Tuesday 19 May 2026 6:30 am
| Updated:
Monday 18 May 2026 4:06 pm
The Hearns rejected offers for a full buyout of Matchroom before selling a stake to Bruin, he said
Matchroom Sport chair Eddie Hearn on wooing Bruin Capital, darts breaking America, Saudi Arabian money, AJ-Fury and getting back at Dana White. A night at the darts might not seem the obvious place to clinch a billion-pound deal but that’s where Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn invited Bruin Capital to show the US firm why it should invest in the family business. The entertainment at the Manchester leg of Premier League Darts was sufficiently well received for Bruin to buy a minority stake in Matchroom, which effectively owns the sport, in a transaction announced last week that valued the business at more than £1bn.The Hearns hope the alliance with Bruin, which has stakes in various sports-adjacent ventures including Drive to Survive maker Box to Box Films, will unlock the next stage of growth for darts and other sports in which it is a major player, such as nine-ball pool and boxing. “We’re good, we’re great promoters, we’re incredible salesmen, and my dad’s one of the greatest chartered accountants to live but there are levels upon levels, and this is going to help us unearth and crack those levels,” Eddie Hearn tells City AM.“The key is the potential upside in the American market. The real growth from Matchroom over the last few years has been that global expansion, and that was something that I wanted to bring to the business. “If darts ends up doing a major deal with a US broadcaster, if it breaks through in the American market, which I really believe it can, it will change the sport forever.”
