Podcast Alert: Eddie Hearn – Matchroom Sport

Transcript

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Eddie Hearn: [00:00:00]  These guys are very clever. They’re content creators. They know how to interact with their audience. They know how to build a fan base. They know how to sell specific. And in that respect, they’ve built the right to do whatever they want and what they’ve wanted was boxed.

Anne Ristau: Welcome to the Navigating Sports Business podcast. I’m your host for today, Anne Ristau Executive Vice President of Consulting at Navigate. We started this podcast to showcase some of the incredible people that we get to interact with every day and the impactful work that they’re doing in our industry. We hope you learn something about them and something from them in our conversation.[00:01:00]

Today I am happy to be joined by Eddie Hearn, Sports Promoter and Chairman of Match Room Sport. Eddie in the business of sports, you’re kind of a renaissance man. You’ve been in golf darts, poker, boxing, netball. Before we get into some of this, can you talk about what was Match Room Sport in 2000 when you first joined?

Eddie Hearn: My father started the company back over 40 years ago now, and. It was a company really built around a game called Snooker, which your audience might or might not be familiar with, which is a big sport in the UK and of course in, in the Far East China specifically. And he made really his name as a, a snooker promoter in the 1980s, ventured into the world of boxing in the 19 backend of the [00:02:00] eighties and, and early nineties. And left the sport probably like 10 or so years after that. I left college and I didn’t really want to work for my father if I was honest, because everybody just said, grown up, well, you are going to be all right. You’re only going to work for your dad anyway. And although I felt a little bit of a legacy obligation to do so, I, I didn’t want to just move straight into that world.

When I finished my education, I went into the world of sports agency and cut my teeth representing athletes, specifically golfers on the European and PGA tours. And then after maybe seven or eight years of work felt it was time to go back to ma. When I joined back in 2000, the company looked very different.

Probably had a dozen or so employees, maybe a million or 2 million of EBITDA. And yeah, a far cry from where we are now. So I’d like to say that I was [00:03:00] responsible because things changed when I started, but obviously my dad put in a huge amount of work into the business and a lot of the credit goes down to the management that we’ve built over time.

Anne Ristau: Were you just snooker when you joined and is that similar to pool?

Eddie Hearn: Yeah, it is similar to pool. And pool is actually now a big part of our business as well. We own and promote The World Nine Ball Tour. Which stages a lot of major events in the US as well. And when I was there we were doing a small bit of boxing Darts has been another huge sport for us. Again, you’re going to see much more of that sport in the us. We’ve already staged major events in Madison Square Garden and in June it was a huge success. So a plethora of sports really. But sports built around our own interests and passion. We’ve rarely got involved with sports that we don’t understand or we don’t have a passion for.

Snooker was a game that my dad played a lot. He really had a passion for the sport. Boxing, particularly the same for me as well. So when I joined, we were involved still in a number of [00:04:00] sports, but nowhere near as deep in terms of the levels we were operating at.

Anne Ristau: My UK based colleague says that the fan experience at darts is the best thing around costumes, bedding, drinking.

Eddie Hearn: Darts, the best way to describe darts, which is. Like a little bit of a, our strap line at the moment, especially when we go into new territories, is the greatest sports party you will ever attend. It’s like nothing else. It’s like a giant pub with live sports being played in there. And we are seeing in the UK now 12, 14,000 live crowd in the arena. At every event, we are seeing record breaking audience numbers out second only to Premier League football. It’s difficult for people to understand, especially when you come into new territories, but just go and watch it on tv, watch it on YouTube, and, and you will just see one of the great live sport experiences. And Darts is actually the biggest [00:05:00] department within the company now. We are seeing incredible revenue growth, not just still in the UK, but particularly across Europe, Eastern Europe, now into America as well. We’re about to make a big push into America. Darts has been a phenomenon here, particularly.

Anne Ristau: I can’t wait for it to come, but I wanna go live. I don’t wanna watch it on tv. What’s the most important lesson you learned from your dad?

