‘I’d blow up the sport and change it forever’: EDDIE HEARN reveals his radical masterplan for rugby – and the special clause in Henry Pollock’s new Northampton contract after England star ‘left hundreds of thousands on the table’

Over in Monaco, Eddie Hearn is already plotting his next rugby move. The ink has barely dried on Henry Pollock’s new Northampton contract but the promoter does not want to stop there.

Hearn will fly back to the UK on his private jet for meetings with the sport’s establishment next month. He will sit down with PREM Rugby executives to discuss a formal partnership that extends far beyond adding an extra zero to Pollock’s pay cheque.

Hearn has already flipped the world of boxing, darts and snooker. He has witnessed the boom of Anthony Joshua, Luke Littler and Ronnie O’Sullivan and soon he will decide if he can have a similar effect on rugby.

‘We’ve had 50 rugby players come on to us since we started working with Henry, asking us to represent them,’ Hearn told Daily Mail Sport. ‘It’s not going to be lucrative enough for us as a business to start a management company for rugby players. We wanted a couple of the big guys, so we signed Henry and Finn Russell.

‘If we’re going to move more into rugby, I think it’s at a deeper level – getting involved in the infrastructure, changing the sport from the grassroots all the way up to the very top. We come in and we reorganise and reinvent sports. That’s what we do. 

‘It’s not about PREM Rugby saying: “Eddie, do you want to be a consultant?” I’ve not got time to do that. If we come in, we come in as a partnership with them to blow it up and actually change the sport for ever.

‘Boxing was dead before we came in 20 years ago. Darts was non-existent commercially and now it’s a huge commercial beast. Snooker was living in the 1980s. We don’t miss. Look at the foundations, the history and the brand that you already have in rugby, compared to those sports.

‘I sit in those rooms with all these big broadcasters that spend billions of dollars a year on sports, and rugby is not particularly spoken about in a very high regard commercially. I know what needs to be done and I don’t even think it’s that tough a job. I’ve got meetings with PREM Rugby in two weeks’ time and after that meeting, I will probably decide whether I’m going to move into rugby or not.’

It may surprise many when Hearn describes himself as a ‘traditionalist’. He scoffs at proposals to take Six Nations Tests to the USA – claiming the international game is ‘flying’ and ‘making a fortune’.

He agrees with the protectionist principle to keep English talent in the PREM but insists the sport must scrap the salary cap if it wants to dictate terms to its players. Pollock settled on a three-year contract worth around £450,000-a-year with Northampton but he could have commanded ‘three times more money’ in the open market.

‘Henry left a lot of money on the table to stay with Northampton and I think that should be applauded in today’s world,’ said Hearn. ‘You always hear a lot of noise from me but really, behind closed doors, he was never leaving. 

‘I said, “Look, you can make double, treble, tell me what you want”. The first time we discussed it, he said, “I don’t want to leave”. He loves Northampton, he loves the people, and he wants to win championships.

‘It’s quite unusual for me to sit in a meeting and tell someone they could earn two or three times more money in this other deal and not even entertain it. That shows me he’s a competitor. 

‘Once people know Henry’s available, the bigger clubs with big money want to look at him and think, “If we can bring Henry to the club and we unveil him in our jersey, this is huge for the club”. There were a number of those domestically and internationally, like Japan.

‘It’s good to keep our stars in the country. But as the disparity becomes too much between the different countries, we could get in a position where players turn their back on international rugby, which would be a disaster, right? 

‘How can you have a salary cap, where the players don’t really earn a lot of money, yet say to them, “By the way, you can’t leave and earn a load of money abroad because if you do, then we won’t allow you to play for England”. You’re handcuffed. It’s rubbish. You’ve got Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane playing football internationally but they have the freedom to earn big money at Spurs or wherever.

‘I sometimes see comments from that old guard within rugby. “Oh, not sure about these comments. We don’t do that. How are you supposed to do that with a salary cap.” What’s wrong with one team tearing up the Premier League and another one of the minnows trying to survive and compete with the big boys? You see it all the time in Premier League football. Listen to me, you’ve got to get out of the 1970s, 80s or 90s or wherever you are.

‘Now it’s time to take the shackles off, take the stabilisers off, and let the players earn their money. You want these big boys – Red Bull (at Newcastle), Dyson (at Bath) – to have a little bit of ego about them. Make people spend money. 

‘The fans win if they get better players, international players. The broadcasters turn around and go, “This is great. We’ve got even more big names now. There’s a real buzz around rugby, we’ll put more money in”. The sponsors will look at it and say, “Wow, bigger audience numbers, greater viewership across the sport. We’ll be reinvesting”. It’s about the ecosystem.’

At times it feels like Pollock is operating in a different ecosystem to the rest of the rugby world. Yet despite the hype and the headlines, he has never looked close to leaving Franklin’s Gardens. However, he still harbours ambitions away from the club, with clauses written into his new contract that allow him to explore wider opportunities such as playing sevens at the next Olympics.

‘Look at guys like Fin Smith,’ said Hearn. ‘You see all his team-mates dancing around in the changing room. Unbelievable characters. You’ve got to do almost the job that we’re doing with Henry on all of the star players within the team.

‘I was really pleased with Northampton. They really stepped up financially. They were smart and commercially open-minded because they know the importance of keeping Henry at the club.

‘Henry likes sevens and he obviously loves the thought of winning Olympic gold. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to leave the principal format, but the deal with Northampton allows him to look at other opportunities around that.

‘If he’s going to turn down three times more money to go elsewhere, you also can’t handcuff him in a position that’s going to limit him commercially. You could be talking about a sevens tournament, or an all-stars game in Las Vegas. But the club is what matters to him.’

With Hearn in Pollock’s corner, anything could happen.