When, last week, the promoter and talent agent was, in his words, \u201cled down the path\u201d of answering a question about Henry Pollock<\/a>\u2019s salary in a newspaper interview, he did not expect his typically honest response to draw such scrutiny. Not that declaring his first client in the sport<\/a> should be a million-pound man worked against Hearn \u2013 nor, indeed, Pollock.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t expect that interview to explode like it has, and it\u2019s really down to Henry Pollock,\u201d explains Hearn. \u201cThey asked me, \u2018do you think it is fair what he is making at the moment?\u2019 And I said, \u2018no, I think it is outrageous\u2019. He\u2019s playing over 30 games a year, getting battered in every game, every training session, he\u2019s got the whole rugby world trying to attack him on sight on the rugby pitch. Everybody is talking about him. He\u2019s 21, he\u2019s in the England team, he\u2019s in the Lions team, he\u2019s just won a championship. Every kid wants to be Henry Pollock, every kid wants to buy the Henry Pollock shirt, people are buying season tickets to watch him, buying TNT to watch him.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth pressing pause here to consider Hearn\u2019s very involvement within the sport. By his own admission, the 47-year-old is no rugby fan; his first international match was Wales against Italy<\/a> in the final round of the Six Nations in March. But something about Pollock captured him. <\/p>\n The Northampton and England back rower signed to Matchroom\u2019s burgeoning talent agency soon after, with Bath and Scotland fly half Finn Russell<\/a> then following suit. \u201cEveryone is basically phoning me up at the moment going, \u2018what\u2019s your plan?\u2019\u201d Hearn says. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know, to be honest. I just think Henry Pollock is great. And I think rugby is a sleeping giant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n He may be new to this particular sporting world but Hearn, true to form, has plenty of thoughts. And he feels the genteel world of rugby union is in need of a shake-up. \u201cOur history in changing sports is pretty much second to none,\u201d he says of Matchroom, founded by his father Barry and overseer of booms in snooker, boxing and darts. \u201cBut we are not a bit-part player. We are not a consultancy. We\u2019ll restructure it, we\u2019ll remodel it, we\u2019ll change it from grassroots, we\u2019ll create a system to bring stars through.\u201d<\/p>\n Hearn held initial talks about involvement within rugby league before recognising Pollock\u2019s star potential. He is in regular contact with the \u201cvery smart\u201d Simon Massie-Taylor<\/a>, chief executive of Prem Rugby, and knows CVC Capital Partners, the investment firm that holds stakes in the English top flight and the Six Nations well. R360 has been in touch, too, despite delaying the launch of the Mike Tindall-fronted rebel league. <\/p>\n Fresh investment within rugby has been a theme of the last 12 months<\/a> with the arrival of Red Bull at Newcastle, Black Knight at Exeter and James Dyson at Bath, and Hearn is certain that more will follow \u2013 if the sport allows them.<\/p>\n \u201cI know, and Prem Rugby knows because they are talking to them, that there are a lot of people wanting to buy rugby clubs at the moment and put money in,\u201d Hearn admits. \u201cBut not in its current infrastructure. <\/p>\n \u201cThe sport needs to be commercialised in a way that makes sense. The market is wrong, in my opinion. This whole thing about one marquee player [at each Prem club]\u2026 it\u2019s so unambitious. People with money\u2026 Dyson, Red Bull, forget about them, American franchise investors \u2013 do you think they want to come and get involved in a sport where you can only have one star player? No, we want every star player. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople in rugby go, \u2018oh, we can\u2019t do that, it makes it unfair\u2019. Well make it unfair. When you\u2019ve got someone doing that, someone else will do that, and someone else will do that, and then Dyson or Red Bull will go, \u2018here we go\u2019. And then some billionaire will come in, and you begin to attract all of the best players from around the world to the Premiership.\u201d<\/p>\n Hearn is fizzing now. Clearly, there is a personal motivation here \u2013 he is, of course, an agent \u2013 but there is a purer element, too. <\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with rugby is that grassroots has been dying because there has been no one that young kids can actually say, \u2018yeah, I want to be like him\u2019,\u201d he explains. \u201cUntil Pollock came along, and others. We represent Finn Russell, but Fin Smith \u2013 guys I don\u2019t represent but I think can be a star as well.<\/p>\n \u201cLuke Littler has been a great example. The amount of young players we have coming into darts is unbelievable. [In rugby], players are not motivated to play the game, because you can\u2019t make money. We are making seven figures for Henry Pollock off the pitch. He\u2019s great, but when I first sat down and he told me the money he makes for Northampton and England, I couldn\u2019t believe it. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has to be aspirational. Aspiration comes from championships, but it also comes from money. Let\u2019s not kid ourselves. Young people want to make money. You can\u2019t say that, \u2018unfortunately, you can\u2019t make any more money because we\u2019ve got one bloke over here who is already on good money\u2019. That\u2019s ridiculous. You want as many players as possible on big money. If the clubs can\u2019t afford it, let the big money and big owners come in to try and shake it up a little bit. You want someone to come in and blow it up.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps Hearn, directly or indirectly, is that man. Certainly, watching him and Pollock plot their way through the next two years or so, and all that it will bring for the 21-year-old and his agent, could be fascinating. A World Cup in Australia, Olympic sevens in Los Angeles \u2013 though Team GB are far from certain to qualify \u2013 and more domestic success are all on the mind of the highly-focused Pollock.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I sat down with Henry Pollock, everything that he said was about legacy,\u201d Hearn stresses. \u201cThe first thing he said was, \u2018I don\u2019t want to leave Northampton\u2019. The other weird thing he said was, \u2018I really want to be in the Olympics\u2019. I work in boxing and for a lot of these guys, it\u2019s about making the biggest payday as soon as possible. He could leave and go and make a huge payday somewhere else.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he loves the club. He believes they can win the championship again, and lives 10 minutes away. He really wants to stay. He\u2019s a very well educated guy. He\u2019s a really smart kid and he\u2019s got a good head.\u201d And, it seems, a valuable fighter in his corner. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-733821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eddie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01KZ45BSE49EJK81JVQQAKJCNQ.jpg\")
Eddie Hearn says Henry Pollock is worth at least \u00a31m a year (PA)<\/p>\n![\"Hearn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2280199460...jpeg\")
Hearn believes rugby is a ‘sleeping giant’ (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Fresh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2281662920...jpeg\")
Fresh investment has arrived in English rugby union within the last couple of years (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Hearn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01KVJY6DANZ4E8BZJ4VQ7HKS27.jpg\")
Hearn feels Fin Smith (centre) and Pollock are at the vanguard of rugby\u2019s future (PA)<\/p>\n![\"Pollock](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cc1081d826b09df7e0e5ca65fa8a52dfY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzgxOTUwNzQ4-2.83367954.jpg\")
Pollock celebrates scoring a try for England against Wales at Twickenham in February (PA Wire)<\/p>\n![\"Pollock](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01KVJXNYSMWRWG2CPCXZMNERMR.jpg\")
Pollock celebrates with the Gallagher Prem trophy (PA)<\/p>\n