Eddie Hearn: I think that my dad is a great simplifier of problems, so. He’s a real old school guy. If things aren’t going your way, work harder. If you’re not happy, shut up. Tell yourself you’re happy. They say that really where as you get older, a lot of your character traits and a lot of your thinking in terms of life he’s built around your experiences as a, as a child. And Mark Re was quite unique really. I was just raised to work. That was what I was told. Winning is everything and you’ve got to work like a dog every single day. And you’ve also got to work. Like you haven’t got a cent, there’s no secret to the [00:06:00] success. Like now you’re looking at all these kind of mindset podcasts and, and he’s just like a great simplifier.

Like, just get up as early as you can and go to bed as late as you can and don’t stop working. And really, I think that the greatest lesson that I’ve learned, I, I think the key word is consistency. Anything that you do, if, if you are consistent and you have a passion for what you do, it’s very likely you’re gonna find success in some respect. Now, if you are good at what you do and you have consistency, you, you’re pretty much unbeatable. And I think that one thing that I’ve been much better at than my competition over the years is my work ethic and my consistency. Like he said, I’d work like a dog. I don’t stop every day and. That’s very difficult to counteract for a competitor within the industry.

There’s no secret manual. It’s very straightforward, and I think complacency is probably the thing that I’ve learned from him the best. Now, we’re in an [00:07:00] incredible position as a business, but we never sit back and go, we made it. Yeah, look at where we are now. Look at the numbers, look at the growth. Look all it’s like we’ve got to keep going and, and my life has been built around sport. All the lessons that I’ve learned in my life have really come through sport. And we see our business as a sport. It’s just another target. It’s not necessarily just a number. It’s a game. And yeah, I think probably keeping life simple is, is actually a great bit of advice, I think all around.

Anne Ristau: I love it. That’s, I think it’s both the harder you work, the lucky you get. Absolutely. And being able to keep it focused is truly I think a key success. Okay. So you took over Match and boxing in 2010. How has that changed over the last 15 years? Talk a little bit about what it was and what it is today.

Eddie Hearn: Yeah. I mean, when my father was in boxing, I was probably nine years old, so probably from the period of nine through to 20, my entire life was built. Growing up around the sport [00:08:00] I was in all the gyms. I was watching the spa, and I was at every show. I was carrying the belts out for the fighters. I was in camp with them. I was watching what they ate. I was seeing them do their hard runs in the morning. So although I, I never really, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a sportsman. I didn’t wanna be a sports promoter and I never really wanted to necessarily be a boxing promoter. But obviously I had a huge passion for the sport growing up.

And it was actually a chance meeting at a poker event. I really dominated the world of televised poker. Probably 95% of everything that you saw on TV was a match room event that we were producing during the poker boon, and I just met a heavyweight boxer called Alie Harrison who won the Olympic Gold. Kind of had a little bit of a failed career, and we just started talking at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and he asked me to promote him. And as I did, I sold him the dream as I always do, and I told him that I could take him to the World Heavyweight [00:09:00] Championship, and I did. I took him to a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship and he lost, and I said, that’s me done. It was a great experience, but in the meantime. Everybody saw a fresh face in the sport, something very different. This younger guy coming in with a kind of legacy reputation through Matchroom, but now just complete fresh approach to the world of boxing. And I gave boxing a, a big kick up the backside and took it to major arenas, started making the big fights, and then went to the biggest sports broadcaster in the UK and said basically, you’ve got to give me all of your dates.

It was at a time where they had four promoters that they shared the dates with. And I said, no, you’ve got to get rid of them all. And after a bit more success, they did it. They gave me the exclusive deal, sky Sports, and that changed boxing. That changed our business really. And from there we haven’t looked back. We major deals around the world and particularly the growth of the business in America as well, which is something that no UK promoter has ever done [00:10:00] to, to take a, a big position in the US market. And also. Key boxing markets around the world Mexico, and now of course the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, Australia. We we’re in every key market and, and we’re the only global boxing promotional company in the world.

Anne Ristau: And talk a little bit about what you do also, that’s unique. You’ve talked about the difference between a world-class fighter and a star, and how you’ve used social media and new channels to really make these fighters a celebrity, in their own right.

