Matchroom Multi Sport: Changing Pool’s Perception

Matchroom may be best known for its boxing and darts, but its sporting portfolio is much broader than that.

Pool, netball, gymnastics and fishing are just some of the niche sports looking to follow in the footsteps of the PDC and carve their own bath into mainstream sport in the UK.

Following the most recent World Pool Championships in Poland, we caught up with Matchroom Multi Sport Managing Director, Emily Frazer, to find how the business is changing sports perceptions.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and life at Matchroom?

I’m now into my twelfth year at Matchroom, so I literally feel like if you cut me open, Matchroom would be running through my blood. It’s been so interesting to see the growth and transition of the company.

It’s such a family-orientated company. Day by day, hour by hour, it’s growing. So it’s quite an exciting journey to be involved with.

I started on the broadcast production side of things before moving over to live events at Matchroom, which was called Special Events. Back then, it was basically all the niche sports you can think of under this one title.

We would do these annual one-off events that were quite spectacular. They would appeal to the hard-core fans but also draw a wider audience as they were really unique events. The events included pool, ten-pin bowling, fishing, ping-pong and two snooker events. So, it was quite a range of sports.

As time has gone on, we have learned from our mistakes and seen these events grow further. That is what has developed into Matchroom Multi Sport – this dynamic company where we are now divided into the likes of Matchroom Pool.

Now, at Matchroom Multi-Sport, you are heading up several new and emerging sports. Can you tell us a bit about the Matchroom Multi-Sport portfolio?

We still do our fishing event, Fish O Mania, which I just think is Barry Hearn’s love! It is the longest-running sporting event on Sky Sports so it’s one for the diehards!

We launched into netball and basketball a couple of years ago. We have continued with netball but stopped basketball. We also have three snooker events within the Matchroom Multi Sport umbrella as well as gymnastics and nine-ball pool.

When I first started with the nine ball pool, there were three events a year. Now in 2023, we are doing ten. It’s getting similar to what the PDC has done in darts, and with World Snooker, where the sport has world rankings and full tours.

Creating that full tour within nine-ball is a big focus for us. Previously there hasn’t been any funding or investment in pool. We have now launched the rankings and since then it’s been a whirlwind.

How does Matchroom approach new sports to ensure you can engage fans in a saturated market?

We’re always comparing the data across our portfolio of sports to see what works. What makes us so unique as a team is that we work in different sports, so have that advantage.

One day we may be doing a netball event, another day we might be doing snooker. We might just come across something that we wouldn’t have thought to apply to another sport but actually transfers across.

The key challenge is that you have got to find the balance between upsetting the hardcore fans and entertaining the new fans. It’s something that we are very good at.

We take a sport, we put our Matchroom spin on it, have some fun with it and see what happens.

Some of these unique, niche sports just don’t get the recognition. We identify what those can be, invest, and try to develop it, and take it to new heights.

What’s the biggest challenge you face when trying to get a new or emerging sport or competition off the ground?

Sometimes you have these governing bodies in these sports, which we call ‘blazers’, that set the rules. It can be hard as promoter to come in with these changes when things have been a certain way for so long.

Barry just loves new ideas and having fun with the events. Take nine-ball pool for example. They are taking a bit too long at the table. So, let’s introduce a shot clock. That’s not in the traditional rules, but it’s our event and we want them.

Fast forward, and now the shot clock is such a significant part of the show, it becomes a talking point and it’s an entertaining factor.

Another issue is prize money. In the pool, players could spend $15,000 to win $2,000. They are trying to manage expenses because they are at the top of the game, but they can only make $50,000 a year. People would go to an event and not know if they were going to get paid or not.

Now, we’ve guaranteed $2m of prize money just on the Matchroom events. Now, this can be a career. And this isn’t just the top ten having a career, the whole 128 tour card can have a career.

Finding fans is one thing. But how difficult have you found finding commercial interest, which is needed to make it sustainable?

The main issue for us with pool, from broadcasters and sponsors has been ‘What is it?’ There are so many different disciplines within the sport. What we were trying to sell was nine-ball, so we committed to more nine-ball events and therefore more nine-ball content.  To help clarify it further we went through a rebrand – everything is now ‘nine-ball’ to try and educate people on what it is.

We are trying to tell people that pool is nine-ball. The only way to do that is by producing more events and content on screen. That is the first step to attracting commercial interest.

For the Mosconi Cup we had over 25,000 spectators. All of sudden, we’ve had CBS 60 mins interested. Then one of pool players is on the Joe Rogan podcast. We’ve also been trying to get the players to use social media more.

The next step is developing the sport. We now have a rankings schedule and a qualification system. All of sudden, you are not asking a brand to sponsor three pool events anymore, you are asking them to sponsor a Tour. ‘Do you want to be the official betting partner of the Nineball Tour?’ It’s a lot more compelling.

How much of an inspiration is the success of the PDC?

It’s just incredible. I remember the first World Championships I went to, and it was incredible. My eyes just lit up.

The darts were a huge part of how we developed the Mosconi Cup. It alternates between Vegas and the Alexandra Palace in London every year. We wanted to create the darts atmosphere within pool.

We are always taking ideas from other parts of Matchroom, whether it is darts, boxing or netball. Because they are our events we have complete freedom.

What is your process for deciding which sports to get behind and bring into the Matchroom Multi Sport portfolio? What’s next?

The gymnastics was special for us. We did the World Cup for gymnastics for the first time, and then we moved into the Superstars of gymnastics which was our take on Strictly Come Dancing with a judging panel of Simone Biles, Max Whitlock and it was the simple 1-10 system everybody knows.

We bought all of the athletes together to do an exhibition of their routines. We’d be wowed by these routines that the gymnasts would do at a 5-effort level. There is such stress on these athletes’ bodies, and people don’t understand.

Gymnastics does not really get showcased in the UK, mainly because the scoring is so confusing. So we’ve created this exhibition format.

Also, the crowds go mental for it. One time a guy did a ‘floss’ on the top of a high bar and the crowd went crazy! Simone Biles gave the gymnast a ‘7’ and the whole O2 Arena booed her. That’s how passionate they were!

We want to progress on that, and we are constantly in talks with Max Whitlock on continuing the journey. Covid really slowed that progress but we are looking at that for the future.

We are always looking at different sports. Can we do a shortened format of it? Can we add our Matchroom style to it? The Matchroom Multi-Sport door is always open for any sports, there is always something we can look at.

Take cheerleading. I think there is massive potential in that sport. Cheerleading is growing in the UK and that’s one I have my eye on!