Eddie Hearn is a boxing promoter for Matchroom Boxing and is exclusive to delivering fights on DAZN.
He is seen as one of the leading promoters in world boxing and in 2018, he signed a £750million, eight-year deal with American streaming service DAZN.
In doing so, he secured the most lucrative promoting deal in boxing history.
Growing up, Hearn was surrounded by boxing royalty in Frank Bruno, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn because of his father, Barry Hearn, who was the founder of Matchroom Sport in the 1980s.
Despite producing poor GCSE results, Hearn achieved an A and two Cs in media studies, physical education and business studies. Through studying the latter, he left his telesales job to become a representative for golfers and other sports stars, including Sir Ian Botham.
Not one to miss a trick, Barry hired his son to work for Matchroom Golf before venturing into promoting online poker for various broadcasters in the UK.
Moving up the ladder in the Matchroom empire, Hearn started to gain recognition in boxing after fronting the hugely popular Prizefighter tournament - a three-minute, three round format with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final taking place on the same night.
Things went from strength-to-strength with Hearn securing a long-term contract with Sky Sports after the TV channel dropped Ricky Hatton, Frank Warren and Frank Maloney, now Kelly, as promoters.
Through working in the poker industry, Hearn met Audley Harrison at a tournament and through that, he spearheaded Harrison’s revival into boxing - firstly with victory in the Prizefighter followed by a world title shot against David Haye on Sky Sports Box Office.
In the UK scene, Hearn has produced elite fighters such as Anthony Joshua and Katie Taylor.
The UK promoter is also the face of steaming service DAZN in North America. He works with some of boxing's biggest names, including Gennadiy Golovkin, Mikey Garcia and Oleksandr Usyk.
Matchroom Boxing's growing stable
While, undisputed world champion Chantelle Cameron and fellow world champs Ebanie Bridges, Jessica McCaskill, Nina Hughes and Terri Harper are all under Hearn's unberella.
Early days
Hearn's career in the promotional ranks began with Harrison but he soon created one of the most exciting British stables in recent times with the signings of Carl Froch, Tony Bellew, Kell Brook and Darren Barker - all four, under the guidance of Hearn, won world titles.
Brook defeated Shawn Porter in a memorable win across the Atlantic for the IBF welterweight title in 2014; Barker overcame Daniel Geale for the middleweight version; Froch became a four-time super-middleweight world champion with wins against Lucian Bute and Mikkel Kessler while Bellew stopped Ilunga Makabu for the WBC cruiserweight strap at his beloved Goodison Park.
Hearn
Froch and Bellew have been the core to Hearn's success. The "Cobra" captured the public’s imagination during his rematch with George Groves in 2015, delivering a vicious knockout to end proceedings in the eighth-round.
Meanwhile, Bellew had an epic rivalry with Haye, winning both fights before bowing out in defeat to 2018 World Boxing Super Series winner and Olympic champion Usyk - the only fighter to win all four recognised world titles at cruiserweight.
Elsewhere, Hearn also promoted James DeGale and helped him accomplish history in the making in becoming the first Briton to win an Olympic gold medal and a professional world title.
The next fighter to follow in the footsteps of "Chunky" was Joshua - Britain's most lucrative fighter.
The Londoner declined an offer from Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions to sign with Matchroom Boxing after the 2012 Games and has since formed a winning formula with historic wins over Wladimir Klitschko and Andy Ruiz Jr.
Emulating the likes of Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno, Joshua became world heavyweight champion with a demolition job on Charles Martin in 2016 at London's O2 Arena. The former bricklayer recorded successful defences against another two Americans in fellow Olympian Dominic Breazeale and Eric Molina.
"AJ" has since regained his three world titles after avenging a sole defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr. A two-time world champion, Joshua is the quickest to have achieved such an accomplishment; 24, overtaking Tim Witherspoon (25).
The 30-year-old is a Box Office superstar in the UK and holds the record for PPV numbers and ticket sales. Joshua has since agreed a two-fight deal in principle to face WBC and lineal champion Tyson Fury in 2021.