Eddie Hearn: Yeah. I think that obviously you need to build the profile of, of all your key talent, but you really have to build the narrative of every event and every fight. I’m not a genius by any sense, but I’m a very good storyteller and, and that’s my job. Really is to make you understand the fighter, the journey, the individual, but also the event, the fight. And that’s something we really embrace. The growth of social media to promote the sport of [00:11:00] boxing back would’ve been 15 years ago, probably now. And we were the first ones to really explode on social media in terms of promoting boxing. And it’s been hugely important to us. And I looked at other businesses. Particularly the UFC and particularly WWE and the world of kind combat sports. And I saw this figurehead in those sports, obviously Daniel Wyatt, and at the time Vince McMahon, and I felt like I need to really create my own brand, my own image, the instructor if you like, or the showman within boxing. So although it’s important to have talent, it’s also important to have your own brand. As Eddie Hearn and as math, boxing, so that when you expand internationally, you are not just talent led. When the UFC announces that they’re going through Madrid and Daniel Wyatt comes out and says, Hey, Madrid, we’re company, you know, that’s a sellout without you really even knowing who’s on the card. And we’ve managed to build that through boxing as well.

It’s much more difficult [00:12:00] because there are so many major promotional companies, but that was definitely a key part of, of what we decided to do.

Anne Ristau: Talk a little bit about YouTube that’s arisen recently and some of these fights that are not necessarily athletes or professionals in any sense, how do you feel about it?

Eddie Hearn: It’s a crazy world. I mean, I’m partly responsible because back, I think in 2000 and I can’t remember now, 19, I did KSI against Logan Paul at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and. It was a massive event. I mean, we sold millions of pay-per-view around the world. We sold 18,000 at the Staple Center. I’ve got Rick Ross here, Justin Bieber here, like everybody was there and I really took note of that world, and that’s the world that we are living in. At the same time as a kind boxing aficionado, I found it quite difficult at the press conferences and obviously watching the [00:13:00] product as well. So after that event, despite making a lot of money. I decided to step back for a minute. I, it’s just not for me. I can’t, I’m a salesman and without the belief and the fire in my fire, I can’t do the same kind of job, and I just didn’t believe in the product, so I stepped back and listen.

Since then, it’s exploded even more. It’s very different to traditional boxing, of course, but these guys are very clever. They’re content creators. They know how to interact with their audience. They know how to build a fan base. They know how to sell subscriptions. And in that respect, they’ve built the right to do whatever they want. And what they wanted was boxing. That’s what they chose. They could have chose athletics, golf, whatever. So boxing is a, it’s a sexy sport, but sometimes people say, boxing’s, this boxing’s dead. Boxing’s not dead in the slightest, boxing’s hotter than it’s ever been. There will always be broadcasters, there will always be celebrities, there will always be fans [00:14:00] that want to see the big events.

And the YouTube world is, you know, we’re seeing obviously recently with Jake Hall and Mike Tyson and all this kind of stuff. It’s madness really, but it’s also a world I understand. I mean, I have two daughters, 15 and 13, so I just know that world and I know the way that generation are digesting content. That’s why I made our move in boxing to DAZN, which is an act for live sports. I did that five years ago and everyone said, what are you doing? I said, because I believe streaming is the future of broadcast. And you’ve seen now the way that people are watching, the way that people are, are digesting. Their content continues to change and that is the future.

Anne Ristau: I do want to talk about DAZN, but first I’d love to also ask about women’s boxing. Yeah. Because you’ve been an advocate and you’ve promoted major fights like. Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano. Where do you see the future here and is it the same freight train that’s happening in [00:15:00] other women’s sports?

Eddie Hearn: Yeah, it’s amazing. I’m very honest on these subjects and I, I hate box ticking exercises. A product has to be a product. It has to stand alone on its merits. And I’m not a believer that we should just show women’s sport because it’s good for us to show. Do you know what I mean? I, I don’t like that. I think if it’s going to have sustainability, commercial sustainability, it has to be there on merit. And there is a, a huge amount of women’s sport that is of course, a hundred percent there on merit. And when I started to look at women’s boxing. I’d seen the growth of women’s sport with our broadcaster Sky sports. Some of it was good, some of it wasn’t so good, but there was no audience, there was no market for boxing.

