Matchroom CEO on Business of Conor Benn v Chris Eubank Jr & Signing Anthony Joshua ｜ Frank Smith

0:00Today on Leaders, Frank Smith, CEO of Matchroom Boxing I was making£36 a day working 14 hour days. I stayed in hotels 297 nights last year. That's not sustainable. I'll end up having a heart attack on the flights. A name that's become synonymous with some of the biggest nights in sport. He's the guy who's taken fight promotion to another level. When I met Eddie, I called him a **** when I was 14. From Anthony Joshua's lucrative career with sold out stadiums with 90 ,000 fans to a game-changing$1 billion deal with DeZone. We unpack how a deal like Conor Benn vs Chris Eubank Jr. is made. Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr.

0:37You probably never thought you'd see that fight between the two of them. This is a fight that brings an audience in from all generations. Conor Benn we represent very close to me but at the same time my missus may kill me and I may not be allowed back into my house if I pick against her brother. How boxing has changed with the likes of Turkey Alisheikh entering the sport. Jake Paul Mike Tyson, terrible fight but it had record-breaking numbers because it was a narrative it was a story and how dana white and tko could impact not only matchroom but the future of boxing all right frank welcome to the show i'm dan sure you know that by now but exactly and this is gabby so i've asked gabby to come join me as co-host today because he knows a lot more about boxing than i do but he's got all the entrepreneurial spirit and understanding and skills that i've got so gabby can you do a quick intro to frank so he's got some context please sure good to meet you frank gabby i'm a partner of a fund called stride here in the uk we're a venture capital fund we invest in early stage tech companies but i've spent about the last 30 years building branding breaking businesses um and yeah as dan said massive fan of boxing so looking forward to the chat don't trip me up and have more knowledge about boxing than me this is this is for the viewers this is well known that you're not that into boxing even though you run a massive boxing business.

1:54I like the event side. I like the event side. The sport I'm beginning to love. Right, you're very slow, very slow beginning. Okay, so you joined Matchroom as a 14 year old, right? And Eddie Hearn has famously called you the T-boy. As of others. As of other promoters. As of other promoters. Who we're now friends with though, so you know. And now we're here doing the same thing. I mean, we're kind of cocked up already but so how do you go from being a t-boy to CEO I was gonna say you know pictures of people in questionable positions but that would be a joke and it wouldn't go down very well I worked my way through I started as you say when I was 14 on work experience and then I moved to the company full time when I was 16 and I back then we were doing a lot televised poker we were in TV studios and I essentially worked as a runner I was delivering teas coffees, pizzas, anything anyone wanted.

2:45And then worked my way through the business, you know, from cold calling people from Barry Hearn's office, trying to sell them darts tickets when darts wasn't the scale it is now. You know, I used to ring them up, couldn't end a sentence. And Bazzi used to go, right, put the phone down and leave that one. And then worked all the way through everything we've done. So to get to the position I'm in now, and it's been a fun journey. You know, I think, as we said there, boxing was never, I don't think sport was really my focus. I just wanted to go and work and work hard in whatever it was in and I fell into sport really and I think my side of it is less of a passion for the sport but more around events and how can you build something you know think wider than just a sports fan would because at the end of the day we all want to grow the audiences and I think I come from a different angle with it but you but you kind of worked quite hard to get that opportunity from from the stories I've heard anyway yeah I when I met Eddie I called him a tight bastard when I was 14 I was selling raffle tickets for a charity he gave me 20 quid and someone said that's the bloke with a Bentley outside and I thought that tight he gave me 20 quid so I went back up to him I said give me 50 and then I said give me a business card and I basically pestered him for months for work experience and then when I left school I said to him look if you don't take me on someone else will so you got an option and he was probably thinking what is this kid doing and he took me on it you know in all fairness to him it was a different business back then as well it was completely it was you know it's a family business but he took me on he gave me a chance i was making 36 pound a day right working 14 hour days and i think the first month or two i basically learned how to deal poker cards shuffle poker chips and go swimming in the pool at the office so it was a good it's a good start it's been a bit more hectic since then right what did your what did your parents do are you for like a working class kid were they like middle class what was the what was going on there that made you say I've got at 14 I want the Bentley my my granddad had a was involved with um company called green shield stamps which eventually came yeah Argos uh and then and then he started he ran a business with some partners called action um and he was very successful and I wasn't like I wasn't dragged that I didn't I lived in Chadwell Heath which is you know popular for for summer holidays for people from west ham's training ground yeah exactly i was i lived two minutes up the road from there exactly so in terms of like i didn't have a hard upbringing but it wasn't like opulence all the time so i'm not going to sit here and pretend like i was really wealthy or really poor like i had a nice upbringing i had a lovely upbringing like i got treated very well i spent time and my dad was uh had his own business he worked very hard and you know he worked literally every hour of every day so my my when I used to go and see my parents split up but when I used to go and see him in a week he used to go to his office I used to sit and work when I was 13 waiting room to finish work at 8 o 'clock to go to Pizza Express and have some doubles you know like so work was all that work ethic was always set from my grandfather my dad my stepdad they all worked hard and I always had that in my mind so I always wanted to do well when I was 12 I used to sell car key rings that my step from the cars my stepdad would buy would would sell on eBay used to sell Lamborghini key rings you know like so it wasn't a hard upbringing but I also had tough times in you know financially where things didn't go well so I saw that stage in my life where money mattered but I always knew whatever I went to do you know I wanted to be a stockbroker when I was 15 14 15 16 I was so driven by money I saw people with a Ferrari and be like I want to be him you know like think care about what the business was didn't have a clue what it was to be a stockbroker but everyone in Essex went and worked in the city and became a stockbroker so I was driven just to go and work hard in whatever it was you know whatever I went to do I would have worked hard what are some of the clashes you had early on then with Eddie um well actually three months into working there so I started in actually two months started in the September and in the November we were we were away filming and I think we were somewhere in the studios probably 20 miles from home but it felt like a holiday you know it felt like you're in a hotel I was 16 years old we've got all these grown-ups around and I stayed out until three o 'clock in the morning and I was sharing a room with a guy we worked with at the time and because we went to bed at three o 'clock when the alarms went off at 6 a.m.

7:16we unplugged the phones thinking people were prank calling us and actually it was the alarm to wake up for work so I turned up two hours for late after two hours late for work after two months of working there that didn't go down too well you know we eddie and i are very different a lot of people compare us but the reality is we're two completely different people and we disagree on a lot of things but i always say he doesn't pay me to sit there and agree with everything he says you know um sure there's a lot of people out there that would do that but yeah it's there's been i'm sure a lot of clashes over the years but we work well together you know two complete opposites really and the the there's like this obviously journey you've been on as you said from a family owned business two big characters barry obviously being the original founder um through to a company that's like what a billion quids worth now yeah valuation yeah um so what is it what did it look like then and what does it look like now what's that kind of transition from this family business to this much larger scale outfit yeah look and is it true that eddie could never have built it as big as you yeah no it's i'm definitely a major part of it that's what i always he says to barry that when he joined the numbers went like that and i say well when i joined they went like that as well so it must be something to do with me but i've been surrounded by two huge characters for the most of my life really i've spent more time with eddie in the last 17 years than i've spent with my own family you know and he's a big character everyone knows that and like i say i get compared to him as an in from a character perspective but we are very different i'm happy to see it be a bit more quiet you know this has never been this kind of stuff was never my focus I love Excel spreadsheets I'm a bit sad like I love formulas and I just like making money and whatever we were going to do so yeah to go into a business back then which was all it was successful and we'd never seen the hard times that Barry had been through you know he set up that business in 1982 he started it and you know snooker was what it started with and when you talk to him about the tough times of then you can't imagine we're very lucky we walked into a successful business with great you know cash flow and we could go and take risks and do things although we never as a business we never took huge risk because barriers and accountant and if everything was calculated but thinking back then it was like there was 40 of us I think in the office you know there's now probably 150 we're running 700 event days across the year you know across four or five different sports you know it's probably the biggest privately owned you know global sporting powerhouse you see yeah really and it's quite amazing to see what barry has built with that and then obviously eddie's come along and taking it to another level you know he gets a hard time with people saying you know silver spoon kid but his work ethic you've never seen anything like it and he's the best salesman he's great at what he does and he always says we wheel him out and go go and go and do your job and then we will you back in and he can do that till he's 90.

