him on 142, she missed her first dart at tops before burying the second. Fifteen darts, £501,000, game over. Five challengers, including WDF world number one Mitchell Lawrie, never got to the oche.
Of course, the controversy from that initial line-up backlash grew even deeper once Sherrock won, given that she isn’t quite as amateur as many would expect.
Sherrock didn’t dodge it. “I do see the backlash and I do see all the negative comments,” she told Sky Sports, adding she was “just so happy to overcome all the hate and win.” Barry Hearn replied to a fan who’d called the show “an absolute con” with: “Fallon is not a PDC professional. Worthy winner of a life-changing amount of money.” That reply got ratioed.
The Telegraph called it a well-made, genuinely unusual live production undermined by its own premise. Lineker’s sign-off that Sherrock “walked in here a hairdresser from Milton Keynes” drew a “Settle down Gary” from the reviewer, and it’s hard to argue.
The show was pretty good – fast paced, didn’t take itself too seriously (Osman saying a sarcastic nice to one of Linekars many Dad joke clangers made me laugh out loud) and kept you engaged. The marketing no doubt led to the controversy and expectations. Netflix sold “pub player beats the champ” and delivered “semi-pro beats the champ after two and a half hours.” If this comes back, either lean into an open field with known names or genuinely restrict it to unranked players. The halfway house is what got them in trouble.
Netflix Top 10s for Beat Luke Littler So Far
The usual caveat first: Netflix’s weekly global top 10 for October 27 to November 2 doesn’t land until Tuesday, so what follows is FlixPatrol’s daily country data for the day after the event (October 31).
Here’s where Beat Luke Littler charted on its first full day:
| Country | Oct 31 Rank |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 1 |
| Ireland | 2 |
| Belgium | 4 |
| Netherlands | 4 |
| Croatia | 6 |
| Finland | 6 |
| Germany | 6 |
| Iceland | 6 |
| Austria | 7 |
| Hungary | 7 |
| Malta | 8 |
| Czech Republic | 9 |
| Denmark | 9 |
| Cyprus | 10 |
| Luxembourg | 10 |
Fifteen countries on day one, with a number one in the UK and a number two in Ireland. Strong showings in the Netherlands and Belgium are no surprise given how big darts is on the continent. Nothing outside Europe, which is also no surprise. On day 2, the show was still in Netflix UK’s daily top 10 as number 3 which shows that many people revisited the event, no doubt driven by the social media backlash.
How does that compare to Netflix’s other one-off sports stunts?
The two obvious comparisons are the two one-night exhibitions Netflix ran in its first year of live sports.
The Netflix Cup (November 2023), the F1 and PGA Tour crossover, charted in just four countries and never got higher than ninth anywhere:
| Country | Points | Days | Best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latvia | 2 | 1 | 9 |
| Iceland | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| Norway | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| Sweden | 1 | 1 | 10 |
The Netflix Slam (March 2024), Nadal vs Alcaraz in Las Vegas, charted in 18 countries, but almost all of that was a single-day blip. Spain was the only market where it genuinely landed:
| Country | Points | Days | Best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | 20 | 3 | 1 |
| Bulgaria | 6 | 2 | 7 |
| Egypt | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| Venezuela | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| Paraguay | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| Portugal | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| United States | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| Argentina | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Canada | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Mexico | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Israel, Morocco, Panama, Slovenia | 1 | 1 | 10 |
Neither event made Netflix’s global weekly top 10. In the engagement reports, the Netflix Cup managed 1.7 million hours and 700,000 views for its period, and the Slam 2.6 million hours and 1 million views.
Beat Luke Littler is already in a different league. Fifteen countries on day one is comparable breadth to the Slam, but the quality of the placements (a number one, a number two, two number fours) is far better. That makes it, in our estimation, the second-best “stunt” live sporting event Netflix has put on. The first is still a long way ahead: Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson hit number one in 78 countries and the top 10 in all 91, with 46.6 million views in its opening window. Littler was never going to touch that, and it didn’t need to. It’s a UK-focused show with a UK-sized budget, and it topped its home market on Halloween weekend.
The real test is Tuesday. If Beat Luke Littler shows up on the global English-language TV list at all, that’s a clear win over everything in this category bar the boxing. We’ll update once the numbers drop.
Littler is already talking about 2027
Can we expect a return? Littler seems to think to saying he enjoyed “every bit of it,” and then: “Yeah, maybe Netflix; we can do it again next year.”
Netflix officially hasn’t said a word about a second edition and may want to see Tuesday’s numbers before committing. But the signs are pointing one way:
- Netflix has a darts-shaped hole in its UK sports calendar. It has NFL Christmas games, boxing (Fury vs Joshua lands on December 11) and the 2027 Women’s World Cup, but no recurring UK-made live sports property.
- The PDC, which co-produced the event, is openly expansionist and has a 19-year-old star who is only getting bigger.
- It produced a genuine talking point. Love or hate the Sherrock result, people argued about this show for 48 hours, which is worth more to Netflix than a polite three-hour whitewash.
Our guess: expect a Beat Luke Littler 2 to be confirmed somewhere around the World Championship in December or January, with a tightened set of entry rules or they just turn it into a proper event rather than a stunt remains to be seen.
Did you watch Beat Luke Littler live? Did Sherrock’s win sour the night, or was it the only outcome that made for good television? Let us know in the comments.