No one was asking for it, no one was thinking about it. And I got a, a DM from a, a fighter called Katie Taylor, and for those who don’t know, Katie Taylor is [00:16:00] the kind of original modern day trailblazer for the sport when Irish boxing banned. Girls from taking part in boxing. She went into the amateur clubs. She put her ponytail under her head guard when she walked in and she pretended she was a boy when she fought in amateur tournaments. She then went and convinced the IOC to allow Olympic boxing for women and they agreed after watching her fight. So she’s done everything and when she won gold in the Olympics, she phoned me up, sent me, so her, sent me a message and said, look.

I’ve changed women’s amateur boxing so much. I really believe I can do it in the professional code. Could we have a meeting? And I was like, oh, like we are not, we’re just, it’s not happening. But she’s a legend and we had the meeting and she came into my office like I was absolutely blown away. Like the passion that she had and like the way she was speaking and the determination and the fire in her belly and her voice. I was like, I’ve got to be a part of this. I [00:17:00] don’t know where this is going to go. And I knew. Again, going back to the product, she was so exciting to watch as a fighter man, like all at action that, and then I signed her and I said, right, Katie Taylor is going to headline one of our shows in London. And everyone, well, I got laughed at and it’s like, you are going to headline with a woman on a show.

I said, yes. Oh, you have to see this girl far anyway, it’s a great crowd. And she went in there and the place went quiet with how. Incredible she was to watch. And from there we’ve just been on the most amazing journey with her. She’s fought Wembley Stadium, millennium Stadium. She sold out Madison Square Garden.

She sold out three arenas in Ireland twice. It’s incredible. And she’s opened the door for so many female fighters now and, and this is something that’s so important. We are seeing the pay heavily increase for women’s boxing, which is really important. But I always say. If you [00:18:00] want real at quality, the level of pay has to be consistent with the value of the product, right? A female middleweight champion should not necessarily get the same as a male middleweight champion if commercially they don’t drive the same numbers. That’s why Katie Taylor makes much more money than male fighters because she sells out arenas. Because the broadcaster pays substantial rights fees, so the pay for the fighter has to be consistent with their commercial value. And there has been a little bit of a plateau for women’s boxing, I think, because there are now so many female fighters. But the big fights for women’s boxing continue to rise commercially, and it’s been a huge success for us and, and a great journey.

Anne Ristau: That’s pretty incredible. Okay, let’s talk about DAZN. Five years ago, it was the billion-dollar deal. Still very big number but was the largest boxing broadcasting deal in [00:19:00] history. How do you see that partnership evolving?

Eddie Hearn: There’s been a huge success story for us as a boxing platform. We turned our backs on all the traditional platforms five years ago, and we made a massive roll of the dice. Financially. It was a good move for us, but I’ve gone from going to pitch to a fight. Telling them, I’ve got the biggest broadcaster in the world to, I’m now on an app that you’ve never heard of. Yeah. And they’re like, what? So what is it? What is an, I’m like, well, do you know Netflix? Yeah, I know Netflix. I said it’s very similar to that, but basically for sport and for boxing. Right. Okay. And we were met with such resistance from our competitors in the product. Who’s going to watch that? Who’s going to watch it? Who watches live sport on their phone? This is five years ago. And now the answer is everybody. And now every boxing promoter in the world, every fighter in the world wants to [00:20:00] be on the zone.

It’s, it’s now global product is considered the global home of boxing. And it’s been a massive success story, but it, it hasn’t been without. It’s obstacles to overcome over the years. Only now, really in the last probably 12 months, it has become the only place to watch the major events and the growth of Saudi Arabia as well. Boxing there has been very important, but yeah, we are sitting now with substantial subscriber bases in all the key markets and just a fantastic product. A fantastic product for fight fans that I remember pitching to the, the consumer side saying, yeah, you can watch these fights on your phone when you are traveling around. You’re in a car on the right, but I want to watch it on the big screen in my room. I said, you can’t, how do I do that? Just find app. You just go to your tv, your smart tv, you download the app, and you are right. It took a long time. I let me, I, I think it probably took my dad three years to understand how to watch the app [00:21:00] on his tv. Now, of course, it’s part of life. It’s just part of the way you watch live sport, and it’s been a massive success.