The list of world champions currently promoted by Hearn are as follows: Joshua, Taylor, Terri Harper, Amanda Serrano, Billy Joe Saunders, Josh Warrington, Devin Haney, Roman Gonzalez, Julio Cesar Martinez, Juan Fransisco Estrada and Golovkin.
The last name mentioned is an all-time great in the middleweight division. GGG cemented his place in history when he equalled Bernard Hopkins' record of 21 consecutive world title defences at 160-pounds.
Major events promoted by Eddie Hearn
Hearn is no stranger to hosting huge boxing events. His first major coup was the rematch between Froch and Groves. The Rob McCracken-fighter knocked out Groves in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, making it a post-war British record for an attendance at a live boxing event.
It was later broken by Joshua vs Klitschko at Wembley Stadium in front of 90,000. Joshua won a dramatic fight in round 11 in what many consider as one of the best fights of the century.
Elsewhere, Hearn has staged world heavyweight championship bouts for Joshua at the Principality Stadium in Wales against Joseph Parker and Carlos Takam.
There has also been another trip to Wembley against Alexander Povetkin before he made his American debut at Madison Square Garden against late-replacement Ruiz.
Despite knocking the Mexican-American to the canvas in round three, Ruiz delivered one of the biggest upsets of the last three decades by stopping "AJ" in the seventh round.
While the outcome wasn't the result they had anticipated, it had been a success in terms of ticket sales with an estimated 10,000 of the 17,000 in attendance from the UK.
Much to the surprise of many, Hearn agreed a deal with the Saudi Arabian government to host Joshua's rematch with Ruiz at the Diriyah Arena. The bespoke arena - built in just six weeks - had a capacity of 15,000 and was built specifically for the heavyweight bout in December 2019.
It was met with huge criticism due to concerns of human rights.
Hearn - with the backing of DAZN - turned boxing on its head in 2019 with the announcement of promoting the rematch between YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The showdown, however, wouldn't be a white-collar bout, it would see both men turn professional - a decision met with mixed feelings from the boxing fraternity after recent ill-fated deaths inside the ring.
Hearn saw a chance to help attract a new market for the North American platform with the pair boasting over 40 million subscribers on YouTube combined - it was in the top five for most watched events on DAZN that year.
In 2020, the Matchroom mogul hit Miami to showcase a world title tripleheader on eve of Super Bowl LIV. Demetrius Andrade, Daniel Roman and Tevin Farmer defended their world crowns against Luke Keeler, Murodjon Akhmadaliev and JoJo Diaz, respectively.
Working to make DAZN a big player, it has made match-making easier for Hearn in the States with De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, who are also exclusive to DAZN.
On Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2019 - boxing's equivalent to the Super Bowl - Hearn alongside De La Hoya promoted Canelo vs "Miracle Man" Daniel Jacobs at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hearn also works with Bob Arum's Top Rank, who are stream their events on ESPN. Together they do deals to make fights on both platforms.
Matchroom Boxing in the UK
Following on from his father - Barry - who had promoted over 600 shows in 25 years on various platforms including Sky in the early 1990s, Eddie secured an exclusive deal to promote fights on Sky Sports in the UK.
He was taking over from rival Warren, who had left the company to form his own television channel - BoxNation - while Sky had severed ties with Hatton's Hatton Promotions in 2012.
Hearn's long-term association with Sky Sports has been a commercial success having been involved in some of the bestselling PPV bouts in UK history.
The biggest ones have come from three past and present fighters in Joshua, Bellew and Haye - the most successful being the rematch between Ruiz and Joshua in Saudi Arabia at 1.6 million buys - an all-time British PPV record.
Hearn currently has a deal with Sky until 2021 having renewed his stay with the broadcasting giants in 2015. Prior to 2015, Hearn was promoting 24 shows a year but has now been reduced to 20 cards a year.
Matchroom Boxing USA
In 2018, Hearn announced boxing's first $1billion (£750million) deal with sports streaming service DAZN - dubbed the 'Netflix of sport'. The eight-year deal includes 16 shows streamed from America and an additional 16 from the UK, which gets aired on North American territories USA and Canada.
