Barry Hearn: Darts, DAZN and Digital

Rich Clarke
podcast

Barry Hearn has been promoting sports for well over 40 years.

As the head of Matchroom Sport, he has revolutionised snooker (twice) and made his PDC Darts World Championship the second most viewed event on Sky Sports. He managed a stable of boxers in the 1980s and his son Eddie is now guiding the career of world heavyweight king Anthony Joshua, among many others.

Now 70, Barry still describes himself as “an accountant from a council estate with a chip on his shoulder”. He still rallies against “the blazers” and still wants to change the sporting world on a daily basis.

Topics

1.45 His role at Matchroom Sport now and how it has changed

2.20 What makes a good sports event

4.30 The re-invention of darts. How did that happen?

6.20 His battle with the BDO darts ‘blazers’

8.16 Building the personality of players. What if he had social media back in the day?

11.20 His history of investing in content

Telling Mark McCormack that "You rent your company but I own mine"

“Content has always been key but ownership is the biggest thing”

“I like the Ryder Cup but I could not buy it”

1515 Why fun > money

17.56 Leyton Orient: "My heart and my wallet merged and then, all of a sudden, I owned the club"

18.30 IFLTV and the YouTube channels disrupting the boxing media

20.07 Why you can not have too much publicity.

Feeding the baby monster with social media

22.05 The criteria for choosing the next sport. The "how is it going for you dear?" test

25.21 The sports Matchroom are monitoring at the moment

27.18 Why they have not moved into esports when they have been talking about it for two years

29.30 Why he has not created an OTT app to out out their own content, like DAZN and ElevenSports

31.23 The advantage of motivation. The natural excitement of making changes and mentally 'beating up' people.

34.55 The DAZN deal meeting and the demands of the millennial customer

38.02 What would he do if he was in charge of sports TV companies now

40.13 The lack of loyalty in the millennial market

41.13 Where he looks for trends

45.02 Summing up the attraction of darts

45.32 Is he an outsider?

48.23 "Legacy is overrated". Why he won't sell Matchroom Sport in his lifetime... but his son Eddie has a different approach

Links

Barry Hearn on Twitter

Matchroom Sport: website, Twitter

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