10:16What is your typical day as a CEO then? Because you've got this idea of what Eddie's like and you said that other people therefore like see you in that perspective. What's your typical day as a CEO? Yeah I get compared to him because I think people look at me as the natural sort of next in line essentially and I'm the second face you see in terms of doing interviews. Don't do anywhere near what he is. I don't have a profile fortunately anywhere near what he has um but he is very much get up interview you know he's out there he's the face man fighters want to obviously be around him a lot of the time um and my job is much more the detail what i love doing i love putting events on i love putting shows on like for me when i walk out a venue and you've got 70 80 90 000 people and we've been lucky enough to do that at venues all around the world i love walking around again wow look at this look at what we created and you know day to day it's a crazy business I was up at three o 'clock this morning for two hours on my phone going back to thing you know we've got business in America big business in America we do a lot of business in the Middle East as well and you know it's 24 hours I've just come back from Australia I've come back from six weeks of traveling I'm home for five days and then another five weeks of traveling so you know my day is really operating and running the day to day of the business and Eddie is very much the face of it not saying he doesn't like car just in case he's watching he does watch this he works very hard but um yeah it's the day-to-day operation we've got 40 staff in our boxing team who operate all those events and it's just the logistics the planning signing fighters and it's it's a mad world there is nothing quite like boxing and you're right across all of those aspects of the business you're managing the people i mean what's your management style for example if you're talking about you've gone from being that sort of level of individual to now being a peer, maybe Eddie doesn't see that way, but you're running the show, to then saying, okay, how am I going to run this team now?

12:13What is the culture I want to put in place? What's going to be my management style? I think the big difference for me is I've worked across everything the team we have do. I'm not saying I'm great at it. I've put press releases together. I've done bits of social media. I've operated and run events. So everyone who works as part of our team, I can understand what they're going through. so I take a bit of a different view and I get my hands dirty like literally we've got a Netflix documentary coming out next year I run around I will be running around with a staple gun like I care about the small details and I'm a pain in the ass the people who work for us are like probably thinking you know every small detail is the most important to me and I think that's part of what's put us in the position we're in that we're so focused on being the best at what we do um and for me management style it's you know i can be firm i like to be friendly but i can be fair i give more of a silence like what are you doing you know rather than shouting i feel too many people shout and too many people hold grudges we're all going to make mistakes is the reality just don't make the same mistake which is simple twice now if you're doing hard things you're going to make mistakes i'm sure i'm probably just quite good at getting them out the way quick enough that no one realizes but for me I see so many people in senior positions who don't understand the business because they haven't worked through it and that's the difference with match room everyone who's in a senior position at our business has been brought on a low you know a lower level and work through the business you know Matt Porter runs the darts business which is the biggest part of our business he started I think at 25 or 24 he was the head of PR at Leyton Orient.

13:54You know, Emily Fraser runs the Nineball Pool. And they've all been with the business since young ages, worked their way through into senior positions. And I think it's so difficult where companies bring in someone senior who has no idea. You know, we can all, there's a lot of smart people out there. But if you don't understand how a business operates, and also if you don't have the care, I think where we've been there from such a young age, I have such a level of care. like my work is so important to me because I the success is really in my own head of have I given it everything and I think I have so much care for the business because I've been there it's like my childhood and that is what I care about most maybe to the detriment of other parts of my life really um but yeah I think that's the key thing for me and management really is making sure that people feel part of a team you know not taking a lot of people take credit for everything but we've got a big team an amazing team who do all the work and yeah just just understanding where people are coming from and understanding everyone's different people are probably the hardest part of a business aren't they everyone works in a different way and not everyone's going to give the same effort as you and not everyone wants to be make millions and not everyone wants to work past five o 'clock that's fair enough but you have to operate with different people in a different way i love that little bit on details as well because how you do little things is how you do everything right and so i think i can i can already see how that permeates from in the office and how your colleagues will see you and how they show up at work too when you're at a big event and it's got to be a spectacle and things need to be right right you need to create the right environment for the fighters and for the viewers and everyone all together right so like you can see that sort of thread and the importance of it yeah i walk around at events when we're there i'm like what's that why is that barrier cover like that that looks shit change that get rid of that you know and that is every event you know and we do 40 boxing events nearly a year and everyone who works for us is i'm sure like when you say it in the first instance oh frank's coming yeah here he is again you know but i think that keeps it going sorry to jump in you just queued up a next thought for me which was around you you touched on earlier the other sports that you're part of you said 40 boxing events but i think you said 700 events event days yeah so take us through that mix of sports that you're in and the different kind of properties you own and the different aspects of that yeah sure so we met the matchroom group obviously boxing is probably the sexy part where people look at it but boxing's always been sexy for many years you know hundreds of years and boxing's the one that draws a lot of attention when you look at the other areas of our business darts is the biggest driver of our business right now you know it's the biggest driver of revenue or eyeballs both both revenue profit eyeballs you know dance is second the second most watched sport in the uk now that's mental after premier league football yeah you know there is nothing it actually the the one of the the world championship finals was the second most viewed event outside of football ever on sky you know and you think they got rugby they got rider cup they got all of these you know amazing assets and rights darts has become a huge business for us and it's very different you know because boxing is very talent dependent i'm not saying the talent isn't important in darts but you sell 150 000 tickets for the world championships or 125 000 tickets for the world championships you don't even know you're going to watch you're going for a great time and a great event and what they've created there that this has been many years of work by an amazing team and like i say matt porter who runs it we we joke in the board meetings like i'm chasing his tail you know boxing again is the sexy one but actually from a from a driver financially darts is just flying and um they've created a sensational business there with the darts you know luke littler's obviously been huge in recent times but everywhere they go globally and we own the sport pdc is the global you know it's a bit like ufc and mma as an example um how did that come about owning if you like a whole sport versus the way boxing works which is highly fragmented yeah maybe some shifts coming but how did that come around that deal barry obviously got involved at a very early stage many years ago when the sport didn't have the viewership and the commercial push that it has now you know it's it's similar to the UFC in a sense of when the UFC did what they did in MMA it was because the sport wasn't it wasn't approved in a number of states especially in the US they bought everything up and they took complete control and then they created a tremendous brand with it and they've done an unbelievable job but that took many years and no one ever sees those years of tough times losing money investing in the sport they just see the glitz and the glamour you know so that's something that's different boxing for hundreds of years has had different entities involved different promotional companies and that's been great for the sport but also had its issues and caused you know issues with the growth of the sport in some ways um but yeah darts and snooker is another sport that we we we own the sport of snooker you know the the the world world snooker tour um a sport barry started in snooker in 1980 uh 1982 managing players when he had um the romford snooker so he managed the likes of steve davis got involved in snooker through that and then moved into boxing but those two businesses where you control really and operate the sports it's huge and the global opportunity for them is huge and that's the focus for us boxing is unlike anything else we do and then nine ball is a is a a recent investment of ours that's run by emily fraser what's nine ball nine ball pool so it's essentially huge in the u.s and it's a sport that we're going to invest a lot of money and we've had an event called the musconi cup for many years which is has become a huge you know brand in its own right um but this is really what darts was i guess 10 15 years ago you know and it's going to take a lot of effort and a lot of work but I think there's a lot of belief as to where it can get to so there's yeah 700 event days is what we put together you know the darts is on almost every day the snooker's on every day if you turn on Eurosport BBC you've got that on constantly we've got our 40 events a year you know it's a when you look at the investment as a business and the risk as well when you're doing that many events you know COVID obviously was a period that was very tough in the live events and well in every business but especially in live events um so yeah it's it's been a it's a great journey and see like i say what barry's created from 43 years ago now it's quite quite remarkable so a year after you joined the business you had anthony joshua in the olympic stage become a national hero sort of global icon or certainly the start of it and you signed him right you got him involved and that has just been an absolute superstar journey right he's you know like i say i don't know much about boxing i don't care much about boxing i went to the anti-joshua fight um and that is a good example right of how his star power can just attract new fans into the sport i went to wembley i watched it you know it was really interesting that someone like me would go to a sport that otherwise not interested i was just interested to see him fight like how do you create an icon like that how does that all get packaged up can you tell us a little bit about that journey i'd like to say it was all me but it was at that at that point he i was um i actually have a very close relationship with aj because that was a time where we had a lot more time as a business we were much smaller and you'd spend a lot more time around the fighters i took aj to his medicals when he turned pro you know i joked in spec savers that he was an nba player because he was six foot five and they were like I recognise you I recognise you from somewhere and look it was the perfect storm wasn't it you know it was the London Olympics this guy who's chiselled and looks like the best thing you've ever seen goes and wins a gold medal in a time where everyone's watching you know I'm not saying Olympics are ever smaller but the London Olympics was like nothing we've seen we were it was here we were amongst it and he had everything he's got the personality and he understood how to play the game you know and he he also made the right decisions you know so many people maybe not just in boxing in in life short term thinkers he he looked at everything he looked at every opportunity and he made decisions that would work for the next 15 20 years not just how can i make a few quid today you know and that was that's a big difference in boxing there are so many fighters who jump around you know and go from here to there and you know so many different entities you can work with and it never really builds you a long-term plan or path of how you're going to do this he aligned with the right partners you know he had under armor he had beats by dre you know at a time that they built him so it wasn't just about financial gain at the start it was about aligning with the right people that would get you get behind you and grow you to where you could be you know sky did a great job as well you know obviously back then we were with sky sports and he became a huge box office star um and i you know even now he's still the biggest star i'd say especially in uk boxing even europe and in the us you got the likes of canelo but he's up there you know he's he's globally recognized um and yeah It's been a great journey.

