Matchroom Sport is a sporting event promotions company founded by English
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
Barry Hearn
Barry Maurice William Hearn (born 19 June 1948) is an English sporting events promoter and the founder and President of promotions company Matchroom Sport.
Through Matchroom, Hearn is also involved in many sports including snooker, darts, ...
and run by Hearn and his son
Eddie Hearn. It first came to attention in the sports of
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in ...
and
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
and is also involved in
pool,
bowling
Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...
,
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
,
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from fish stocking, stocked bodies of water such as fish pond, ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. ...
,
darts
Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed missiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard.
Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the bo ...
,
table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
,
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...
and
gymnastics
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, s ...
. The company is based in
Brentwood, Essex
Brentwood is a town in the Borough of Brentwood, in the county of Essex in the East of England. It is in the London commuter belt, situated 20 miles (30 km) east-north-east of Charing Cross and close by the M25 motorway. In 2017, the p ...
.
Matchroom has broadcasting agreements in the United Kingdom with
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
, the
BBC and
ITV.
History
Matchroom formed in 1982 concentrating on snooker management with the likes of
Steve Davis
Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World S ...
,
Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor (born 19 January 1949) is a Northern Irish retired professional snooker player and current commentator. He is best known for winning the 1985 World Snooker Championship, where he defeated the defending champion Steve Davis in a ...
, and
Jimmy White
James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...
under contract before branching out into other sports with Hearn's first foray into boxing promotion being the Frank Bruno vs. Joe Bugner heavyweight clash in 1987 in front of 35,000 people at
White Hart Lane
White Hart Lane was a football stadium in Tottenham, North London and the home of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1899 to 2017. Its capacity varied over the years; when changed to all-seater it had a capacity of 36,284 before demolition. ...
.
The range of sports increased in 1994 with the
Mosconi Cup, an event which sees teams from Europe and the United States compete in a 9-ball
pool tournament. It has become a major event on the professional pool calendar.
Over the years, Matchroom's portfolio under Hearn grew, taking a majority stake in the
Professional Darts Corporation
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is a professional darts organisation in the United Kingdom, established in 1992 when a group of leading players split from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form what was initially called the Wor ...
in 2001, helping oversee a growth in the sport.
Matchroom Sport also promote the
World Cup of Pool
The World Cup of Pool is an annual international single-elimination tournament for doubles teams in nine-ball pool competition. The event has been dominated by the Philippines and China, with both nations winning the event on three occasions.
His ...
, a national team event, and the
World Pool Masters The World Pool Masters is an annual international nine-ball tournament. Formerly, it was called the European Pool Masters (until 1995) until players from other parts of the globe were invited.
History
Throughout much of its history, the tournament ...
, an annual nine-ball event.
In 2002, the company formed
PGA EuroPro Tour
The PGA EuroPro Tour was a men's developmental professional golf tour. It was created in 2002 by the merger of two development tours, the EuroPro Tour and the PGA MasterCard Tour, as the Professional Golfers' Association and Barry Hearn's Matchro ...
, the UK's leading developmental golf tour, in association with the PGA. Later, in the 2000s, came ten pin bowling's
Weber Cup
The Weber Cup, named after bowling legend Dick Weber, is a men's ten-pin bowling competition between Team Europe and Team USA. The teams competing over three days in a series of singles, doubles and team (baker) matches.
The Weber Cup is equiv ...
. In 2009, Barry Hearn became the majority shareholder in
World Snooker Tour
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
Ltd. Since then the sport has grown, with prize money increased and new events introduced worldwide.
More recently, Matchroom has launched the
World Championship of Ping Pong
The World Championship of Ping Pong, also known as WCPP, is an annual ping pong tournament that has been held since 2011. The current champion is Andrew Baggaley, who beat Alexander Flemming in the 2020 final to beat Maxim Shmyrev's record of w ...
, Superstars of Gymnastics, British Basketball All-Stars, and British Fast5 Netball All-Stars.
In April 2021, Barry Hearn stepped down as chairman with his son Eddie taking over the role. Barry will continue as president in an advisory role, while Eddie takes over as head of the PGA EuroPro tour, alongside overseeing Matchroom's wider operations and continuing to head the boxing division.
Boxing
Current stable
References
{{Reflist
External links
Matchroom Sport homepage
Leisure companies of the United Kingdom
Sports event promotion companies
Snooker event promotion companies
Boxing promoters