Anne Ristau: Medium. Longer term, is the pay-per-view market still viable?

[00:21:12] Eddie Hearn: In the UK that point for a pay-per-view is around $30. In the US it’s anywhere between 60 and a hundred dollars. Now, if you are watching a Canelo Alvarez fight, you are paying 80 or $90 for a fight. It’s a huge amount of money. And I really feel like what, what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to run everything on pay-per-view because it will limit and diminish your audience. It will restrict your viewership. So, for me, I think the future is actually to bring that price point down for a pay-per-view. And also, that will help you in terms of illegal streaming. Illegal streaming is a major problem across live sports, particularly when there’s an expensive price point for the product. yes, so for me, [00:22:00] pay-per-view will always be there. But we like the subscription model for the monthly or annual subscription model that can consistently deliver you value for money rather than just $90 for a night. We understand to generate the revenue for these big fights. It is an important part of the model.

Anne Ristau: You talked a little bit about the growth in the Middle East, but you’ve been expanding match rooms, specifically us, Spain, other markets. Where else do you see global growth and what’s on your kind of three-to-five-year horizon?

Eddie Hearn: Yeah. I think that one of the most enjoyable things that we’ve done I is to see that global growth within boxing. The Middle East is a lot of fun. Obviously Saudi Arabia have. Huge financial ammunition to stage major fights and major sporting events. You’re seeing it consistently across Riyad season at the moment. I think Australia’s a really fun market, very similar to the UK. They’ve got some great boxing talent at the moment. Mexico’s been a market where we’ve had massive success because of course, [00:23:00] historically and from a legacy perspective, it’s synonymous with the sport of boxing and the US. The difficulty in the US is boxing is quite heavily down the packing order in terms of sport. You’ve got American football, basketball, NHL, and then you’ve got all the college systems beneath there, and you’ve got UFC and boxing kind of sits down the bottom. But there’s kind of nothing like a major boxing event still, I feel, and when you get it right, boxing is a major event in the us. There’s nothing like big fire, Madison Square Garden or in Las Vegas. So. For us. I don’t want to take our eye off the markets we’re expanding to. I think the Far East China particularly is a market that we’d love to get a foothold for boxing. Very happy with where we are, and we remain the only global promotional company in the world.

Anne Ristau: What do you do on all those long flights?

Eddie Hearn: Yeah, I just sit on my phone really, which is like the bane of my life, [00:24:00] and read social media. Tweet and post and make fights, and a lot of people say to me, what do you do in your spare time? What do you do in your downtime? I really, I don’t know whether it’s something to boast about. I don’t have any downtime. The only downtime I’ll have is with my kids. But even then, I’m thinking I’m working or leaning down and answering an email while they’re not looking or fear of getting told off. Yeah, I think when you have a passion for something, it does consume your life. And I don’t see it necessarily always as work or hard work because I love what I do, but the traveling is brutal. And about two years ago. I really made a decision to work on my health because like a fighter, the better condition you are, the better engine you have. If you getting to a point where you’re not sleeping, you are eating poorly, you’re not exercising, you’re going to crash. So yeah, that was something that I started about two years [00:25:00] ago and it’s something that I’ve invested in quite a lot of my travels now, like getting that routine right.

Almost like in a weird way, treating myself like an athlete, which I’m far from, just in terms of you’ve got like carry yourself first. It starts at seven in the morning and you’ll be finished at eight o’clock tonight. Off you go. If I feel, excuse my language like crap, I’m not going to have the same energy, not just in terms of my workload, but in the way that I’m selling, and I have to be up on that stage. I’ve got a press conference in an hour. When I get there, I have to get it right and I never have a script. I think I’m the only promoter in the business that doesn’t have notes, doesn’t have a script. I get up there and I look around and I’ve got 15 fighters to talk about, and then the stream will say, right, we are live in 3, 2, 1, and I just go, right here we go this Saturday night, Philadelphia. And I just [00:26:00] go for every fighter. It’s, it’s definitely my biggest talent. I don’t have many talents, but that is the one that no one can beat me at, and that’s because I live and bring my job and the sport and my clients. So I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me. This guy is 18 and oh with 14 knockouts and he’s ranked number three in the world. I know, and that’s something that I’ve been lucky enough to be consistent with over time.

