Barry Hearn - ParliamentSpeakers
Barry Hearn
Speaker
Barry Hearn qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1970 and spent several years with a major firm of international accountants before moving into the commercial world as finance director of Kensal House Investments. After a period in the fashion industry and property development, he became chairman of Lucania Snooker Clubs in 1974 and began to involve the snooker hall chain in amateur tournament promotions.
In 1976 Steve Davis began playing at the Romford Lucania Club and the two struck up a friendship which was to have a major influence on the world of snooker. In 1982 Riley Leisure acquired the chain of Lucania Snooker Clubs for £3.1 million leaving Barry free to concentrate on the development of snooker, both in the UK and overseas. With the support of the Matchroom professional players, Barry promoted snooker all over the world and has been particularly instrumental in the development of the game in the Far East.
Barry began his involvement in big time boxing by going straight in at the deep end - staging the Joe Bugner v Frank Bruno heavyweight show-down at Tottenham's White Hart Lane Stadium in 1987, in front of 30,000 people. Since then the Matchroom Boxing stable has risen to the top in both Britain and Europe, staging over fifty promotions throughout the season, including British, Commonwealth, European and World Championship bouts.
Together with Sky, who televise many of Matchroom Sport’s shows, Barry has helped discover and develop such champions as Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Herbie Hide, Carl Crook, Francis Ampofo, Steve Collins, Jim McDonnell and Eamonn Loughran.
Whilst sports such as snooker and boxing are firmly established as two of the most popular on television, Barry has set his considerable sights on other immensely popular but less well known sports. Barry promotes the world’s richest coarse fishing match - Fish'O'Mania - live on Sky Sports for six hours and now entering its ninth year.
The Marlin World Cup from Mauritius is another blue chip event in the Matchroom Sport portfolio and that has been running for seven years now. Finally, Barry is intent on developing the game of pool from a pub game into a huge TV sport, and the success of his Mosconi Cup Europe v America match and the World 9-Ball Pool Masters is a testament to the progress that has been made. In the summer of 1999 Matchroom promoted the World Pool Championship - the biggest event ever in the history of the game. The World Pool Championship has subsequently developed into one of Matchroom Sport’s biggest and most successful events.
Matchroom Sport also dominate the international televised tenpin bowling market with three events. They are the World Masters which has been in existence since 1998, the Weber Cup which is fast establishing itself as the Ryder Cup of bowling and the AMF World Cup, bowling’s biggest international event.
In addition, Barry has also developed poker, one of the world’s favourite games, into a viable live TV draw with the running of Poker Million, the first edition of which took place in November 2000. With one million pounds to the winner and the final stages live on Sky Sports, Poker Million is another innovative idea that will run and run.
In March 1995, Barry assumed a controlling interest in Leyton Orient Football Club. Despite the ups and downs of professional football, Barry has implemented major plans for stadium development and put Leyton Orient on a sound financial footing.
Over the years, Barry's Matchroom Sport organisation has grown into one of the world’s most prolific independent sports promotion and television companies, producing over 500 hours of original material each year.
Aside from Matchroom Sport, Barry is Chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, the World Snooker Association and WPBSA Ltd.
To book Barry Hearn for your event, please contact Parliament on
+44 (0) 1202 24 24 24
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.