Eddie Hearn claims “rugby league is bang in trouble”
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 29: Promoter Eddie Hearn speaks during the main event press conference at Nobu London on March 29, 2023 in London, England. The boxing match between Anthony Joshua and Jermaine Franklin will take place on Saturday (Photo by James Chance/Getty Images)
In the past boxing promoter and the man behind the growth in darts Eddie Hearn was once close to working on rugby league.
However, in the end he didn’t come on board because he wanted complete control of the sport and didn’t want to just act as a consultant.
Now on The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, Hearn has stated that rugby league is in big trouble.
“Rugby league is absolutely bang in trouble, I don’t know enough about rugby union to tell you. but league is in trouble,” he said.
He went on to explain that the sport needs more stars:
“Stars are the most important thing. We were close to doing something with rugby league a few years ago but it was all or nothing.
“They wanted us to come in and look at the Challenge Cup and a few different elements of the game and I said ‘no, we need to control the game’.
“It has to be built and the problem is that both codes aren’t delivering numbers and the reason is because you don’t have any stars.
“The reason you don’t have any stars is one of two reasons, one because maybe there aren’t any characters or personalities around anymore or two, they’re not accessible.”
This is something that has been talked about a lot since IMG got involved.
It is perhaps something the sport will address.