🎯 How Matchroom made £280m in 2023

Matchroom have grown a crazy amount in the last 5 years.

• Matchroom 2018 Revenue: £192,882,023

• Matchroom 2023 Revenue: £280,773,518

How on earth did Barry Hearn, and more recently Eddie Hearn turn Matchroom Sport a family run business from Essex, into a sporting behemoth turning over £280m in a calendar year?

This family’s story is special and the crazy thing is, their empire is built upon three sports:

1. Snooker

2. Boxing

3. Darts

This week, I will break down the numbers, giving you a behind the scenes to the epic 40-year story.

You will likely be familiar with Matchroom due to Eddie Hearn and his relentless apporach to be the best promoter in boxing. So we’ll start there.

Eddie Hearn caused a seismic shift in 2019 when he took his Matchroom Boxing stable from fighting exclusively on SkySports to DAZN, the global streaming service.

That move has helped Matchroom massively. The profits to the business contributed from boxing have more-than-doubled since 2018.

Initial reports suggested the deal was an 8-year deal worth £1bn!

However, in 2021 a 5-year, “9 figure” deal was officially announced with Eddie having to put on a minimum of 16 shows a year.

So a central broadcaster is the main why in which Matchroom generate revenue, and DAZN have been fantastic partners for Eddie in since their partnership.

There are plenty other of other revenue streams for the business too:

1. PayPerView Buys

2. Tickets and Concessions from their events

3. Sponsors

4. Licensing

The result of the AJ vs. Dubois fight didn’t go the way AJ or anyone at Matchroom wanted to but that fight typifies everything about the Matchroom empire. Every single revenue stream was on full display with that fight and with the addition of Riyadh Season and Turki Alalshik, the businss performance of Matchroom Boxing will skyrocket in the coming years.

The interesting piece of the jigsaw however is the broadcast renewal.

The growth of Matchroom has aligned seamlessly with the rise to stardom of Anthony Joshua. With a few years left in AJ’s scintillating career will DAZN want to pay similar amount to renew their agreement with Matchroom when their agreement is up for renewal in the summer of 2026?

Similarly the Sky Sports renewal for darts is up for renewal in the Summer of 2025.

As an extension to boxing, darts has always been a pretty consistent contributor to the profits of Matchroom’s business.

• Matchroom 2018 Darts Profit: £5.2m

• Matchroom 2023 Darts Profit: £12.0m

Alot of overweight men, alot of drinking and alot of singing. Yes, that sport made Matchroom £12m in profit in 2023.

The final of 2024 World Darts Championship between Luke Littler and Luke Humphries was watched by a record audience of 4.8 million people. The peak audience was 3.71 million people watching concurrently, making it the highest ever non-football peak on Sky Sports. 

A crazy statistic!

The Darts Business is largely overseen by CEO of the PDC Matt Porter. Similar to Eddie, this man has grown the Darts business alot. 

The in-person experience at a Darts show is like a festival. Beer. Singing. Costumes. It’s electric, you can feel it through the TV when you watch. 

Therefore, most darts Championships sell out every event.

There are now tournaments in Ireland, Holland. Even Bahrain! As you can expect this expansion has been a boom for sponsors.

BETMGM, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and previously Cazoo get a lot of visibility with darts and the sponsors have helped boost the bottom line on the profits.

Sky however, signed a deal from 2017 which ends in the Summer of 2025. Barry Hearn said Sky would have to “up the ante” when they come to renegotiate the new darts deal. With the emergence of Luke Littler and the growing nature of darts will Sky want to keep the sport or will DAZN get a wider footprint into the Matchroom ecosystem?

My prediction is that Sky keep the darts, and pay a pretty penny to do so!

I cannot imagine the darts populous will take well to watching the sport on a streaming service, no matter how reliable it is.

The growth of Matchroom can be attributed to the simple governance of the company too. The board of directors is very simple:

• Barry Hearn: President (advisory role, not director)

• Eddie Hearn: Chairman (oversight of boxing and darts, director)

• Steve Dawson: Chief Operating Officer and Group Finance Director (oversight of snooker, director) 

Those chaps have had a busy year this year as Pitch International took a minority stake in the business in the summer of 2024.

Pitch are one of the biggest event organisers in the world and are known for their expertise in media rights, sponsorship sales, and event management within the sports industry.

This makes the tie-up a perfect synergy for the Hearn family.

I spent a long time trying to understand the valuation of the company and the size of the investment. Unfortunately I could not find anything other than confirmation of a minority stake.

However, the investment has allowed Matchroom to take some money off the table. Simon Jordan has muted that the investment valued Matchroom at £1bn!

There are some consistent themes running through this amazing family story: 

• Forward thinking leadership

• A global thought process

• And a particular focus on the experience for the consumer

Those are three things that set Eddie and Matchroom Sport apart.

It’s clear they have a great relationship with DAZN, but soon you will see a Docuseries on Netflix discussing their journey also. Produced by the same creators that made Drive to Survive.

I’ll be tuned into that one.

If you’ve enjoyed this piece, consider watching the video version on YouTube

See you next week.