Anne Ristau: It’s awesome to see that you’ve made that passion such an amazing global career, but also great advice cause I think that’s everyone in sports and entertainment struggles with the jobs are 24 7 and how do you take care of yourself and make sure you’re your best. I’d love to wrap up with some rapid fires for you. Sure. Favorite sports event to watch?

Eddie Hearn: Great question.

Anne Ristau: I’m going with darts myself and experienced it.

Eddie Hearn: Away from what we do. I would say to ride a cup in golf.

Anne Ristau: Oh, good. Cause my next one was Team [00:27:00] USA or Team Europe.

Eddie Hearn: Oh, I’ll have to, I’ll have to stick to my roots. Team Europe. We actually have a Moscone Cup, which is the American pool living of Ryder Cup, USA, against Europe. This year it’s in December. The Reau in Orlando, we’ve sold like 7,000 tickets. It honestly. It’s wild. I love those team events. You know what? It really means something as well to the competitors and like they’re up on the table and you know, all your guys are shouting USA. We need them to come across through the broadcast.

Anne Ristau: Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Who do you like on Team Europe?

Eddie Hearn: What golf favorite? Rory McIlroy’s been very consistent over the years.

[00:27:41] Anne Ristau: See, I like the personalities. You got Tyrell Hat and Shane Lowry. Yeah, they’re fun. They’re fun. Top all time Boxer Favorite.

Eddie Hearn: From a legacy point of view in terms of the importance in the sport, I would always say Muhammad Ali, but my favorite growing up my, one of my biggest heroes in Sugar Ray Leonard , [00:28:00] a tremendous fighter. And actually one of the first things that I did when I signed my DAZN deal in America was I also signed Sugar Ray Leonard as the commentator. No, that’s, I’ve got a chance to meet him. Very classy. Cool guy.

Anne Ristau: Very cool. Is there a dream venue for you to host a fight in that you haven’t been to yet?

Eddie Hearn: Another good question. I mean, actually as a UK promoter, there’s two things that you want to do in America. One is promoting Las Vegas, and two is promote a Madison Square. I’ve done both of those quite a large number of times, which is a, a real blessing. I guess the bird’s nest in Beijing would be quite an incredible thing to do. Maybe even New York, Wimbledon in the UK, some something out of the box. I’ve done all the big venues. I’m also a big cricket fan and there’s a, a stadium in Brisbane called de gaba, which is something that I’ve had my eye on for a while, you know, so watch this place.

Anne Ristau: Advice to young people [00:29:00] who want to get into promotion or talent management?

Eddie Hearn: I think the advice to young people in general is make sure you have a, a passion for what you do. I know that it gets said a lot, but I think the only way that you can work with the intensity and the tenacity that you need to is to have a passion for what you do. Because I couldn’t think of anything worse than waking up in the morning and not. Enjoying what I do or not having a zest for life or what I do or walking into a job. That’s why at Matchroom we try and create an environment where it is fun and, and we give people responsibilities. The opportunity to navigate through the business because I don’t want people to turning up just thinking, oh God, I hate this job sitting there every day. We each have fun wanting you to enjoy yourself. So it’s definitely to, to have a passion and, and, and also not put too much pressure on yourself too early. I speak a lot of these kinds of major business schools and it’s at [00:30:00] 1920, I, you know, I want to know where I’m going. I, I just think life changes so much that how you feel at 1920 is so different to how you feel. I mean, not just at 40, but at 30. So a lot of people say, well, I’m really found my passion, yet you will find it. But in the meantime, you’ve got to do everything right, which is work hard and stay consistent.

Anne Ristau: Eddie, thank you so much for joining us today and providing insights. Matchroom is an incredible success story and we’re thrilled to have you share some of the behind the scenes that have made it such a success.

Eddie Hearn: Thanks for having me.

Anne Ristau: If you have any questions or comments. Please feel free to reach out to us. My email is ANNE@NVGT.com and you can also connect with us on my personal LinkedIn or the Navigate page. Again, this is Anne Ristau with Navigate [00:31:00] Joined by Eddie Hearn. Thank you for joining us on Navigating Sports Business, and please stay well.