Riding the Luke Littler darts wave, with Target Darts

When Luke, Littleer, you know, got to Annie Paddy for the first time, you know, is a relatively outside of the darks industry, and I'm known in the darks industry, he wasn't known, and you know, he turned up there with a logo and a dark shirt that was branded with the purple and the yellow and the nuke, and you know, all of that positioning, all of that work was done, so that when that moment happened and that opportunity ignited, those fresh images from being on the stage of the world's world championship, Luke looked the part, he looked like a dark, he looked like, you know, a world champion dark player. Welcome to the broadcast sport podcast. I'm Max Miller and that was James Tattasal, CEO Target Darts, a company that has been deeply engrained in sport darts during its meteoric rise over the past decade, making sports kit, as well as managing its top talents as such as Luke, Littleer and Bo Griefs. I spoke to James this week about what has been like at the centre of that rise, how the company has positioned its content to keep the sport growing as well as benefit itself, how darks players should be making their own content and plenty more, including maybe most importantly, where those players nicknames come from. Listen on to hear the full conversation, and don't forget to subscribe to the broadcast sport podcast when you're done. Fun James Tattasal, CEO of Target Darts, was in business 2014 as kind of the lead salesperson in a small two and a half million pound business in Hanoi, took over as managing director and CEO in 2021, as the business was approaching kind of 20 million, and we sit here today over 100 million pound business with darts and target in a fantastic place. Yeah, definitely, and obviously, well, like you've kind of said, the rise of target darts has mirrored the rise of darts itself at the same time. So, in that time, what have you seen change about the sport, obviously seeing a lot more people coming to watch it and a lot more people playing it, how does that come about, do you think? Yeah, it's funny. There's no one answer, because obviously, there's different things going on in different countries. But generally, the trend we're seeing is a real broadening of the audience in darts. The age demographic, a lot of younger people, that little effect, brought a lot of new young players into the sport. But also, the female demographics change a massive growth in the number of women joining and starting to play darts and watching darts, which is fantastic. So, yeah, you've got those audience changes, you've got those demographic changes. You've also got new markets. It's darts are starting to mature in Germany and Eastern Europe, and we're seeing a renaissance in the United States as well. It's a really competitive media landscape in the US. It is such a big country, and so darts means different things to different parts of the US. It's on the East Coast. It's kind of steel tip, a nourish bar, kind of culture, rather than the Midwest. It's kind of soft tip machines and it's a very different, very different thing. So, that's what's changed. But the big thing that's changed with darts, the audience, and what's driving it all, is this magical word called aspiration. You know, people are now trying to become world champion. People want to get better at darts. People are trying to get their averages higher because people are taking more seriously than seeing as a sport is maturing, right? And so, we're getting a real change in attitude to what people want to get from darts. It's no longer just a casual pastime, something you might do in the pub. More often now it's people playing at home driving against to beat the dart bots or to beat their own average or to beat people online. And so, yeah, aspiration is really driving darts. And to be fair, you know, the PDC has done a fantastic job driving up prize money, which is increasing the attitude, you know, the prize pool. A few years ago, no young kids were going to know what I want to grab and be a professional dart player. Now they are. You know, that is now seen as like, you know, something to do as an aspiration point. So, yeah, it's a lot of good, a lot of reasons, but all really it's helped them to drive and professionalise the sport. Obviously, all those reasons have come together and created that and has it felt it's almost kind of accelerated again since the pandemic almost. It feels like at least in the UK, at least it feels like it's accelerated since then. And you get people who probably wouldn't have watched darts ever before now talking about it as if it's something they know about and especially with the looplet. Yeah, I think look, the pandemic was different to the looplet effects. I think with the pandemic, it was every year of the world championships and lots of people watch it for the first time. And then in January, they go off and buy their first set of darts and dartboard and, you know, inspired to go and play. And the pandemic was like a couple of world championships all happening at once and lots of people, but it was just more people having a go. Whereas with the loop effects, what we're seeing is a fundamental change of what darts is and what it could be and how darts is positioned. And that's the difference from the pandemic. So yes, it's driving more people into the sport to play it and to try it out there and spy it