23:18And the key thing with him is, in a sport that has no real loyalty, for the most part, he's been so loyal. And he's had opportunities to go and make more money, again, in the short term. But he went, no, actually, I trust the vision. I trust the path. And he put his faith in us to go and deliver. And I think, you know, when you have that perfect mix and someone who makes those decisions, you'd do anything for them. And he's a person I'd do anything for. There's quite a lot about that in character. did you realise that at the time? were you able to spot talent like that? I think look boxing any sport it's always an investment it's always a risk are they going to be as good are they going to make it to these heights?

23:58being honest did we think he'd make it to where he is do what he's done? maybe not you know you knew he had the ability to do all these things but you have to have a lot of luck in sport as well you know a lot of things have to go your way and he's had the hard times and he's come back from those he's been under pressure his whole career you know from the public boxing you all know he's like no nothing else social media world now everyone could be a professional boxer and win a world title it's quite amazing to be honest um but i think you saw from the early days a character who we still see today who sort of listens and and pays attention and doesn't rush into anything you know and that and that doesn't come along too often so when people say i want to be like anthony joshua it's like it's same like floyd mayweather there's not tons of floyd mayweather there's not tons of Canelo Alvarez every now and then a star comes along and there'll be another one maybe there's one that's here now and you don't know it who do you see as the next star now who is your potential next star next Anthony Joshua I think you know when you look at boxing this is where boxing's so hard and a great example is Tony Bellew right Tony Bellew we promoted a fight of his in Liverpool and I think he sold 1500 tickets right in the virtual centre somewhere well no it was in an arena but he should have sold more but but at the time we lost I think like 40 grand and at the time that was like what are we gonna do you know this is madness and you look at Tony Bellew who's like become a close friend and worked with us then he's throughout his whole career he went on to you know sell out become a pay-per-view star being Hollywood movies right would I have said that Tony Bellew would go from there to be in a Hollywood movie no you I would have said you're mad you know so boxing such a wild sport and that happens with so many fighters lee wood's a good example came back from losing and then built back into selling a load you know selling out his arenas josh warrington's a great example so you know every now and then you spot a fighter and you go they're going to be very good but at the same time there are people who come along and do things that you think i never expected that and a joke derek trezor is another great example right it's kind of all the way through that career has never he's been at the top to a degree everyone yes for everyone and he's lost 13 times and i think that's the big thing that's changed in boxing like derek's a great friend of mine and i you know i've got few people in the sport that i think i'd spend time without sight you know i'm sure for them as well they probably wouldn't want to spend too much time with but like derek's one of those who i've worked with for a long time and he's a character who is you know his whole thing has been about selling fights and that's why he's got these opportunities because he goes in there as a tear up doesn't always win but he delivers entertainment um and that's where the sport i think for years went a bit wrong people weren't taking fights people weren't you know risking losing and it was that mayweather era of we can't lose whereas actually what we want to see is great fights is that's what the ufc is it's simplified you want to see a terror every time yeah because that's what draws people in and actually the reality is if you lose but you gave it everything people are going to watch it again okay that was entertaining speaking of a tear up because i want to jump in on this one because you've just given the opportunity we've got obviously you know quite a big uh fight coming up soon so i kind of want to get behind the deal that has led to this tear up and obviously there's been two phases to this yeah it's been a long old phase long phase um so i guess one thing would be useful for people who don't know about boxing to give a bit of context to the Ben Eubank saga.

27:28Yeah. And this being the kind of trilogy, but not with the same two fighters. Yeah. Can you give us some of the background on that and then talk us into some of the kind of lead up and rescheduling and challenges you've had around putting the event on? Yeah, sure. I mean, look, the... This is like the UK's mega fight, right? Yeah. Look, the Eubank and Ben name are synonymous... Synonymous. Synonymous. There you go. synonymous with you know probably culture in in this country of you know they're the fathers chris and nigel boxed in the 1990s they had 18 million people watch their fighters i mean those numbers are in anything are unheard of now boxing obviously has had pete it's had its ups and downs that was a period where boxing was flying you know and those two guys two great characters especially my father-in-law and Chris Eubank senior he is you know what he did in a time without social media is quite amazing and then Nigel Benn was you know in his own right he said a lot less I'm sure than Chris Eubank senior but he went in there and he had a tear up and that was a fight that will live on there was two of those and now they have two sons Connor Benn and Chris Eubank junior two fighters that when they turn pro because of the weight you probably never thought you'd see that fight between the two of them um it was supposed to happen three years ago conor ben failed a drug test and the fight didn't take place there was a lot of uh back and forth over that that went on for many years you know it went on that that case went on for two years you know conor ben lost really two years of his career um and ultimately was cleared and free to fight after that two-year period you know chris eubank jr probably won the most record because of and connor because of their father's names the most recognizable names in the sport in british boxing right now and on uh april 26 they came together i have 67 000 people to watch these two guys fight and you know it's it's just a huge moment and the reality is in the sport we're in and I think in a lot of sports now, it's about narratives and telling stories.

29:41Like sport is great, high level sport is great, but people buy into narratives. You know, you see that when you look at Jake Paul, Mike Tyson, terrible fight, but it had record breaking numbers because it was a narrative, it was a story. So this is a fight that really brings an audience in from all generations. You know, it's probably the most talked about fight of the last few years because of the situation with Conor Benn. you know rightly or wrongly conor ben has you know become a much bigger star whether you like him or not and you're going to watch him you know and the generational thing is an interesting one because i'm from i'm in my 50s so i'm you don't look it thank you very much i'm from that generation that grew up with the seniors yeah uh and my kids are in their 20s and we're all going to the fight together really because they're as interested in this fight because of this generation as i am because of the prior generation.

