Rugby League is ‘dying’ claims leading sports promoter Eddie Hearn

Legendary sports promoter Eddie Hearn has given a brutal verdict on how Rugby League in Britain is “dying”.

Hearn is the son of Barry Hearn, the founder of Matchroom who helped to establish the Professional Darts Corporation and have been promoting sports in the UK and globally since the early 1980s.

The company took huge strides forward in the late 2000s and early 2010s as they revamped boxing and made it one of the nation’s most popular sports with Barry’s son Eddie at the forefront of that huge boom.

Since then, Eddie Hearn has become one of the world’s leading promoters in the sport and regularly negotiates fights worth more than £100 million.

It has previously been revealed that Hearn was approached by the sport about helping to increase the audience of rugby league in a similar vein to how he heightened boxing, something that did not come to fruition due to the RFL’s refusal to allow Matchroom full scope and control of the sport.

Hearn has now retold the story whilst speaking with Australian podcast Bloke in a Bar with a clip posted recently on the podcast’s Instagram page in which Hearn claims rugby league is a “dying sport” – at least in the UK.

Eddie Hearn makes brutal claim that British rugby league is ‘dying’

It’s a damning statement about the status of the sport from a man who is all too familiar with sports that were on the brink of ‘dying’. For the most part, elite boxing events in the UK were still being held in local leisure centres prior to the huge boom led by Matchroom.

Now, Matchroom regularly hosts shows at venues such as Wembley, the Millenium Stadium and the O2 Arena highlighting the transformed fortunes.

Speaking on rugby league, Hearn explained: “I was approached a couple of years ago by the rugby league guys to help with the sport because it’s a dying sport.

“It’s struggling is rugby league in the UK – bad. And the reason it is struggling is because there are no stars – in my opinion – and they’re not being pushed and parted in the right way.

“If you tell me to name a rugby league player then I go Jamie Peacock and Ellery Hanley, all these guys from the ’90s because that’s what I grew up watching.

“They were on mainstream TV and they were celebrities. They were stars and now we don’t have any of those.”

Frustratingly, those involved in rugby league will tell you about the stars but the lack of transition to the mainstream is obvious and as a result that has led to the game ‘dying’ in Hearn’s belief.

Continuing, he would cite the shrinking TV deal and explain how the sport can still be saved given the huge quality that it offers as a product.

He said: “The game is dying, the TV contracts are whimpering out. The value of those contracts are really dying and commercially, the sport is dying.

“They asked me to get involved in a couple of the bigger events and I said that the only way we would get involved is if we had an overhaul and we were in charge of that. Not doing this event or the Challenge Cup Final and that kind of stuff.

“It is the whole sport that needs to be revamped from grassroots to the elite level.

“I mean, I played a little bit of union but I’m not a massive rugby fan but it is a great sport, a tough sport and a brutal sport which is similar to the sports I’m involved in.

“Over here (Australia), it’s a different sport.”

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