to do so just like the pandemic. But I think more now it's like adding that aspiration element to try and to try and improve and to, you know, to want to, yeah, to be their averages and to treat it like it's like a proper series for and actually think, you know, what I can be good enough to maybe not be a looplet, but like the Netflix show. Yeah, but they're trying to, they're thinking we'll see how that goes and, you know, the auditions this week, obviously, and then the show and I'll say it's going to be really exciting concept. So yeah, there's some very good players, I think, are going to be going to that audition. Yeah, I'm sure I mean, I'm awful at darts, but there's people you see in the pub who are actually seem very, very good. Obviously, there's another level above that. And so for you guys, you've kind of been at the heart of darts. Obviously, you make dartboards, you make the darts themselves, but you also manage players like booklet there and others. So what have you, what have you guys been doing to kind of help darts in this way and make it into what it is now, if you, is it been a specific, you know, campaign or a specific way that you've positioned yourself? So is there something, is there just some, again, a lot of different factors all coming together at once? No, I think that we set our stall out a long time ago back in, back in 2014, 2015, which was like, which was, now if you look at the time, no, there was darts were all about 20 pounds. They're all the same. And no one was bringing out new stuff, and no one was challenging the status quo. And actually, if you looked at how arts equipment was positioned, it was like, it might have a player's name on a box, but not a picture. And if there was a picture, it would be a picture of them 20 years ago, with an 80s moustache. It was just, it was, it was a bit average, right? And so target set out the stall to, to be the aspiration brand, and to challenge the status quo and to say, well, look, why, what, what happens if we just, if we made more complicated darts, what happens if we made a better product? What happens if we start doing CNC milling to create these like really unique grips, like the pixel grip that Luke uses? And yes, it's, it will be more expensive, but let's see if people, if there's a market for that, let's, let's go and do it, right? Because in every sports tennis rack, it's probably started off pretty basic. And I, I imagine now tennis rackets use a woman that are probably extortionate, right? There, there's a lot of technology and a lot of work gone into making the best tennis rack it possible. And look, we, so we started that journey with darts. It started with the product, unique grips, investing in the latest machinery to produce darts at a level that has never been done before. We looked at the product quality and said, you know, every single dart in a set, there can be no weight difference between those three barrels. So when you think about it, when you're making something, and a set of darts is 22, 23 grams is the most common weight. So you're not, they're not really heavy. And, and so what, what we were doing was going, we will guarantee to the public that the three darts in a set will not be more than 0.03 gram difference in weight between, between them. So we looked at new innovations in terms of darts themselves. Then we started looking at the quality and making sure that the equipment was absolutely perfect. So for a professional player, you know, those, those little differences make it, make it, make it add up to big differences. And then we innovated with completely new product categories. And a dartboard lighting didn't exist. Dartboard light at them was, you know, a normal light strapped to a ceiling pointed at a dartboard and that dried dartboards out actually because of the heat. And so we started with the corona light rig so people can actually see the dartboard properly with no shadows. We launched a Swiss point, which is a way of replacing the dart point in seconds and allows you to adjust the point depending on what dartboard you're playing on or the conditions or how you're feeling that day or whatever. So we just started introducing a lot of choice, a lot of improved products. And, and then how we positioned all of that was not where, hey, just we're just a dart manufacturer. Here's some stuff. We, we've really worked hard at building that brand and, and that value add and built a very engaged fan base around the world. So how does that impact darts? Well, I think it coincides and drives along that aspiration point, which is darts should be better. We should be treating darts like other major sports. And let's not forget, right, more people are watching darts and they're watching the World Championship and watching the Monaco Grand Prix or watching the Open. Or, you know, it's only really football matches. And out of them, it's only Liverpool and Manu United that are drawing bigger audiences than the World Championships have done. So I think we treated darts like how it will be, how it should be treated a long time ago. And so we've been, you know, pushing along and trying to set the standard, set the set, still a lot of what what darts should be and how it should, you know, how it should be treated better. How do you then, I guess I'll debrief that. If you're a toy, if you're working with an agency or someone's making content for you, you aspiration