30:32So that bridging of the two is big. And then you made a great point about Senior, Chris Eubanks Senior, and what he did at the time. Can you imagine if he was in the world of social media today with what influencers were able to do in his character and that brand building and story building that he could do? It would be phenomenal. It would be amazing. You know, he is... Look, a lot of fighters, I think, don't understand the concept of... You can be a great fighter, right? And there's a lot of great fighters out there. but you also need to sell a story you've got a showman yeah exactly and he was the ultimate showman you know he had his monocle he had his cane you know in his jogpers and with his truck you know like when you when you watch back the clips and when you look at like some of the old footage i was watching at home with the eubanks at one point like he was amazing you know and if more fighters looked at that now and understood that's what you got you got to deliver that side as well because the world wants entertainment it's why wwe's so big you know it's not competitive in many ways and it's not real in many ways but actually you buy into entertainment and like i say again those storylines he he had all of that and at the same time he would go in and give everything in a fight just like when i say about nigel but like those fights between those two guys was just spectacular i wasn't born but yeah what do you think the impact of uh ben losing two years of his career is then because actually in many ways that's built up to a bigger opportunity now yeah look good for you bad for him no look he had two he had two in fights internationally a period where he could box you know and this while this matter was going on but not at the levels he needed to have them at and also you have to understand in boxing you have to be motivated and when you've got all this going on in the background it's very hard to get motivated for the type of fights he was going into you know he it's been a terrible part of his career but then at the same time character building to a level of like we clash sometimes we promote conor ben right i have a great relationship with him i've worked with him since he was 19 years old but we're very different characters and sometimes i'm very black and white you know this is the you know simple thinking right he is emotional but i have never been through what he's been through i haven't been through the last two years of his life to understand the lows he's been through of you know what it's like waking up every morning and the social media like I can't imagine it and sometimes in the moment you don't really think about you just you just think about the logical side of it and you forget about the amount I take all emotion out of everything I do because I think it's the best way but you have to also remember what people have been through but it's I think getting through what he's been through to the position he now is quite remarkable because honestly you can't imagine like there's been people who have been through the process he's been through and again as a boxing fan you'll know treated so differently and it's like nothing ever happened this kid has been treated like you know he was guilty from day one and look the reality is you have to deal with it and you have to face it up he did that on multiple occasions and i feel i feel like it was dealt very differently with him and don't get me wrong i think pete things could be dealt with differently on the other side from us from you know we all could have done things better but that's life you live and you learn and you improve and you take that forward but i think what he's come through in the last two years is going to set him up for where he's going because he's never going to experience anything like what he's been through in terms of the down days and he came through that and uh he's going to be much stronger it's going to be a great fight.

34:06I think you've got, Eubank has the size advantage on Conor. Chris has the, Conor has the youth, probably speed, agility that Chris had many years ago. You know, he's now 36 years old, I think, Chris. But I think it's a 50-50 fight. I think it's a brilliant fight. I can't wait for it. I'm glad it's finally there because we worked for 10 weeks when we made the first fight three years ago. and it was like my name first, I ring walk, this, that, the other. And these are the things you go through in boxing. And again, when you, like for me, I think logically and I think ultimately in life money is a big driving factor when you're trying to negotiate deals and we represent the fighters, so I'm trying to make them as much money as possible.

34:51And I go, forget about all the emotional side and the ego side. And that's where in boxing, so many people get it wrong. Ego gets in the way of actually just doing business and making money. So how did that deal ultimately get done? Because there was a lot of that this time around, right? Like there was, you know, 60-40, I'm the A side, you're the B side, etc. But you landed on a deal, obviously. There's been numbers bandied about. Conor at 8 mil, Chris at 10. Like, how did that get done? Where did it land? Yeah, I mean, it got to a place in the end. Obviously, there's been a big involvement from Saudi Arabia and Turkey Al-Sheikh, his excellency Turkey Al-Sheikh in boxing, which in many ways has been great because it's taken away the angst of individuals who that maybe there is an egotistical element between people who you know different promoters different fighters and it was i do a deal with this fighter connor ben i do a deal with chris eubank jr and are you happy with your deal yes you don't worry about what he's getting don't worry about what he's getting you happy yes are you happy yes you know and that's that was the difference in the end and were you in the room in those negotiations as well yeah you're part of that process too yeah we were there on the night when it was all getting made and it's like it's so fast-paced it's like right this one right what we're doing with this what we're doing with it and it's live and it's a great way of doing business because it gets done quickly you know and that every dealings we've had obviously with um turkey allow shake and his team that's the way they operate and they get things done and look at what they've done with the sport in such a short space of time so it's yeah it's it's a fun way of doing things it's funny that you say that you know that description and it's fun because that's actually quite an emotional way to have a you know have a negotiation right you've got in the moment it's all very raw there's not a lot of logical thinking that can be done there you know a better process for the logical thinker is let me take it away let me think about it let me analyze i was struggling there yeah yeah yeah you must have not enjoyed that spreadsheet wait there let me just get some numbers up but but i think boxing has failed for so long because it's been driven by ego yeah and promotional rivalries as well you know where actually you don't really know each other but for years you know boxing's been driven by the social media era of you know jerk news style journalists coming up with cameras and they say he said this about you and you go back and say something and in the end you hate someone you don't even know because it's it's a narrative that's set up by someone and you're You're like, yeah, like Frank Warren with myself.

37:17He called me a T-boy and I said a lot of things about him. Now I know Frank Warren. I got on very well with him. You know, and actually I never disliked him because I didn't know him. How can you dislike someone you don't know? You know, but the relationship... But I heard he dislikes you. I mean... He just puts on a front. Yeah, I think he pretends he... I don't know. I like him now, you know. But when you look at... He's, I think, 73 years old, what he's done in the sport. And I'm 30... I was going to say 35. I'm 32. I look at the sport and go fuck being in this when I'm 40 like it's the maddest business in the world like mad you know and the characters involved absolute nutters a lot you know and there's not a lot of logic in it you know and you sort of think god how do these people stay in it for so long I think he's done 40 or 50 years in it you know Barry left boxing Eddie's dad Barry left boxing I think when he was 40 odd because he was like this is an absolute nightmare and when you look at our other businesses in darts snooker not saying they're easy by the way but it's just so different we can't plan to you know more than six months ahead our darts business has a business model for five ten years right i'm sitting there going i sit in board meetings they go how are you looking i go uh i'll let you know in a couple of months you know and it's it's a whole different world to the rest of the industries we're involved in but it also brings the the highest heights and those moments like i say when you walk out and you go wow look at what we did yeah there's a lot of unpredictability i actually just got a little insight into this in my own business we were talking about uh working with a boxer he was having this his fight's first first remember he's one of our customers at heights and um he's having a fight coming up and the fight didn't happen because of a chain of events that daniel dubois had the flu when he was supposed to do a fight the other day or whatever and so that fight didn't happen the next one and so i i was what that oh yeah i guess that happens and the whole schedule of all the other fights were meant to happen didn't happen because you got the flu yeah and you're like oh so i actually like i get exactly it from the inside now which is like one unpredictable business to try and run when you've got two human beings it's not a team no there's no stand-ins and you've got all the lunatics around it so when you're thinking about putting on a moment like ben eubank jr global event yeah certainly massive in the uk but it has got crossover for boxing fans in general how do you think about choice of venue who you're going to sponsor in this case you've got a partnership with a game launch fatal fury like how does all of those elements come together when you're putting that package up yeah so obviously this event's a bit different it's with ring magazine which is turkey lr shakes private entity bought into ring magazine so it's their first event they're they're staging essentially we're like a delivery partner you know with our expertise and we we we promote connor ben obviously and we're working to you know put together the best possible event you know for me like i say events is my side of things i love putting on shows i love looking around and going this is this is just amazing i love going to all types of events you know all different sports and looking at the way people do things um you know when we look at venues it's we've been doing this every day and it's our life you know it consumes us we know the size of a fight we know where's best to take it.

40:30We know where it's going to generate the most revenue. Tottenham was always my preference for this fight. It's what I always push for. They talk about Wembley. Tottenham's a tremendous stadium. From a hospitality perspective, there's a lot of revenue driven there. I think it's the best stadium in Europe, probably, subject to some of the new ones being built. Arsenal fans. It's much better than the Emirates, to be fair. Conor Ben should have been fine at West Ham. But anyway, it's a separate place. It's a lot better than the London stadium. I'm sorry to everyone. um but you know and then there's all the commercial elements you know a bit different with this one because of the structure of it when it's one of our own shows we work through you know we have a lot of long-term sponsors who work the show we have a long-term uh broadcast agreement with the zone who we moved to in 2021 well we started in 2018 in the u.s moved from sky to them in the uk in 2021 you know for us streaming is the way people digest content now it was a bold move for us to make that move a lot of people said what are they doing but we believed in the design platform and we believe it's going to take over you know from a sporting aspect over the next few years what they've done in a whole host of countries you know so that was a big move for us and it's really bringing all those elements together and every show is its own p &l every show is its own negotiation you know that's a bit different to any other sports where you know you know where you're going with your football team for 38 games of the premier league year we're every couple of weeks going right we've got to plan a show in New York at the minute we're planning a show in Guadalajara in Mexico we've got one just outside of Tokyo in Japan a couple of days before that a couple of weeks after that we're in New York a couple of weeks after that we're in Birmingham then we're in Dallas you know and it's constantly you know you're constantly negotiating and every event takes two three weeks you know and as soon as you get that one it's alright well on to the next one you know it's never ended you can tell why you like spreadsheets yeah you need to map it out uh consider air table by the way great product i'll have a look um did they pay you for that are they not a sponsor they should be absolutely at least a grand that's worth um you mentioned a couple of things the disown deal was a massive breakthrough famously kind of mocked by your now collaborator frank warren is like we'll never be on an app yeah how what was the breakdown of that deal how did that work what what are the kind of economics around that what does that look like yeah look we did in 2017 we made our first move into the us we worked with with hbo who are obviously a huge driving force in boxing in the us back then and that was a bold move for us because we were an essex company and it was like right we're gonna go and take over america and i remember sitting in the car with eddie and he said he turned around to me after announcing the deal and he went good luck and then flew home and i was thinking i don't know what i I was, this was 2017, so what was I?

