Romford boy Frank Smith is an interesting ‘rags to riches’ story. Although Eddie Hearn is the face of Matchroom Sports, Frank Smith plays as big a role behind the scenes and has earned a stellar reputation along the way. How do you go from making tea, delivering pizza and assembling advertisement boards, to becoming the CEO in a relatively short period of time?

He first crossed paths with Eddie Hearn at the age of 14 whilst selling raffle tickets and managed to talk him into taking a few off his hands. To give an insight into his humour and cheeky personality, he later saw Hearn getting something out of his Bentley, “You have a Bentley!? You must be able to buy more raffle tickets then, tight b*stard!”

From that point on, he pestered Hearn for a job several times a week for 6 months until his persistence paid off. He started with work experience & weekends, before becoming a full-time employee when he turned 16. Frank has often said that any job you wouldn’t want to be doing at 5am in the morning, he’s probably done at Matchroom. They even had him putting up fight posters at train stations in and around London, because he was too young to be arrested if he was caught. Another time, he was putting stickers on baseball caps for a poker event when Barry Hearn walked in and told him that he should have stayed in school. As far as job descriptions go, he was the ultimate errand boy.

Over time he was given more responsibilities as a sales assistant and later moving into event operations for the various sports under the Matchroom banner. They were still involved in boxing, but not to the heights they once had been in the Eubank vs Benn days. Eddie Hearn wanted to find a way to bring back the glory days his father once created. The way the ball started rolling could be seen as random or even lucky. As many people in the industry know, the business of boxing can be random and crazy at the best of times.

It was at a World Series Poker event when Hearn bumped into the Olympic heavyweight gold medallist Audley Harrison, who was looking to revive his career after losing for the 4th time in the professional ranks. Phone calls and emails between the two were followed by the first ever Prize Fighter which Harrison won in 2009, a European title victory and then a world title showdown with WBA Heavyweight champion David Haye. After the Haye fight, Matchroom went on to sign Darren Barker, Kell Brook, Carl Froch and a 23 fight TV deal with Sky Sports. As the saying goes, the rest is history and for Frank Smith it was the perfect time to be employed by Matchroom.

With boxing now the main focus of the company, Smith very quickly became used to how the game was ran. He saw the value in building superstars and relationships with their roster, rather than working solely on an event to event basis. The responsibility of taking fighters for medicals, fixing contractual issues and helping with fight camp operations fell on his shoulders. At the start of Matchroom’s rise, he would personally take Kal Yafai, Luke Campbell & Anthony Joshua for their medicals and believes the bonds he formed with boxers made the finer details a lot simpler to resolve.

With Eddie Hearn at the forefront promotionally and Frank working his magic behind the scenes, the pair became formidable. They were making a lot of noise in the boxing world and it wasn’t long before people listened. The British public was gifted with Haye Vs Bellew twice, Groves Vs Froch twice and Joshua Vs Klitschko to name just a few. Every fight they put on they grew bigger and they gained more experience across all aspects of the sweet science. He confessed to ‘faking it until he was making it’ but the years of cutting his teeth across golf, poker and even table tennis, meant he was well schooled before boxing became their golden ticket. He had found his true calling and the rapid progression became natural.

We fast forward to 10th May 2018, where we saw the first ever $1 billion deal in boxing between streaming giants DAZN and Matchroom. Years of hard work building British boxing as the new hot bed for the sport paid out in full. Smith & Hearn would now split their time between London and New York and were given a gateway into the biggest market in world sports. Even though he was still a young man, he was the perfect man to deal with Anthony Catanzaro, (Brooklyn Boxing Executive/The Barclays Centre Head Of Boxing) who said Frank is the best he has ever worked with and he’s worked with everyone who’s anyone in the sport. So, it was only a matter of time before he worked his way up through the ranks yet again. He only had to wait until December the same year when the company made him CEO. A meteoric rise in any type of business. Smith is the first to admit that he is not academically gifted and credits the fact that his love for boxing and will to work hard, was the secret to his success.

Now the CEO of ‘The Times’ 60th richest company, the workload and responsibilities became bigger which could have jeopardized his love for the game. Quite the opposite happened in fact. He admitted in several interviews that he used to get easily stressed until realising that one way or another, it will be alright on the night. Improvisation, juggling problems and taking it all in his stride became second nature. Barry Hearn always encouraged him to respect their occupation as a job but to enjoy the work they are doing. Successful multi-million-pound events in New York, Las Vegas & Saudi Arabia would help the fun factor. The support and positivity he’s had from the Hearn family is only going to make him thrive to get even better. In a sport where it’s rare for someone to give credit, he has the who’s who list of the best giving him nothing but praise. Even tipping him to go on and become the very best. After working up the ladder in an era where a lot of people see it as the right place at the right time, you still need to be extremely good to stay there.

13 years of being in and around the game yet still only 27, he has a perfect mix of youth and experience. Each year the match ups get better and the fan base is growing rapidly to a wider audience. The secret behind it all is the close friendship between Eddie & Frank. Most people despise their boss, but here we have two best friends amongst all the chaos their industry brings. A great example was the marketing genius of KSI Vs Logan Paul. Smith was the masterstroke in making that as big as it was and shown the creativity he offers to boxing. It also cements one of the reasons why DAZN got on board in the first place. That event even broke records on google analytics. To the casual boxing fan it was seen as a joke, but Smith saw it as an opportunity. The priority of the business model is to produce stars and back their roster as mentioned above. They have created opportunities for fighters on huge cards stateside. Fighters like Tommy Coyle, Callum Johnson & Joshua Buatsi fought on huge PPV cards in the US last year and all matched fairly. Never before have British boxers had this opportunity, unless you were a world champion or a whipping boy. Jono Carrol, Josh Kelly & Liam Smith were even given warm up fights on a card in Mexico. Their reach has become far and wide. It’s a great time to be a Matchroom fighter.

Even during his time off its hard for Frank to take his mind off boxing. His met his partner Emily at a boxing show and she just happens to be the daughter of Chris Eubank Snr. If there were tickets for wedding speeches with Chris Eubank as the father-in-law and Eddie Hearn as the best man, the revenue would break world records. In 2017, he fought on a charity white collar event against reality TV contestant George Gilbey. When people say it’s a lifestyle not a sport there’s a reason why.

When the time comes for Eddie Hearn to hang up his gloves, the heir to the throne is obvious. This likeable Essex boy is changing the game in the shadows and long may it continue. Roll on 2020 and beyond.

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