obviously is the key word, but what else are you looking for in terms of, I guess, if they're showing people playing darts, what kinds of people do you want doing that, or if they're showing sport being played, how do they want the, how do you want the crowd to look like? What's the, what kinds of things around that are you aiming for? I think there's an honesty about darts, right? It's a sport that's grown up, you know, and it's normal people. And so we're not, we don't, we don't want to bring in supermodels to advertise darts or stuff like that. For us, darts is about people, it's about community, it's about bringing people together. And so a lot of what we're doing is around product is focused on the technology and focused on what goes into it and why our product is the price that it is and what it will do for you. And then we start, and then we show, well look, this is what darts does for the community, this is how, this is why it's good to play darts, this is why it's good to be involved in darts. So one of our key ambitions over the next few years is to drive in great darts. Participation, we want to increase participation to 100 million worldwide over the next five years. And so a lot of that will be providing new ways of playing darts, you know, it to make it more accessible to increase the community feel of it. As darts isn't played in pubs, how do you create those community, you know, those communities online or internationally? How, how do we get young players in say Germany or the US where there perhaps isn't that strong a darts in culture and perhaps not as much darts in infrastructure? How do we empower them and connect them to play with players in the UK? So yeah, they're the things that we breathe and now we, we kind of look at positioning things. You're kind of, when you're looking to stand obviously, not the only people who make darts boards, darts themselves or other, other kit. So when you're standing out, are you seeing yourselves as kind of the, you're the high end, you're the, as you said, you've kind of done this research, you've done, you've added new technology and stuff like that. I think that's why I say we're as a brand rather than a manufacturer. I think a lot of companies, they, they look at what's, what's selling in the market and then they look at how they can manufacture that and perhaps make it cheaper or, or produce it, mass produce it or whatever. I think we approached the market going quite differently, which is to challenge market and say why wouldn't you use, why wouldn't you use this? Like, or people, no one's asking for this thing, but we think actually that it would really benefit people. So we're going to do it for the first time. And so we, we take risk and we, we launch new concepts and new things and we try and challenge the status quo. And I think that's what separates us from a product perspective. We, we want to lead the market and that's, that has, that has been demonstrable over the last five years and beyond as constantly launching whole product categories that simply didn't exist until we invented them. And, you know, the market didn't want them if people didn't want those things after we invented them, they would buy them, right? But they do because, and those things have helped drive the sport forward and, and helped improve it. So yeah, that's how we feel we're, we're contributing and how we set ourselves apart. We're not following the market. We're, we're leading the market. We're setting the tone for the industry and, and what our expectations are and for other people in the industry. You're not only creating products and a manufacturer, I can say as well, you're a full kind of brand and you represent players and you're very deeply embedded in the sport. So, how, with this change and how the, the sport's coming way more popular and, and you're getting, like I'm saying, a hundred million players, hopefully in five years. When it comes to the stars of the sport and the athletes at the heart of it, what do you think they need to be doing in terms of helping that rise so they should they will be, you were looking for people to be very active on social media or you, people to really be getting themselves out there now in a way that, like you say, the guy with the mustache in the 80s might not have been quite aware of. Yeah, and then, but that wasn't the, the guy with the mustache as well. That was the way people around the guy with the mustache, you know, presented him and, and, and did that and they just, there was no vision for, for how this is looking the future. I think what we're looking to, you know, the young players are so social media savvy and are so aware of, of brand and of these, these things, you know, much more so than I am almost, you know, it's, it's crazy. And, you know, they, they live on, on social media, you know, youngsters today. And so, you know, a lot of the work's done on, from an aspect to people, you know, they want to self-present. But, what we work very hard on is how we work with the players to help brand them and help to build their brand. So, you know, I think the example I like to use is obviously when, when Luke, the little, and, you know, got to Ali Patti for the first time, you know, is a relatively outside of the arts industry and unknown in the arts industry, he wasn't known. And, you know, he turned up there with a logo and a dark shirt that was branded with the purple