43:20I was 24, 25. And it was like, right, go and run these events in New York. And you're thinking, wow, what do we do here? A year and a half or so after that, we joined up with DAZN. DAZN, obviously a streaming platform who have got the rights in, you know, Germany to the Bundesliga. You've got in France, the major football league. In Japan, the J League, the baseball. You know, they're huge, huge business. And they wanted to start in the US. and they saw an opportunity with boxing being a driving force in the US and they approached us. It was the first ever billion dollar deal in boxing. What does that mean?

43:58Who pays who what in a billion dollar deal? They pay us to put on events essentially. So they pay you a billion dollars? Yeah, unfortunately not up front. Over a time period. If it was up front, I probably would have been on a beach. Well, you wouldn't be here. Yeah, exactly. So a billion dollars over what period? It was an eight-year deal initially. And then it transitioned into a global deal where we moved from Sky to DAZN. You know, look, Sky, obviously they have darts is with Sky. You know, our snooker is with the BBC. You know, we work with a whole host of rights holders across what we do.

44:30But Sky have been a powerhouse in sport in the UK and, you know, television for many, many years. So when we made that move, it was about, it was what we believed in. We believed in the future of how people digest content. And we believed in the DAZN platform. And it was, like I say, it was a bold move. And a lot of people, it was funny because we made that decision to move. It wasn't like we could have stayed where we were, but we said, no, actually, we want to change directions of what we're doing and look at everyone now. But what was it that made you believe? Was it the team? Was it the fact that you just saw the future direction of streaming?

45:07I think we saw the future direction of streaming. Was it the billion dollars? Nothing to do with the money. no no it's never money sorry my bad logically it was never money but i think it was here asking stupid questions on a business show yeah idiot um for me it was and for the it was about what they'd done in markets and and what they'd shown as to the long-term belief of the you know when you look at the uk as one small like we we think we're the uk with emotion but actually the world's a big place you know they they in germany the biggest sports broadcaster in spain in italy in japan and the the aim ultimately and what they've created with boxing especially is is this global home of sport and that's going to continue to grow and that for us was you know we saw that we were excited by it um don't get me wrong that money is always an important factor but it's also belief we're a business that's been around for 40 years it's not just jumping ship to go and make a few quid it's about believing in the plan you're gonna you're gonna go into we've been with sky for 30 odd years with boxing so it wasn't just there's a few quid let's get out it was because we believe in the design platform look now like you say you know what does the next 30 year deal will look like but yeah I mean I'll probably be dead within that time period to be honest if I carry on the traveling I'm doing but you know I think it's gonna continue to evolve even further than what we've seen you know especially from a the way people digest content and it's becoming quicker and quicker you know like kids are less interested now in watching long form stuff they just want it easy they want it quick and so that's why boxing so big you know on social media boxing and fight sports i think is the second most talked about sport on you know sporting group on social media and um i think after what football after football yeah and it's gonna continue to to grow and there's so many again it comes back to narrative I go back to like Jake Paul look at what he did and they're easy he can't box I mean I'm not saying can't box he can box better than me I wouldn't want to fight him but he's not you know in comparison to what he's delivering it's about a narrative and that's what people buy into and I think this this new age that we see now that's the way they digest it and I don't think other broadcasters especially in the UK have moved at the pace that the likes of DAZN have at a very high level like with a billion dollar deal like that what does it look like with margin?

47:30Is there a way to map that out over a bunch of years? Is there a way that you invest it? It's like you're getting a billion dollars. What are you really doing with that? What's left for the company? Because obviously you're also valued at a billion dollars, right? So how does it all make sense? It's so difficult. You know, that was... Well, whip up the spreadsheet then. I'll get it. I'll get it. You know, boxing's a crazy business though, where, you know, certain people deliver huge numbers and may generate 100 million in revenue on an event and you make a very small percentage of that. You know, boxing is like Canelo Alvarez.

48:00He will do seven, eight, nine, 100 ,000, a million buys. That generates 60, 70, 80 million dollars in revenue. You know, a huge amount of money. He does a 15, 20 million dollar gate as an example. So revenue, for me, revenue has not always been the focus compared to other businesses. I get lost amongst, you know, these businesses that sell for billions of pounds. You know, I've more recently got involved in a few businesses and starting to understand, like in in a water brand for example and I've done some looked into liquid death these companies don't make any money but they're worth they're valued at billions and they get invested in a valuation of billions our business is valued on real profit you know not just oh you generate X billion or X hundred million in revenue oh great let's buy them because they create loads of revenue we are its profit at the end of the day and Barry every day is up wash your EBITDA but and for our whole business and that's what we're driven by and it's a real value based on something that actually shows returns um so it's not boxing such a strange thing to budget that's where i say i can't tell you three months away from now and every show is its own independent p &l and you say right that's the rights fee for that and that's the sponsors and that makes x and sometimes it doesn't necessarily correlate to the amount of money that's in the pot you go well you only make that out of it but it's about the long-term you know ability to you know build a star over 10 or 15 years and that's where so many people in boxing go wrong as well there's a there's a huge element of greed in boxing and that's where so many promoters and why promoters have really in in history been given a bad name i'd say quick buck um you mentioned um earlier on the you know dealings with Turkey Al-Sheikh and the Saudi influence and their kind of impact on boxing over fairly recent history.

49:50And you mentioned also like a big event that you've got coming up with them, which is quite a unique one of one event. So as we're talking about how you kind of put these things together, that one, if you can describe what's going on, the one in Times Square and how that works and who's involved and what your role in that is as well. Yeah, look, the Saudi... why you invited Liquid Death to sponsor it not Liquid Death I've got my own water brand I'm not going to drop it now not personally but I invested in another brand that's not Liquid Death that's canned water I think you should probably drop it as you say you're dropping your competitors but it's the other one it's a British one it's called Drip yeah yeah look the Saudi investment in boxing and in sport as a whole has been quite amazing look at what they've done with Live Golf amongst a whole host of other things obviously Newcastle United a big investment from the from the pif as well they're you know their plan and and their aim in sport is quite amazing you know and they're long-term thinkers and they're probably the smartest people i've ever dealt with in terms of working with and their work ethic i've never seen anything quite like it the way they work you know they work so hard to deliver and it's constant on a whole host and a whole range of things like boxing is just a obviously a lot of money but a small part a tiny part of everything they're doing um and they've in just 14 months 16 months changed the face of boxing as i say you know the the may 2nd event is uh at times square my birthday yeah i mean

51:26there's there's a burger shop above it

51:34but it's uh yeah time square i mean when i talk about the events we've been involved in and like over the years you know dallas cowboys breaking the attendance record 75 000 again some company from essic you know it's like and you go and do these things and it's like well what's next and you go to saudi and riyadh and you build an arena in a you know basically in the desert where the Formula E track is and all of these things over the years you think how does it get any bigger than this and what do we do and you know sold out the O2 20 odd times but Times Square put a boxing show on in Times Square and look obviously we're a small part in terms of the ring magazine are putting on the event we're really like an operational partner so with our expertise within boxing and events they bring us in to help deliver the event ultimately so I don't mind being a small part of it it'll go down well on the you know history books when you go do you remember when we did that event with those guys with the guys in time square um what's that mean though is that not quite messy because you're used to doing the whole thing so therefore you understand the operations of doing the whole thing but if someone you know on a small scale i've done a bunch of events as well and i'd much rather do the whole thing than let someone else do a little bit of it because then it starts to get confusing for both of you yeah but i think when you're working with such like elite level operators that they bring in as well from a production look doing an event in Times Square is not easy and they've got specialist contractors who have done it to I don't to be honest I wouldn't like to be in there rigging myself you know there's quite a bit of risk doing that but they you work with such great people and they bring together the best people from around the world in everything they do so it's a bit different when it's like that you know and we're we very much come in as a sport from a sporting standpoint as well to help deliver the show you know so I do agree with you because I'm not a control freak but I like to know everything that's going on maybe i'm a control freak yeah i mean it's like a therapy session it's like a therapy session and you've got none of that self-awareness makes it easy for us yeah no it's great yeah um do you reckon you know thinking again about someone like me turning up at a 96 000 person sold out wembley anthony joshua fight reyad season everywhere do you think like the saudis have sort of saved boxing i don't i mean there's always this argument about saved boxing i think boxing has been in a great place for many years and i think there's nothing no harm in something getting even better i think saved is the wrong term you know i think they've improved it and they've improved it dramatically very quickly because they brought people together that would never have worked together otherwise and made great fights happen but i don't think it was in a state of you know disrepair i don't think you can look at boxing like we've made a very successful business in the last 15 years from boxing so to me boxing for many years you know look back at frocks groves selling 80 ,000 tickets at Wembley and 2014 yeah and he talks about it a lot and then from there the events we've done all around the world that to me isn't a sport that needs saving it's a sport like anything things can always be improved yeah but you shouldn't look back at the history and go well that was bad times it wasn't bad times it just it's gone like this and then like this great happy days you know great for all of us involved there is one obvious uh improvement that they've made which is matchroom and queensberry kind of you know playing nice now yeah um so can you give us a little bit you touched on it earlier but a little bit of the color between that rivalry and then what the relationship is now and then where it might go going forwards now you're both on the same streaming platform with the zone as well Yeah, look, that's a relationship that goes back, you know, I think 30, nearly 40 years.

55:17Queensbury was founded by Frank Warren, who's a Hall of Fame boxing promoter, as is Barry Hearn, Eddie's father. And they were in a time period where all the big fights were happening, the likes of Chris Eubank Sr., Nigel Benn, etc. And they were all around the same time. And those two, Frank and Barry, went at it, never really had a relationship, did certain things, did certain shows together. And then Barry moved away from boxing. Frank always remained in the sport. And then when Eddie came in, Eddie had never met Frank Warren. But there was this back and forth as I say because of the media which is out he said this about you he said this and for 10 or 12 years they never met each other and never said a word and we never really worked together we did bits small bits and pieces but we didn't make fights because probably because of that relationship but it wasn't a relationship because they knew each other and they didn't like each other it was it was just because of pure dislike because of this kind of stuff where he'd say this you'd say this and even I got I pulled into it as well and said certain things and maybe i look back on now and go what an idiot but at the same time you're reacting to there's something that's said about you um that goes back as i say 30 40 years until june 2024 turkey ala shake put together the 5v5 between matrim and queensbury so five of our fighters v five of theirs we lost every fight um you know so that's how it went yeah no it didn't go too well that's why i thought i'd get over that bit very quickly um but yeah you brought together you know two powerhouses really in the sport to come together and make great fights and actually when you spend time together you go oh do you know what all of that stuff was manufactured really it wasn't real and um frank's son george warren's very heavily involved in the business and i think he has quite an approach i think like me like as in take away the love like i'm not saying i don't love boxing by the way you know people take it the wrong way but you have to have a broader view of the sport than just a die-hard fan of it.

57:27Yeah, analytical. Yeah, because how are you ever going to grow something if you just have such a love for it? Like, you can't. And hardcore fans may not like that, but all these sports that we talk about, they need to grow. You know, if you're ever going to get to the levels that we believe it can get to, you need to have that view. And I think George has a much more, it's a business, you know. and so for so many years in the sport of boxing it was run by people who knew boxing but didn't really know how to put on a show i didn't really know everything you know great you know the sport boxing but it takes much more than that um so yeah it's been a interesting 14-15 months coming together as you say frank and queensberry on the zone now their first show is this weekend um and i think it's going to be great i think if it means great fights are happening take away all that promotional rivalry but also there's a storyline there as well and if that adds to the fights and the fighters that storyline of it's matchroom v queensbury it's eddie herm v frank warren happy days that's good for the fighters it's good for the narratives good for building the sport what's the role of a boxing promoter being like has it changed since turkey got involved uh it's a bit different with turkey yellow shake at the riyadh season shows because you're essentially you know we have fighters that we promote that we build up who go on to their shows you know when we run shows ourselves you're you're putting on the event you're taking the risk on the event you know i think boxing promoters because of the history of the sport get tarnished you know because of promoters of old in truth and when you look at our business we take huge risks on fighters and invest high seven you know seven figures into fighters before they even become stars before they're selling huge tickets right and every show we do every week we do a show we risk five six seven hundred eight hundred thousand pounds right every weekend we're doing a show and if the main event fighter pulls out you're sitting there going this it's not like premier league where any player gets injured or darts or snooker where the tournament goes ahead this is talent dependent where the main event pulls out and you're sitting there going you make ben the first time a perfect example you know you're sitting there going oh my goodness we have lost you know near on seven figures this weekend because it like actual money not lost revenue not lost profit income whatever real money and you're sitting there going oh but no one the problem is people don't see that in boxing they don't see the investment side i don't see the risk you take week in week out i'd love to be a manager in boxing like a manager in boxing i'm not saying you don't work hard but you don't take financial risk you know you take a percentage than what someone gets paid yeah you put your your your work is putting time in you're putting your time to them we put time in and risk financially every week can you break it down a little bit so how does it all work so you know if i'm trying some someone coming from the outside which i am trying to understand how the business of boxing actually makes sense and works so how does a business like how long have you got i'm running out of time actually but um no i'm like But, you know, how you mentioned, like, we put money on the line.

1:00:39You're, you know, you're a promoter. You're not the manager, not an agent. You are, like, finding the talent and bringing them up. So, in that way, you're sort of like the Premier League club, in a sense. Like, you know, give me some analogies. Like, help me, as an idiot, understand what this actually, how it all works and comes together. So, I walk into a boxing club. I find you. Yeah. And you're very talented. Thank you. It could be possible still. Yeah. We'll find out. Could have been a contender. Yeah, yeah, for sure. and we say right we're going to give you a 10 fight deal or a three-year deal and over those three years we're going to build you up and you know sometimes you have a ticket seller johnny fisher is a guy who's a perfect example who sold tickets from the early stages of his career really covered a lot of the investment at that stage but a lot of fighters you need to build up right from the ground and that's because what they're also quite good at social media uh yeah he's very good at social media his family but because he you know been to university had a big fan base from all over the place who followed him but you know you're really building a talent from the ground up and you're investing in that not just on fights but promotionally everything around it you know everything all the work that goes into doing it your opponents your travel like millions of pounds go go into people really before you know a lot not every fighter but a lot of the the fighters that you see that get to those heights before there's much return at the same time you're running a P &L on every show.

1:02:00So when we look at a show, you have the broadcast revenue, you know, then you have the gate revenue, you have the sponsorship, and they're really the three key areas of income. And then you've got the fighter purses, you've got the main event and the undercard, and then the costs of running a show. The costs of running a show have gone through the roof, as of everything in life, you know, it's crazy. It costs us probably half a million pounds on average just to run an event without product tv production you know it's a lot of money and that's the risk every week that you're putting up then you're taking a risk does it does this fight sell tickets you know is it going to deliver you know you've got your broadcast revenue you've got your broadcast deal you've got your sponsorship deals and you're always looking to bring more of those in um and it's every fight for us really run or event runs on a single individual basis and you determine the success of that based on that individual P &L.

1:02:54You know some you might take a hit on you might take an investment and go right this is for a longer term plan to get someone into a position in a year, two years, three years and that's part of our business and sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes people lose, sometimes people go actually you know I'm done with that I want to go this route and that investment is then gone but I think in boxing it's like i say promoters are viewed as actual you know they're a bit where actually the reality is there's a lot of work and a lot of money that goes in and what tends to happen in boxing is you invest that time and that money in a fighter they get very big and they go wait why am i playing these people you know that that's the truth and certain people understand it and other people you have to go through that process with them and i think the other issue with boxing is where it's so spread where there's so many entities that come in.

1:03:45Every like three, four years, you have these people that come in. It was PBC in 2013, 2014, who was a premier boxing champion. So another promoter like us, they invested four or 500 million with Woodell and Reid. They took private equity money. Yeah, Woodell and Reid. It was quite a different model. I hadn't really seen promoters do that previously. And really, in all honesty, I don't think it's been a successful Woodell and Reid, that money they invested there. then you have Triller came in you know another platform that probably invested a couple of hundred million obviously DAZN invested heavily but they're still here you know they built a platform now that has stood the test of time and now are in the great time you have to invest obviously but so many people in boxing over the years chuck a load of money in and it's it distorts the market you know if you're a fighter and I'm saying to you I'm going to give you x amount of money but you've got to have a proper fight but he's saying I'm going to give you x amount of money you can fight who you want you're going to go i want the easiest as every as most people in life yeah i want the most amount of money for the easiest job right but that's the difficulty in boxing you're always facing up against someone new coming in going i'll give you this but that doesn't grow the sport and that's where the sport's been hindered compared to ufc where you've seen fighters fight real fights the sport of boxing is like i'll go there and i'll sort of build my way out and you know they'll take it slower and i won't take risks and that doesn't grow the sport in reality and the longer run the longer that goes on for it's actually detrimental to the fighter's career but obviously it's short-term thinking a lot of the time do you have a target like return so like you mentioned like on a let's talk about an event basis so you've got an event it costs 500 gram per event or whatever before you've even started or whatever obviously you might lose the whole amount but what is your like target intended like profit margin on something like that or do you because you know it's like up and down do you try and just look at it over an annual basis what you're targeting yeah we've we tend now to look at it over an annual basis because the the business is so up and down every fight is different every fighter has different value sometimes you have to put a fighter on there because of contractual commitment that doesn't necessarily make financial sense so we try and look at it over a year period in our business and we're the only part of the group who looks at it like that the rest of our group can look at an event the darts will look at the world championships they can give you a 10 year business model of right year on year ticket prices increase every event we do is different there's no real comparison most of the time every individual event every individual fight has a different value so yeah we've changed it and we now look at it on an annual basis but even then it's very hard to plan well what's a good year what's a bad year uh what what's the range we're working with a good year you know from a margin perspective from a margin perspective probably 15 20 right but then at the same time you can do shows a great story is when luke campbell who you would know he went to the london olympics with one won the medal as well with anthony joshua he fought a guy called uh vasily lomachenko who in boxing terms legend legend right but but commercially not aligned with his boxing ability right and it was just after Anthony Joshua had lost to Andy Ruiz Eddie at the time went we need to do something here because you know the pressure's on everyone's saying we're finished because AJ lost we got to do this show and we had an offer to do the fight elsewhere and you know we'd make some money you know Luke we'd take a under our deal with Luke you get commission or we brought the fight to the UK and we lost not far off a million dollars in a night right and i said i again the logical spreadsheet in me said i think this is what i think it does and eddie went sometimes that's where it's good where he goes we have to do it for the business and the optics you know and sometimes you need that a spreadsheet doesn't always tell the whole story and that's where the emotion is like more important for like the storytelling you know to an audience at the end the day you're entertaining fans so there's that part too right the heart yeah i mean look we sold a load of tickets but we lost a million quid or a million dollars or whatever but that's a huge amount of money in one night to lose and it's a big swing in a business and that's where we're quite a good pairing where i sit there every day with a logical and he sits there with the boxing element and that's where we go like that and sometimes i win sometimes he wins mine is only with a care like at the end of the day it's his business you know he's the majority owner of the business but I care about the business because I've been there so long and and I everything I do is with logic and he's made decisions in the past that I probably wouldn't have made that have worked out and the same each way and that's why the Frodsch Groves at Wembley is a decision that could have fallen flat on it exactly and that's where the balance is though you know between the two you know that that's where the balance is of the different views of the sport so let's talk about where the sport goes where match room goes because you've talked about you know the shifts that have happened you've talked about the challenges of the model obviously we've got a recent new entrant coming in Dana and the crew the TKO crew coming in which looks like they're going to build a very UFC model or like your darts model or your snooker model where they're coming in and building something like that how do you think that is going to influence the landscape how do you guys react in response do you even respond what's the story around that yeah look I I mean, you'd be mad to think what Dana and all of those guys have done with those brands, like UFC, WWE, all under that TKO manner.

1:09:26They're amazing at creating brands. They've got a huge war load of money that they're going to invest into the sport. I think any investment into the sport is beneficial. Anything that comes into the sport you're involved in and wants to chuck a load of money in, happy days. And I think they can coexist. you know they are going to create a huge brand in the sport of boxing 100 no no denying it but i don't feel they can do what they did in the ufc because it's very different times they're coming into a sport that has been around for hundreds of years and has this has had multiple people involved in it you know whether that's top rank whether that was don king in history you know pbc of recent times frank there's been so many people involved in the sport who are still around as well so i think there's huge potential with what they're going to do i think there's a lot of change that can be made in boxing as well i i look at it and say even with our products i think there's huge amounts of change i think the way people are consuming content has changed as i say people want shorter form stuff people want it quicker they don't want to sit there four or five hours you know they want it they want the action they want to know what the result is and that's good in many ways but bad for you know the historic way of a sport so yeah you'd be stupid and foolish to think they're not going to come in and make a splash of course i don't think there's a reaction i think it's a different product as i say i think it's a different level of fighters and i think they want to create that they obviously want to create a commercial entity that's going to be very successful financially rightly so look at what they've done i think it's amazing what they've done with power slap don't necessarily think it's great myself but when you look at the brand they created in a short space of time shows what they can do as a business so yeah it's going to be interesting but i don't really think it it needs a reaction for us because we've got our deals we've got our fighters in place we're going to continue to do what we've done for well for us 10 12 years but for 40 years as a business and you know just run alongside it and coexist from the outside in my understanding is but if you and queensbury and all these other people have the proper premium fighters under contract doesn't really matter how much money they come in with in theory right if they don't have the fighters they've got a wicked league and everything else but you need the sick fighters who are the most skilled the most exciting etc in reality to make it all work yeah but i think as well it's about a balance between the level of the sport and where we go back to the point again raising jake paul mike tyson it's a narrative so if they can sell narratives of people who aren't at the same level for example and people tune in and go buy into this a bit like what dana did with the contender series many years ago that was amazing you know it built stars from that and i think they will build stars as part of this and there'll be new stars that run alongside these guys look boxing as i say has had many people come in over the years no one with the power of these guys you know both the tko group and his excellency turkey lfshake but i honestly believe they can coexist and i don't look at it in a bad way and i believe that i go back to the point anyone who's investing money in the sport you're in just like in a business means it's means there's something there what about the influencer-ization of boxing so jay paul ksi is that good or bad i i personally don't mind it providing it's two donkeys if that makes sense right do you know what i mean like as in if you and i fall it would be quite equal yeah because we're two donkeys yeah basically got it and we i don't know you might beat me up i don't know i think two donkeys is fair yeah yeah yeah two donkeys is apt but i know when i'm speaking to a fellow donkeys yeah so you knew it was me when i but I think when it's when you're talking about a 60 year old man against a 30 year old fit like there's only going to be one one outcome when you're talking about like Anthony Joshua talking about Jake Paul and by the way that's a recent one that Jake Paul saying I want to fight Anthony Joshua Anthony Joshua would decapitate Jake Paul but if you're Anthony Joshua right and represent him as we do if he can make an absolute why wouldn't you do that what what I can go and make an absolute fortune beat up happy days beat up an idiot people saying you'll get done for GBH you know if it wasn't sanctioned someone said get legal representative exactly just to be sure but I think there's a market for it and too many people get upset about things that you don't have to watch like don't watch it it's a bit like baller league like this new football format you know that has a huge audience of people that it attracts if you're not interested in it turn it off why does it offend you And we get to a point where it seems to me, at least, that there's this kind of, you know, stratification of the boxing product, right?

