Barry Hearn (born 1949, Dagenham, Essex) is an English sports entrepreneur, the founder and chairman of promotions company Matchroom Sport. He first came to notice in snooker in 1974 and started off with little remembered players Geoff Foulds (Neal's father) and Vic Harris before becoming manager of six times world champion Steve Davis from 1976, and prospered from the snooker boom of the 1980s which he also formed Matchroom with players Davis, Tony Meo and later Terry Griffiths, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, Neal Foulds, Jimmy White, Cliff Thorburn and Ronnie O'Sullivan. He moved into boxing in 1987, and has promoted leading British and Irish boxers such as Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Lennox Lewis, Naseem Hamed, Herbie Hide and Steve Collins. Matchroom is also involved in pool, tenpin bowling, golf, fishing, darts and poker. It specialises in creating comparatively low-grade events to fill the hours of television sport air-time created by the boom in digital sport channels. 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... Dagenham is a town within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... A chairman is the presiding officer of a meeting, organization, committee, or other deliberative body. ... Matchroom Sport is a promotions company founded by the English entrepreneur Barry Hearn. ... Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a large (12 feet × 6 feet) baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The World Snooker Championship, currently held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, is the climax of snookers annual calendar and the most important snooker event of the year in terms of prestige, prize money and world ranking points. ... Steve Davis OBE (born August 22, 1957) is an English professional snooker player who was born in London and lives in Brentwood, Essex with his wife and two sons. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Tony Meo (born 4 October 1959) is a retired English snooker player. ... Terry Griffiths (born October 16, 1947, Llanelli) is a retired Welsh snooker player. ... For the soul singer, see Dennis Taylor (singer). ... William Joseph Willie Thorne (born 4 March 1954 in Leicester) is a former English professional snooker player and now a commentator. ... Neal Foulds (born July 13, 1963) is an English professional snooker player. ... James Warren Jimmy White MBE (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player. ... Clifford Charles Devlin (Cliff) Thorburn (born January 16, 1948 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) is a retired professional snooker player. ... Ronnie OSullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player. ... Professional boxing bout featuring Ricardo Domínguez (left) versus Rafael Ortíz Boxing, also called pugilism, prizefighting (when referring to professional boxing) or the sweet science (a common nickname among fans), is a sport and martial art in which two participants of similar weight fight each other with their fists... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopaedia entry. ... // About Nigel Nigel Benn (born January 22, 1964) is a British former boxer who held world titles at both Middleweight and Super Middleweight. ... Lennox Claudius Lewis (born September 2, 1965 in West Ham, London, England) is a retired professional boxer, who represented Canada in the Olympics and fought under the British flag as a professional. ... Naseem Hamed (born February 12, 1974, in Sheffield, England) is a British boxer and former Featherweight champion born to Yemeni parents who emigrated to Sheffield. ... Herbie Hide is a British boxer fighting out of Norwich. ... Steve Collins, nicknamed The Celtic Warrior, is a former world boxing Champion. ... This article is about the various cue sports. ... Bowling ball and two pins Ten-Pin Bowling is a sport with a simple aim—knock down as many targets as possible by rolling a ball down a wooden pathway. ... Greg Norman on the 18th tee at St Andrews. ... Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. ... Standardized dart board. ... Poker Room at the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, New Jersey Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, which is awarded to the player or players...

In a separate venture, Hearn has been chairman of the football league club Leyton Orient since 1995. Prior to Hearn's takeover the club was facing a financial disaster due to the collapse of the then chairman Tony Wood's coffee business in Rwanda, Hearn's intervention and financial input assured the club's future. Although Hearn has been succesful in stabilising the club financially his tenure has overseen the club's longest run in the bottom division (known through the years as '4th Division', '3rd Division' and 'League 2') of the Football League since its creation (in 1958). However at the culmination of the 2005-06 season Leyton Orient earned promotion to the third tier of English league football (league 1) this being their first automatic promotion since 1969-70. Leyton Orient F.C. are an English football team currently playing in Football League Two. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Matchroom Sport
• December 2005 BBC article about Hearn and Leyton Orient
• SportAndTechnology.com interview
• Hendon Mob poker tournament results