At the end of 2019, it was revealed DAZN USA had an estimated 800k subscribers with Ruiz-Joshua 2 in December being DAZN’s most streamed boxing event of the year.
Joshua celebrates becoming a two-time heavyweight champion in Saudi Arabia
With Golden Boy Promotions also part of the DAZN family, it has seen Hearn do many deals with De La Hoya and Canelo alongside opponents Rocky Fielding and Jacobs.
An estimated 1.2million live streams in nine DAZN territories watched the latter's unification defeat to Canelo. On March 2, 2020, DAZN chairman John Skipper and DAZN EVP Joe Markowski released a public statement to confirm their intentions on launching in 200 countries and territories with English language which launched in December 2020.
DAZN own 40 percent of Matchroom USA.
No Context Hearn
Hearn has more than 985k followers on Twitter having joined the social media platform in 2011. He became one of the first boxing promoters to sign up to the website.
Hearn is constantly interacting with fans around the world in an attempt to try and keep them updated on the latest announcements.
If Hearn is not on the platform tweeting about the latest press conference, weigh-in or results from a fight night then Matchroom Boxing are, who have a following of 420k - three times more than BT Sport Boxing and more than double compared to DAZN USA, who joined Twitter in June 2016.
Hearn’s popularity on social media is at an all-time high, and a Twitter account titled 'No Context Hearn' - a parody account which uploads clips of his funniest moments - has had a big impact on his profile. Not only does it have over 365k followers, it's also created its own merchandise online.
No Context Hearn is an account which clips up the best quotes of a Hearn interview and allows anyone to quote the tweet and create a caption.
In an interview, Hearn spoke about the rapid rise of the account, stating people recognise him as No Context Hearn rather than Eddie Hearn the promoter in his local supermarket.
Eddie Hearn's net worth
The Essex charmer is one of the most lucrative promoters in boxing history on British shores of all time.
The mastermind behind the successes of Joshua, Froch and Bellew, Hearn has made millions for himself, Sky Sports and premium fighters.
"AJ" - Hearn's biggest asset and the 19th highest paid athlete in Forbes' 2020 list - inked a three-year deal with Matchroom to extend his stay with Hearn and Sky Sports until at least 2021.
It was reported in the year to June 2018 that Matchroom Sport's turnover was over £132.5million, up from £100.2million recorded 12 months before, according to Insider Media.
Some of those profits come from Matchroom Boxing’s dominance of the UK market in 2018 with roughly 68% of all ticket sales in British boxing events being purchased for their events.
Hearn is reported to have 2,000 shares in the company. In the same year, Hearn confirmed his eight-year, £750million deal with streaming service DAZN.
Another lucrative deal the promoter received was from the Saudi Arabian government to host the rematch between Ruiz and Joshua.
According to Forbes, Hearn received an estimated £29million payment to stage it in the Middle East. The fight generated the biggest numbers in 2019 for DAZN while it broke PPV numbers in the UK with 1.6 million buys.
The net worth of Hearn is estimated to be £36million according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Personal life
It would be impossible to start about any other family member than his father, Barry. Without his hard graft in forming Matchroom Sport, Eddie may have never had a chance of venturing into the sport.
Barry got his big break in the 1980s with snooker at the peak of its popularity. The 1985 final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor had an estimated audience of 18 million people watching it in the UK.
Barry has continued that success by hosting events in Asia, including China and Singapore but the most lucrative event remains at the Crucible in Sheffield, England. It is believed Ronnie O'Sullivan pocketed £500,000 for winning his sixth world title.
Elsewhere, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) has become a phenomenon in the UK, especially when it comes to the World Championships at the Alexandra Palace in December.
The Premier League has also been a big hit with fans as the world’s best players travel to a different city every week to compete in a double round-robin tournament.
Katie Hearn, sister of Eddie, has worked at Matchroom Sport since 2005 following former roles at the FA and Sky Sports. Her current role consists of overseeing Matchroom's TV programming on Sky and DAZN.
Hearn is married to Chloe Hearn - a former salon owner in Essex alongside TOWIE's Chloe Sims. They have two daughters, Sophia and Isabella and live in Billericay, England.