1:14:17Like you have Influeners Boxing, that's one version of the product. You have maybe what TKO doing, which is the UFC kind of version of the product. You've got then, let's say, the more classical kind of stuff that, you know, Matchroom, Queensbury, Golden Boy, etc. are doing, where you've got the big names and you're building them and doing these big events. and you know there's an you're saying there's an appetite for all of those pieces to fit in this boxing landscape and then but if you think about your opportunities going forward because there has been talk about you know IPO take the business public going from this like Essex family company to being this you know big dog on the stock market what do you see the journey towards that being is there a is there a scenario where this consolidation of you know DAZN, Queensbreed, Mattrop, does that end up becoming an entity that you flow?

1:15:10Is there even more alignment? Is there more breakout? How do you see it? Yeah look it's obvious it's not my business I'm involved in it financially and I have incentives for it to do well but I think you know recently we took on minority investment which was a huge move as it was because there'd always been the fact of it it's a family business that never changes. But I think as times change and the business gets to the scale it is, it's also about finding the right partners that can help you grow. Money is important. Cashflow. But yeah, and also like partners who can put you into new territories and give you new opportunities.

1:15:44And we did that last year and that will continue, I'm sure that will grow over time. I think for us as a business, we're an interesting investment because we're so diversified in sports that that limits the risk in many ways you know if one's struggling if one's doing work and investors like that as well at the same time a lot of investors can't quite understand the sport you know the smartest people in the world can't quite look at the sport and go oh you know everyone looks at boxing right as an example because i could save boxing again as if it needs save or i could change boxing it's like no no it's it's good like we've run a consistent business now for the last 10 years in boxing and grown and grown and grown you know and then when you look at like i say the darts and the the revenue that's bringing in how that's i think for us as well it's about international markets you know when you look at the darts now they were in berlin last night they had i think 15 000 people packed out sold out they got a eight date tour in australia and new zealand that they're doing they're going to new york to madison square gardens when you look at snooker business they're in China with six five or six events a year you know this is a huge multinational business that can continue to grow and build you know they were at Essex based our you know we are pushing events out all around the world I think for us it's a it's about continuing to build the business as I you know billion pound business now I mean it's sensational you know and it's only really just getting started there's so much more opportunity where that goes whether it's a uh an IPO whatever it is who knows um but I think the the future is very positive and I'm excited about what the future holds I always say I'm going to be retired on the beach selling flip-flops in the next five or six years or you know as soon as you mentioned yeah you and Eddie both talk about retirement right so what does that look like when are you when you're actually planning like that kind of you just said in this interview you You can't imagine being in it when you're 40 and you're in your mid-30s.

1:17:45So I think for me, Eddie's is when the passion dies out for the sport or the sports we're involved in. For me, I think it's when the passion dies out from the events. The day I walk out at an event and go, I can't be arsed. I walk out at events all around the world every week and I go, right, this is great. Or if it's not a good event, I go, right, what do we need? they're not always you know not everything you do is going to be a hundred percent of the most successful thing ever so for me it's that day it dies out we go i can't be bothered and what does that look like from a succession planning perspective right because you you that might happen next week you don't know if you i'll be surprised for either of you but how do you start thinking about who comes in to then take it to the next level when you guys decide to check out if that is the case i think when you look at the kind of groups we we're looking to be involved with you know i don't think for me i could do this forever like the work i love working it's more for me the travel i travel i stayed in hotels 300 or 297 nights last year like that's not sustainable i end up having a heart attack on the flight i presume you don't have kids no no no i don't spend enough time at home to you know have sex yeah i was going to say that yeah yeah we got it we got it um but i've got very understanding misses but i don't think that's sustainable long term you know 300 nights in hotels i don't think you can do that um and i think if my role changed and the business changed and you had new people involved and you know if you look at some of the again the big entities in sport when you look at the imgs the tko group these businesses that are powerhouses in sport and they merge and come together maybe there's an opportunity maybe we merge with another group maybe we there's so many opportunities and sometimes someone might come in ultimately we could sell and someone might come in and go you're useless you're like okay you know that's the reality as well we're all in reality replaceable i think it's just whether you'll find someone with the same level of care who's going to put the work in and you only find that out after you after you switch someone out so i think long-term planning I always say I've said recently like five more years but I don't know like who knows how important is legacy to you then not for me it's about me knowing I did enough in everything I did so I don't really care like a lot of people have a view of me right I do interviews and things and people go in boxing is quite cutthroat and social media in boxing is quite cutthroat and they're like this kid's useless hasn't got a clue what he's doing and because again i'm compared to eddie i know i'm not as good at eddie's social engagement talking i know that he's a master at it he also couldn't do what i do but i appreciate what i respect so much respect for what he does but because i get compared to him people think i'm useless and then people go ain't got this kid ain't got a clue what he's talking about and because i openly say boxing's i couldn't tell you when to throw a jab or when to move your feet right so what drives me is my internal mind and i've always had this of have you given it a hundred percent i don't really care what people think in truth like i will be my own i maybe care about the people who i respect and know me and if if you know me and you think he's not very good i'd go i'd have a problem and i'd have a conversation go what what you know i'd probably get my back up about it but for the most part it's not really about legacy for me I haven't got an ego I want to make money I'll be open with you I've always wanted to make money since I was 14 years old I want to do well and I want to sit there and go I did everything I could have done and gave it my all and the day I walk away from it I also appreciate that a lot of people won't speak to you and a lot of people that that life will be gone I'm cool with that I don't need like I'm good on my own like I love being with my missus but I'm also good I can sit there on my own for a couple of days and just think of you know my own thoughts so for me legacy and those kind of things it's not so much it's about knowing you were good enough and knowing you did everything you could it's quite interesting about being torn down as well because uh it's never people who are above you tearing you down right that's just not a behavior that happens generally speaking from people who are in higher places than you yeah no I know but I think it's except for frank warren yeah maybe frank yeah but the british culture as well i think it's not you know we don't necessarily like success there's there's an element of envy and don't get me wrong i've had luck along the way i'm sure we've all everyone needs an element of luck but i started with a lot of people who haven't gone on to do what i've done you know and that's that's hard work at that point so there's the luck piece or we all need luck right but then it's like can you take it from there a bit like eddie right where people say well you just had a touch dad's got loads of money well you you don't work as hard as he does like yeah his dad had loads of money look at what he's gone on to do but it's something interesting there because you you mentioned two bits one which is this like you know extrinsic motivation of the money right maybe you've got a number in mind yeah you go because you said i haven't made enough money yet maybe there's a number and when you hit that number maybe that's the time but i get the sense particularly going back to this 14 year old you bombarding Eddie Hearn with emails calling him a bastard selling him stuff whatever there is also this intrinsic thing about you that seems to want to keep driving and pushing is that something you're self-aware of is it something you're prepared to put down when you feel like you've hit the number or is there something else going to keep you keep you going I think the one thing that's changed in recent times with my life is I'm so consumed by by the business I work in, right?

1:23:32And I accept and I tell my family, business unfortunately, work has always been important to me, and working so hard. And I may be wrong for this, and people go, you're mental, but if I wasn't working as hard as I was, I wouldn't be happy, so I'd be useless in family life anyway, if that makes sense. And people would go, what family doesn't come first? I'm like, of course family is very important to me, but work has always been, I've always wanted to succeed. And I think in recent times, I've seen myself consumed by the life of the work. Like I can't go away from my phone. I was up at like say three o 'clock in the morning for it.

1:24:09Like I can't get away from it. And I think I want to have a period of time where I just go, like put your phone in a drawer and not have to go and pick it up for seven days. I want to see what that's, I might not enjoy it by the way. I might go after a year. Well, I just want to go and do something. And I'm not saying I'd ever stop working. I want to have things and I'll always be interested. And I'm very, I want to plan and I want to know what I'm doing, but I probably want a time where I can go, do you know what, if I put my phone down for a day and spend time with my family, I want to try that.

1:24:41And there's nothing wrong with either way. Everyone think you, I think the idea of success has changed over time as well, where success was always like, do you work hard and make a load of money? Like that's not what success is. Success is whatever you deem it to be in your own mind. you know like you don't have to conform to what someone else has done which will change at different periods of your life as well and i think i'm at that point now where it's like i see the position where i want to get to it's changing yeah um you did mention money you did mention like you know that motivation do you have a number of minds like what you know from from what point would you be like that is objectively enough money for me after tax and all the things i can work out so everything else is a cherry on top i think the key thing that's changed in my mind is I met so many successful people, like billionaires, like boxing's a crazy sport where you go to the poorest places in the world and then you meet the most wealthy people in the world.