Barry Hearn came from humble beginnings on an Essex council estate but became one of British sport’s most recognisable promoters.
Barry passed over his business interests to his son Eddie Hearn in 2021 but what is the story behind the entrepreneur and what is his net worth?
Who is Barry Hearn?
Barry Hearn was born in 1948 on a council estate in Dagenham, England.
The son of a bus driver and a cleaner, Hearn had an entrepreneurial flare from a young age and ran a series of small businesses as a teenager, from picking fruit and vegetables to washing cars.
Hearn qualified as an accountant and ended up working at a design company.
In the early 1970s, he bought a snooker hall in Romford, Greater London.
The same year, the BBC started showing snooker on coloured television, which meant queues of people wanting to play.
Hearn and business partner Deryck John Healey then purchased Lucania Billiard Halls.
The pair started promoting sporting events in 1974.
In 1976, after working with amateur snooker players, he started managing Steve Davis, who went on to win the World Championship six times.
Hearn made a fortune from the snooker boom of the 1980s and founded the promotions company Matchroom in 1982 – helping develop snooker talent and producing televised events.
The same year, he sold Lucania Billiard Halls for £3.1 million ($4 million).
In 1987, Hearn expanded his business interests and moved into boxing, with his first promotion being the Frank Bruno versus Joe Bugner fight at White Hart Lane in 1987.
Hearn has since gone on to promote a number of British and Irish boxers, including Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Lennox Lewis.
In 2008 Hearn introduced the Prizefighter series, a knockout tournament featuring 8 boxers.
Over the years, Hearn has expanded into fishing, gymnastics, basketball, pool and ten-pin bowling.
But Barry Hearn’s journey hasn’t been plain sailing and the entrepreneur nearly went bankrupt in the early 1990s.
He said: “I struggled a lot in the late Eighties and early Nineties. There was no coverage of sport on ITV and BBC, and they were the worst years of my life.
“At the lowest point, I thought to myself: ‘I’m still a chartered accountant. I’ll never starve. I can get a job easy’.”
From 1995 to 2014 Hearn was the chairman of the football league club Leyton Orient.
He said he regretted selling the club to Francesco Becchetti, who ended up not paying the staff.
He said at the time: “Owe the government or the Revenue, but don’t owe the club photographer six grand, because he’s got a wife and family.”
When darts split into two governing bodies, Hearn became the chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) – acquiring the majority stake in 2001.
In 2009 Hearn was elected as the Chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).
In 2010, Hearn purchased 51 per cent of the WPBSA’s commercial business with the vision of revitalising the game.
In 2020, Hearn suffered from his second heart attack so in 2021 retired and passed his business interests over to his son Eddie.
Eddie, a big name in the world of sports in his own right, joined the family business in 2004.
In 2018 Eddie finally cracked the US, when he brokered a $1 billion deal with DAZN to stream 16 fights a year.
Eddie said: “He came from nothing, and the one thing he was scared of was me being a spoilt rich kid. When I played sports, he never gave me anything.
“If he was bowling at me in the garden or playing table tennis, he never let me win. I had to be good enough.”
What is Barry Hearn’s net worth?
Barry Hearn has a net worth of £158 million ($201 million).
In 1982, Matchroom’s first year’s profit was around £70,000.
In 2022, that had increased to over £40 million.
Hearn hasn’t taken a salary in 15 years “but obviously I survive financially on dividends and interest payments,” he said.
Hearn now owns a home in England and a home in the Caribbean but started out with a £6,000 house when he got married.
It took him two years to save up the 5 per cent deposit of £300 because he was on £12 a week.
Hearn said: “It sounds terrible, but I can’t remember making a bad investment in my life.”