Weekend news roundup 18/11: Box office latest & Littler’s latest win

Jonathan Victoria • 18 Nov 2024 News

Plus England’s triumph, boxing records & McIlroy on top in Dubai.

Littler wins 15 straight legs to claim Grand Slam of Darts title

Credit: THE CHAMP IS CROWNED! 🏆 Final Highlights - 2024 Grand Slam of Darts (Professional Darts Corporation, YouTube)

Luke Littler capped off his strong performances during the Grand Slam of Darts tournament with a stunning victory and an all-time classic showing, winning 15 straight legs in the final to claim the title on Sunday.

Making his debut in one of PDC darts’ biggest competitions, Littler looked strong throughout, only truly being pushed on two occasions; once in the Round of 16 against Mike De Decker, and once again earlier on Sunday in the semi-finals.

Littler battled it out in one of the most hard-fought victories of his young career to date, overcoming two-time World Championship winner Gary Anderson in a stunning 31-leg thriller.

It was a brilliant display all around from darts’ youngest star who seems to have nothing but upside to what he can do. The next major tournament will be the World Championship in December, the competition that introduced the world to Luke the Nuke and where he finished runner-up. He will head into it as favourite and will be expecting to go one better than last year.

Red One sees slow start but still tops box office

Credit: RED ONE | Official Trailer (Amazon MGM Studios)

Dwayne Johnson’s latest action comedy Red One has debuted at the top spot in the US domestic box office with a $34.1m opening.

While this was good enough to topple Venom: The Last Dance, which had sat atop the box office for the previous three weeks running, in comparison to the $250m production budget and roughly $100m marketing spend, that $34.1m doesn’t seem so great.

The film is getting very mixed reviews already and with it being a Christmas film and it’s only just past the halfway point of November, it’s asking a lot to see if the film will be able to continue playing well into the holiday season so that it can see any sort of positive return on how much was spent on the film.

Of course, there are the international numbers to look at, which gives it an extra $50m to bring it to a debut weekend global total of $84.1m, but that’s still a long way off what they will be hoping to make.

England returns to Nations League top division

England’s emphatic 5-0 victory over Republic of Ireland, along with last Thursday's win over Greece, sees the Three Lions return to League A of the Nations League.

Lee Carsley took charge of the national side for one last time before Thomas Tuchel takes charge in January, and there was a fair bit riding on both games. 

A second consecutive loss to Greece would have meant no automatic promotion to League A. Thankfully, goals from Ollie Watkins, Curtis Jones and an own goal gave them the win in Athens and put them ahead in the table.

While it took until the second half to get things going, England managed to sweep Republic of Ireland aside at Wembley on Sunday, with goals Harry Kane, Anthony Gordon, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Connor Gallagher and Jarrod Bowen securing the promotion.

Kane’s goal extends his England scoring record to 69, while the other four netted their first international goals, a milestone which sees the first instance of four players nabbing their first England goal in the same game since 1930.

Special shoutout to Harwood-Bellis. The Southampton starman at the back getting his goal on his England senior squad debut and doing so in front of his future father-in-law Roy Keane.

Paul vs Tyson sets Netflix records despite issues

The pitiful sight that was Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson was bemoaned by many before, during and after.

But despite people’s opinions, the event still managed to smash Netflix’s streaming records, peaking at 65 million concurrent viewers. In comparison, the previous record was a measly 1.8 million. Even the co-main event (which was a real bout), Serrano vs Taylor 2, brought in around 50 million live viewers.

However, despite the crazy viewing numbers, the viewing experience was not all that great for almost all, with the stream struggling from the number of users, leading to consistent buffering and lower resolution.

Netflix are looking to become a big player in sports live streaming space, with WWE programming coming to the service in 2025 as well as one NFL Christmas game each year starting this year. If this was their test run to see how they may fare, then the service has a lot to sort out before those two events come around - particularly WWE with its year-round weekly shows.

McIlroy victorious in DP World Tour finale

Credit: How Rory McIlroy won the DP World Tour Championship (Sky Sports Golf, YouTube)

Rory McIlroy has equalled the late great Seve Ballesteros for Order of Merit titles, taking his sixth career Race to Dubai victory after victory at the DP World Tour Championship.

Heading into the weekend, the world number three had a healthy lead in the tour leaderboard, with his nearest rival, Thriston Lawrence, needing the win with McIlroy finishing outside the top 11 to prevent the Northern Irishman from taking his third consecutive Harry Vardon Trophy.

Over the course of the season, Rory amassed one win (Hero Dubai Desert Classic) and four runner-up finishes to put himself on top of the leaderboard.

With his sixth Order of Merit victory, McIlroy now sits just two behind the all-time record, set by European Tour great Colin Montgomerie.