Unmatched

Outside of London, Matchroom Sport's office building is an 18th-century mansion where Hearn raised his family before turning it into company headquarters. (Photo by Ted Lerner)

In 1999, Matchroom took over the WPA's flagship tournament, the World Pool Championship, which up until then had been a struggling event run by the WPA and unknown outside the pool world. Within a few years the 9-ball event had become the premier event in pool. Matchroom secured a deal with Singapore-based ESPN Star, the largest sports broadcaster in the world, which aired the World Pool Championship live annually for nine days to a massive audience throughout Asia. Matchroom, however, dropped the event after the 2007 Manila tournament. In many respects, the WPC had become a victim of its own success.

"We took that event over in 1999, and really built it up nicely and it was a great event," Riches says. "The players loved it; it was live on TV all across Asia and the U.K. We built the prize fund from $250,000 up to $400,000. Although it was the world 9-ball championship on paper, we didn't call it that. We didn't even mention 9-ball. It was the World Pool Championship. That was the brand. The guy who won that was the World Pool Champion.

"But there's other disciplines in pool - 8-ball, straight pool, 10-ball - and other people come along and want to put on other world championships in these events. And the WPA has little or no choice but to sanction them. But the problem with that is that it dilutes the brand and dilutes the market. And in the end, your product that you spent years building up is worth very little, which is why we stopped doing the event. We weren't going to downgrade it and downsize it. We couldn't maintain it at that level so we dropped it. I think it's reappeared in Qatar, apparently because it's one of those secret events that aren't on TV. There's no media, no nothing."

Hearn, however, isn't the type of promoter to cry over spilled milk. They dropped the World Pool League and created the doubles event, the World Cup of Pool, which found a home in the Philippines the last two years. Matchroom expanded the World Pool Masters from a 16-player to a 64-player field that includes worldwide qualifiers. The idea is make the Masters into a sort of replacement for the World Pool Championship.

"We want to try and build that up into a world championship-style event," Riches says. "But the difference between that and the World Pool Championship is that we will own that event. Where with the WPA World Championship, we had an agreement to effectively promote somebody else's event."

In order to fill events, though, Riches is sometimes has to choose players himself. It's a task he wishes he didn't have to do, but he must, mainly because of the lack of a credible worldwide ranking system.

"I sometimes do choose players, but I don't like doing it," he says. "I'd rather it evolved into some kind of meritocracy where we are not required to pick players for events. It's not like that yet, but we're trying to head in that direction."

With its high standards regularly on display, Matchroom often finds itself showered with compliments on how it produces pool. Riches says it's all just par for the course.

"There's no one else out there, really," he says. "There's nothing that compares to what we do. People do have a go at these events, like the world championship events and they're rubbish.

"I wouldn't say our stuff is perfect. But you look at other people's events and they look a bit scruffy and a bit scrappy, and we wouldn't settle for things like that."

As for the reasons why pool can't seem to become a major sport, Riches pines, "I think the problem with pool is that it is a very fragmented sport. It has events in all different countries around the world, different promoters; some are on TV, others aren't. It's got a very weak governing body, and that might not necessarily be the fault of the governing body. It's just the nature of how the governing body is set up. It doesn't produce any events and relies on other people to do the events that it does own. "

In the current economic malaise, Matchroom has no plans on expanding its roster of pool tournaments, instead focusing on building its three brands. The company has no interest in moving into disciplines like 10-ball and 8-ball.

"I think 10-ball is a players' game rather than a TV spectator sport," Riches says. "Whereas 9-ball is almost the other way. Let's put it like this: Would the 2010 Mosconi Cup have been improved by being 10-ball? Absolutely not."

The most recent Mosconi Cup certainly fit the bill as a TV spectacle, and Hearn says he is currently prodding U.S. television executives to air the Mosconi Cup free on cable TV. It's not an easy task.

"One market that constantly disappoints me is the American TV market," Hearn says. "The TV people in the U.S. are short-term opportunists. They take substandard programs, rather than look at the quality of events that they can build. You can't treat a sport like it's a girl on an easy date. That's what they do with pool."

And, as with his promoting side, Hearn is negotiating for the long haul. "I'm like a toothache. I don't go away."

So while pool fans shouldn't place all their hopes and dreams in Hearn and Matchroom Sport to make their sport as popular and profitable as golf or tennis, they can be sure that the events the company produces will continue to set the highest standards in the industry.

"We take pride in the fact that players look at our events as the absolute pinnacle of the sport," Riches says. "You can't ask for anything more than to provide a platform for them to perform at their very highest, in the most exciting environment, for the highest stakes - not just money - and it's something that the fans want to watch."

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