In his latest column, PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf examines Luke Littler's record-breaking BetMGM Premier League campaign and looks at how it compares to the biggest names of Premier League past...
With six victories and appearances in more than half of the nightly finals held in the 2025 Premier League, Luke Littler has made his second campaign as a professional darts player the most dominant since the inception of the current Premier League format in 2022.
His 45 points secured through 27 wins made him the first player to capture more than half of the 80 points available in this format, and allowed him to control the #1 spot in the league table for 11 consecutive weeks.
The teenage mastermind is on track to win his second consecutive title in darts' most prestigious non-ranking event, and is doing so in a way which recalls the exploits of the tournament's greatest champions.
Littler's league stage average of 102.32 has only been surpassed - in previous editions of the Premier League containing fewer matches - by Phil Taylor's and Michael van Gerwen's most exemplary performances.
Gary Anderson's 2017 campaign resulted in an average nearly equal to that of 'The Nuke', but none of the other 37 regular players across the tournament's 21-year history have ever come close to matching the virtuosity of Littler in his quest to become a back-to-back Premier League champion.
And even with respect to Taylor's and Van Gerwen’s very best, Littler's 2025 effort compares favourably.
Taylor and van Gerwen reached their respective peaks in 2012 and 2016 with such dominant campaigns that they raised doubts as to whether other players could ever achieve the same.
Under the current format, in which Premier League contestants play up to twice as many legs as they did under the normal round-robin league system, that doubt appears to be thoroughly justified.
Van Gerwen's 106.49 average of 2016 remains the highest in the tournament's history, and his world-record televised average from that year has still not been bested in the PDC.
Nearly a quarter of all the legs that MvG played that year resulted in the Dutchman winning in 12 darts or fewer - Littler managed just 15% this year.
However, when it comes to cleaning up with three darts at doubles, Littler has the advantage, with 82.8% success in comparison to MvG's 80.7%.
Phil Taylor in the 2012 Premier League lost only one of the 16 matches he played - competitive balance in the PDC makes this particular statistic almost impossible to surpass in the present day.
His 105.99 tournament average in these circumstances resulted in some colossal blow-out victories (such as Taylor defeating James Wade in the league stage 8-2 and 8-1 with 107 and 116 averages).
Yet even in the most impressive Premier League season of his career, Taylor managed a rate of 180s thrown which would be viewed, in the 2025 PDC, as anything but powerful.
Littler's rate of 48 maxima per 100 legs over the past four months dwarfs Taylor's 29.
The latter, however, tended to score more of his trebles in visits of 140, resulting in Taylor leaving a score of 151 after 3 darts, on average, in 2012, while Littler managed 163.
Gary Anderson's 2017 average may give the impression that it was as impressive as Littler's, but the comparison between a player who finished a distant fourth in the league table and Littler and his authoritative romp is not one of equals.
Littler's finishing, scoring, checkout efficiency and number of victories are in every respect superior.
Even in one area - high finishes - in which Anderson did better than both Taylor and Van Gerwen at their best, Littler's 19% checkout rate on finishes of 99 and 101-170 trumps them all.
Can any of the three other semi-finalists in the 2025 Premier League better a seventeenth showing of this historical performance?
Nathan Aspinall has not defeated Littler once in the group stage. Gerwyn Price's excellent record against Littler attracted attention when the Welshman won their first two meetings, but the tide has since turned in the Englishman's favour.
His biggest rival, Luke Humphries - the player closest to him in age - nearly registered a 100 group stage average for a second consecutive year and can boast three victories over Littler, but needed eight matches in which to achieve them.
Thus Littler is the clear favourite, and even if 2016 Van Gerwen or 2012 Taylor were to travel through time to take on this new prodigy, Littler would have an excellent chance of beating two all-time greats at the height of their powers.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia