England greats predict what will happen when Eddie Hearn ‘soon realises rugby is not like Riyadh’ following his million-pound Henry Pollock demand
Rising England rugby star Henry Pollock is now managed by sports agent Eddie Hearn, inset
Two England rugby greats have debated the merits of Eddie Hearn’s bold demand that rising Northampton and England star Henry Pollock should be on a £1million-a-year playing contract.
The rumbustious sports promoter has long blazed a trail in boxing, but he has now dipped into rugby and taken on the rookie Pollock as a client. The 21-year-old’s current deal with Saints, which was signed in December 2024 and due to expire in the summer of 2027, is reputedly only worth £150k a year.
Since agreeing to those terms at Franklin’s Gardens, the youthful back-rower has gone on to be capped at senior level by Steve Borthwick’s England and toured Australia with the British and Irish Lions.
Just one of Pollock’s 13 England caps have been as a starter, but he has been named in Borthwick’s squad of 25 who will be on an enhanced elite player contract for the upcoming 2026/27 season.
“I like what you’ve done there because that money now can come to Henry…”
That August 12 announcement greatly enhanced Pollock’s earnings for the campaign ahead, but Hearn wants Northampton, the club that developed the player at pathway level, to fork out megabucks and keep him at the club after next summer.
PREM Rugby clubs are governed by the league’s salary cap and, with fellow England international Fin Smith thought to be Northampton’s one marquee player whose pay is exempt from counting towards the salary cap total, it is uncertain what wriggle room the Saints have so they can substantially improve Pollock’s terms.
Hearn’s million-pound-a-year demand generated headlines when the story emerged earlier this month, and it has now resulted in a role-playing debate between Dan Cole, the centurion England prop, and Ben Youngs, the record England men’s caps holder, on their For The Love Of Rugby show. Here is how the exchange unfolded:
Youngs: If I’m Eddie and I’m going in and you’re Northampton, you’re the contract person because you did have a little spell at Leicester. I walk in, I go Coley or Northampton contract guy, Henry brings in loads of sponsorship, loads of endorsements to be done.
Cole: First of all, Eddie Hearn is used to working in places like Riyadh and having private jets, and when he comes into rugby and he walks into a Portakabin at the back of the training ground or something like that, he’s going to have to lower his standards.
So straight away he’s on the back foot in this negotiation because he’ll soon realise in rugby, it’s not like Riyadh, it’s not like Saudi, it’s not like boxing; there aren’t millions of pounds rolling around. Yeah, he’s going to walk in and see the lack of grass on the pitch or all this kind of stuff and go, ‘A million pounds, please’. And they’ll be like, ‘Okay, good starting offer’.
Youngs: You’ve saved money on irrigation. You’ve saved money with the Portakabin, and I like what you’ve done there because that money now can come to Henry. So, he’s going to bring in endorsements, more sponsorship, more marketing for you, put the club out there, which gets more engagement. So, give him a million quid, please.
Cole: And I’ll look at the salary cap and go, we can’t do that. Sorry, mate.
Youngs: Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to take him elsewhere then.
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Cole: Okay, does he want to leave? He is a Saints boy. Like, we got this whole thing. But what I will say is, credit to him in some regards, because if my agent had come out when I was playing, going ‘Dan Cole’s worth a million quid’, people just go ‘ha’ and it wouldn’t make the press, but Pollock’s probably the only person, and Eddie Hearn, that could actually go, ‘He’s a million-pound player’.
Whether he is or not, and whether he’s just literally throwing a figure out there that the rugby world is talking about, he’s got the eyes on the rugby world and that’s the kind of draw of Pollock. In some regards, he’s kind of making his own statement true but there’s other times you think of the value of a club at Northampton, the value of a player, Finn Russell apparently is on a million pound and he is a 10 pulling the strings at Bath and you can say that, but has Henry Pollock got the rugby worth a million pounds for Saints? No.
Has he got the commercial worth? Possibly, but then that’s probably Eddie Hearn’s job to get a million pounds through his own individual deal, so when you’re getting that amount of money off the field, your playing contract actually isn’t the most important.
A bit like in the NFL, you get paid loads off it. So actually, your Tom Bradys as well take less because it means they keep the team together and they are better for it, and yeah, it’s one of those things. It’s an interesting debate when you go into the roots of it, but ultimately in rugby you will struggle to get a million pounds because you can’t go somewhere else as a marquee player – like you can’t go to, say, the northeast and be a marquee player. The northeast can’t make him a Red Bull ambassador and make him play rugby there because they can’t do that.
“So, you are kind of limited in his options. It will be fascinating to see how this thing (plays out). I fully expect him to re-sign at Saints because you’re playing in a great team, you’re winning and things are going alright for you at the minute. But yeah, it’s interesting that he’s come out with this statement, and we’re talking about it kind of proves your statement right in some regards.
Youngs: Eddie Hearn knows he’s in that promotion world, the negotiation world; he does it all the time and he’s doing the right thing. He’s representing the player; he’s got to go and get him as much as he can, which is exactly right. Now, whether Pollock gets a million quid from Saints, I’ll be amazed, but with endorsements, let’s be honest, the contract he’s probably on right now is very short of what he should be.
However, you didn’t know his trajectory in terms of the commercial person as well as the engagement, the eyes he brings. Northampton will be desperate to keep him. It sounds like everything I’ve heard is that he wants to stay and I’m sure a deal will be done.
Whether they get to that mark, I’ll be amazed, really, because of the repercussions of having to have a marquee player and then, you know, you’ll have to lose a certain amount of players, but his contract’s definitely going to go up substantially, substantially. And the endorsements he’ll get on top will probably make him a million pounds a year anyway.
Cole: As the club, if you’re going, Eddie Hearn, you can make him all this money; if you can make him more money off the field than you can on the field, we don’t need to pay him as much on the field because you’re getting money off the field, you know what I mean.
So sometimes as a player, if that’s all you’ve got is rugby and you dedicate to rugby and you’ve got nothing else, you feel I’ve got to maximise my earnings, but if you’re prepared to maximise your earnings off the field in some regards and that’s for your own individual endorsements rather than club endorsements, then the club can turn around and go well, whatever we pay you, it’s not exactly less because you’ve got more elsewhere and we can keep the team together.
So, yeah, it’s an interesting thing to say, and I can see both sides of the debate, but I’m sure they’ll get it sorted. I’m sure they’ll come to a fair agreement on a rugby thing, and I’m sure they will try and use his image elsewhere, but it’s interesting how it plays out. I fully expect him to stay at Saints.
Youngs: Good on him. I hope he absolutely maximises it. I tell you one thing, though: he could get a million quid, but probably just not in the PREM. Like, in terms of an actual playing contract, even at his age now, he could go to Japan and earn a million quid a year. A French team could possibly sign him and get close.
Cole: I don’t think France would. Japan, you could say maybe, but at the same time, is his commercial appeal in Japan the same as his commercial appeal in the UK? You know what I mean? That’s the thing. That’s what you’ve got to look at. And yeah, I’m sure lots is going on. There are other players who make a lot of money off the field who haven’t left the UK because their commercial deals are based around UK companies, and you know they can’t lose that money.