and the yellow and the nuke and, you know, all of that positioning, all of that work was done so that when that moment happened and that opportunity ignited, those press images from, from being on the stage of the, the world's world championship, Luke looked the part, he looked like a, you know, a world champion dark player. It wasn't just some, some lucky kid that had turned up and made it all the way to the final. And so, you know, we treat all of our players the same in that sense, you know, when we sign a young player in our Elite One program, you know, they start, they get on our website, we start to build their profile. We, as they progress from Elite One into our, kind of into our main stable, then they're working with the design team, we're starting to understand what that player likes, you know, what football team they support and, you know, what makes them tick and what's important to them. And then we start to design their shirt and their color and their brand all around those things that's important to our player because what we've learned is the players and how they're presented and those shirts, that's their armour on stage, right? That's then, you know, in a billboard up on stage. And it's so important that they feel comfortable and that it feels it represents them and what they're about. So, you know, increasingly, the youngsters today are self-promoting themselves, fantastically. I think what we're doing is providing that guidance and putting those foundations in place for them. I just thought, now it's, obviously, Luke, the new lit low, that everyone has their nickname. Is that something people come to you with a ready-made nickname there? Or are you guys getting up an idea? I think it's one or two. We've, we've, you know, worked on with players and we've gotten a room and we've, you know, get the whiteboard out and start throwing names on the whiteboard. That's pretty rare. Usually, there's always, there's already a story in place and, you know, that player's already, you know, thinking about that. So, yeah, there's a couple we've done, but not many. The best ones, obviously. The ones you've done. Yeah, I'm not going to say, actually, which ones we've done. No, I think far too much pressure. And so, in terms of obviously that appeal to a wider audience, start as a sport that, as we're seeing now at the highest level, as well, that both men and women can excel at and play together. Yes. Quite a big part of the appeal as well, kind of thing. It's not as sacred-ated as sports. Yeah. The big appeal in dance, I think, is that, you know, if you were trying to be a gymnast or a footballer, if you haven't sort of made it by the age of 12, you're never going to, right? If you've got the right body shape, or if you're not tall enough, or if you're not fast enough, you're not going to, you can't. You've got to be, you know, a donnace, almost, to succeed in many, many sports. And I think the brilliance of dance is that anyone can do it. Anyone can do it. You know, anyone can have a go. And I think, you know, if you were sort of rocked up and watched pole vault at the weekend, and you wouldn't think, well, I might have a go at that. But you might have a go at dance. And I think that's the accessibility piece. And I think that's what makes it unique. And then you realize just how hard it is, like, you think that that's easy. And then you see these professionals and they're like, with bow greaves throwing darts. And you realize just what you're doing isn't throwing darts really. No, I'm amazed. But you're just being able to hit a double on command. The beat is pretty impressive, I think, to be honest. That's frightening how good they are. Looking ahead then. So what do you see next for darts? Obviously, to continue growth, as you mentioned, the US as a big target market. Otherwise, it needs to evolve in order to reach those targets. 100%. I think that's a huge question. There's loads of different elements to it. I think that the big one, looking at the sport itself and how it's played, I think darts players need to be treated, you know, like the superstars that they are within the people that are promoting darts, because we want the darts player to turn not have any, and be treated how you would expect. Roger Federer would be treated if they'd turned up, but Wimbledon, right? You know, what's the food situation, what's the changing room situation? What, you know, our, our players in separate, separate practice areas, or they, or they've been stuck in the same room with each other. What's, what's available, and for them, and how are those players being left after with the increased pressure of, you know, the media's increasing, because dance, when it's going wrong on stage, it's a lonely place, and, and there's needs to a lot more around player welfare, and on that, then, you know, you look at what's going on, how do, you know, how do we promote the sport in, in America, and what, one of the things is it's like, it's, it's fantastic TV rights, and the piece, you know, a phenomenal drop, you know, driver, you're getting audiences to watch dance. There's another step needed behind that, which is participation. How do you get, how do you translate that from someone watching it, and then moving on and watching something else? So then, going actually, do you know, I'm going to go and have a go, I'm going to go and get myself a dartboard, and I'm going to go