Eddie Hearn says it is ‘inevitable’ that Matchroom will move into football in the future and believes they can make a big difference to the sport.
Sports promoter and chairman of Matchroom Sport, Hearn made a shock move into rugby union earlier this year by signing up the England and Northampton Saints No 8 Henry Pollock as well as Scotland’s Finn Russell.
Hearn launched Matchroom Talent Agency earlier this year and made the moves to sign two of rugby’s biggest names as well as British UFC Heavyweight Champion Tom Aspinall.
And Hearn believes the next step for the new Matchroom subsidiary will be to move into football.
Hearn is no stranger to football having served on the board of directors and as a vice-chairman of Leyton Orient when father Barry Hearn owned the London club between 1995 and 2014 and says as a company and family they have the knowledge and experience to make a difference.
Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo in New York, Hearn said: “We talked about football and we have always talked about sports and athlete representation, that was my background before I started with Matchroom.
“So as a business I think we are very well placed to do that, I think we can be very effective in football.”
Hearn is most well known for running the boxing side of Matchroom and has promoted Anthony Joshua since he turned professional after the London 2012 Olympics.
And he believes that Matchroom and his experience in boxing will help when they make the move into football.
He added: “It is a little bit like the Wild West with representation in football, which is good for us because boxing is exactly the same.
“But we will need to understand it and I am not naive enough to just think we can walk in and do it.
“But we have also owned a football club [Leyton Orient] so we have worked in many different areas.
“So I think it is inevitable to see us in football at some point. The numbers involved in transfer fees are just crazy, but the commission is nice.”
As well as boxing, Matchroom own and run The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and both sports had successful weeks in New York with the US Darts Masters selling out two nights at the world famous theatre at Madison Square Garden and then selling out the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for a contender for fight of the year as Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis beat Xander Zayas to win the WBA and WBO titles
As the song goes: “Since I made it here I can make it anywhere.” So next stop football.
