Eddie Hearn: ‘Henry Pollock is the guy to completely change rugby, the spike is coming’
Northampton Saints flanker Henry Pollock and an inset of Eddie Hearn.
Eddie Hearn believes that Henry Pollock can ‘completely change’ rugby with the hugely successful promoter predicting that a spike in popularity is imminent.
While Hearn is renowned for his promotional work in boxing, snooker and darts, he is now taking his first step into rugby union after years of rejecting rugby league’s advances.
This, after he signed England and Northampton Saints ace Pollock to his new venture, Matchroom Sport Agency, just the second major athlete after MMA heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.
Hearn insists that it is not his job to grow the sport, as he will focus on capitalising on Pollock’s marketability but believes that the youngster could be at the forefront of the impending spike.
“In layman’s terms, our job is to harness and drive the commercial value of Henry Pollock,” Hearn explained on the Big Jim Show, detailing what his company will be doing for Pollock.
“That means making sure that we drive his profile to the mainstream audience beyond rugby and also create new commercial opportunities from a revenue perspective, driving brand deals, and within 6 to 12 months, Henry will be making more money off the pitch than he makes on it. And that will change over time because I know his contracts, and I think he’s going to have huge value as time goes on.”
Rugby’s spike
The businessman added that since the news of Pollock signing with Matchroom was confirmed, players have clamoured to work with him.
“I would say we’ve had over 30 players come on since the signing of Henry, saying, ‘This is exactly what we need. Could you work with me?’ We’re not going into rugby management. If there’s someone special, we may add one more, you know, or two more. This isn’t about us becoming rugby agents,” he continued.
“It’s quite smart because it’s like Aspinall signing in the MMA situation, it allows us to deep dive within the sport to learn to watch, listen, and I’m sure it will unfold other commercial opportunities for Matchroom.”
Having played his part in the rise in popularity for boxing, darts and snooker, Hearn believes that he has a knack for knowing when the popularity of a sport is about to soar.
He says that rugby’s spike is on its way.
“I’ve got a pretty good nose for a spike in sport, I think yours is coming. I really do,” he continued.
“I look at Pollock, I look at the success of the Six Nations, the women’s game as well. I think now could be the time, and I think he’s the guy. It’s literally England Rugby, RFU, you’ve got him in the palm of your hands to completely change the way this sport looks.”
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Going to the Principality
Hearn says he was blown away by the theatre of Wales versus England at the Principality Stadium during the Six Nations, which led to the decision to step into rugby and sign Pollock to his agency.
“Throughout the years, we’ve always looked at rugby, particularly across the league side, and we’ve had approaches from the RFL to maybe move into the sport,” he explained.
“I went to the Six Nations game a couple of weeks ago, and people think that I put that post out to sort of launch Matchroom in rugby, but at the time, I hadn’t even discussed Henry Pollock. But I was blown away with the power of the Six Nations and particularly, being there at that event, given that Wales hadn’t won a Six Nations game for three years and were bottom of the table and I’m just looking around with hairs on my arms are standing up and obviously from a commercial sense I’m looking thinking money and then I put that post out and it went a bit wild.
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“I had probably a dozen players contacting me, clubs contacted me, a lot of people in rugby contact me and say, ‘You’ve got to do it, you’ve got to come in.’
“I’m not sure at what level we can do that. But at the same time, Matt Hart from Stellar Rugby messaged me and said, ‘Listen, you know, I’ve got like dozens and dozens of players.’ I said, ‘I’m not really sure, Matt’. He said, ‘But who is the one player?’
“Henry subsequently told me that there was a lot of discussion in the change rooms about who the one player is that Eddie Hearn knows. And I said to Matt Hart, Henry Pollock, and he went I represent him. I said you’re joking. He said no.
“I take my hat off to Matt because he said to me, ‘I’m the rugby guy, but I have this guy who is a commercial monster, and I need a powerhouse that can really harness it and really leverage it. Would you be interested?’
“I mean, if there’s ever a player that I’m going to do it with in rugby and if there’s ever a time, it’s with this kid, because as soon as I watched him play, as soon as I saw the celebrations, I was like, he’s the guy.
“So he came in, he gave me like a good couple of hours seminar about rugby and the clubs and the problems and England and the contracts and the boot deals and every and I was like feel like an expert after this and then three or four days later, Henry came in and a couple of hours after that it was it was a done deal.”