and, you know, join the local team, or, you know, that's, that's the next step, and to build some depth in these countries, and, and you know, we've seen that in Holland years ago, we've seen it in Belgium, more recently, in Germany, more recently, you know, you've got to put down stronger routes than just getting it on TV. Schools, you know, is another key, is another key area. So that's, that's key. And then I think the way darts is played, it's the only sports in the world that you can play online at home without changing the rules. You know, there isn't, there isn't another one that you do that with, and the tech that we've got with our omnibus also scoring system with dark counts, and the ranking, you know, we're going to, we are building them, we're a long way along this journey, you know, a global online competitive landscape to play darts. And then you can look at participation rates in lots of sports, it's down. And the reason why is because people can't give up their Saturday mornings anymore to go and play football, to go and play rugby or something, other responsibilities, and, you know, life's busier. And so, and, and sport is competing with all these other things. And, and so, various to entry, then, is, is having to join a team, go through the FAF by yourself a shirt, you know, make a friend's point, but wanted to socialize with it, you know, to, to get at the best of game. Whereas actually, you can, with, with online darts and with darts in general, you know, you can come home, put the kids to bed, get online, and have half an hour, within, you know, within minutes, you're having a competitive match with somebody in the UK or in Germany or in America, ranked match. And you can play for half an hour, you know, it's all up to you. It gives you that flexibility. And I think that's a fundamental opportunity for darts to keep that accessibility there and, and to encourage participation and make participation super easy. I think that will have a radical impact on, on, on, on the sport. And then you look at new countries, I think China is coming more and more interested in darts, you know, we're, we've got a, a darts academy in Shanghai that was sponsored for a, for a while. And the talent coming through is, is incredible. And the, you know, what's, what's happened from the loop later effects and driving, same in you, people to play darts, the same in the youngsters to start, to people start playing darts. The quality of in, in sort of 12, 14, 16 year olds around the world at the moment of darts is off the charts. Like they are some seriously talented players kind of through. So yeah, I, I think, I think we're going to see a lot of new faces breaking through the darts in over the next couple of years. How do you make sure those people breaking through are kind of like, well, they'll see target darts. They'll think darts and they'll think I need to go to, I need to get the target darts darts. They're the ones I want to do. Yeah. Yeah, I think go to brand. Well, look, we, we have a reputation when, when we look after our players very, well, you know, if you're a target player, all the things I talked about in terms of starting to, to set that brand building up, we see it as a partnership, but also just from basic equipment support. Like, you know, if you ask, if someone said, I need some new flash shots, you're getting it the next day, it's instant. No, we, we treat looking after players as like number one priority, but they're our biggest, they're our biggest ambassadors. They're the flagship of our brand. And so, you know, we, we've got the phenomenal team of players. Luke, Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis, Raymond van Bonoval, Nathan Aspenal, Bob Cross, you know, it's, it's a strong, strong stable of players. We do a very good job looking after those players. And, and so, you know, obviously, when they're young since looking at what brand they want to choose, first of all, they're going to want the best equipment in their hand. And then they're going to want to make sure they look after. And, and we, we do both as a final, final question. What's your, what's your prediction there? And I guess once you, you've got to 100 million and five years time, except from hitting that 100 million mark, what would be the, the biggest signal that you've, you've hit the big time. Obviously, we've already seen blue glitter doing really well in sports personality of the year or something like that. Is there something, something else beyond that, which you think a darts player kind of breaking out into the beyond darts basically? Yeah, I think that's really happening to an extent. I think Luke is, is, is, is kind of, you know, he's beyond darts now in terms of, you know, the partnership, he's securing outside of outside of darts. And, you know, the, the interests the public has, you know, he was in Germany, except in the build award. Otherwise, that's international. And I think he's already trying to send the darts in many respects. I think the big, the big next milestone will be potentially new formats of darts, but what does online darts enable? You know, at the moment, you know, a dartboard is a static thing. It's, it's one dimensional in, in, in, in, in, in a way, with auto scoring and the ability to know exactly where a dartboarder dart is, how can that be used to create a new format of, of the sport? I might feel to, to even more people.