PDC President Barry Hearn was close to failure: "I lost all the money that I made plus I owed the bank millions"

Ahead of the release of his autobiography, PDC President Barry Hearn sat down with Dan Dawson for The Darts Show podcast to discuss his career and the start of his sporting empire including a business deal on the brink of bankruptcy that kickstarted it all.

"In the late 80's during the recession, I'd made a lot of money in 1982 like £1.5m which was a lot of money in 82. Course it wasn't enough money to retire and I had six weeks of playing snooker and gold and fishing and cricket but I wasn't getting that adrenaline rush of doing deals and making things happen so that's when we formed Matchroom," said Hearn to The Darts Show podcast.

"Which was only formed as a £100 company purely to have fun. I didn't think I needed the money. I thought I'd done my work, from there I sort of invested quite a lot of money into lots of different events. In my trips to America previously, I'd noticed this company called ESPN showing sport to the masses and thought we don't have anything like this in the UK but one day we will."

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"When someone like that comes over they will need programming so I thought well I'll get some ready and of course I was years ahead of my time so I lost all my money that I made plus I owed the bank millions of pounds and it came to a crescendo in 89 where I was seriously thinking of going back to work as an accountant because everything was crashing down around me."

"I got off a train at Slough, it was snowing, it was 4pm Christmas Eve and I went to see a chap called Alan Hearn, no relation but same name and I made the worst pitch to get him to sponsor the European Snooker League and after I finished, my heart wasn't in it. When I finished he said you must really need this, it's Christmas Eve. He said well I've got no money so I thought that's the last kick of the nuts."

"I turned to leave and he said but I've got hotel rooms. He said I'll give you £300,000 of hotel rooms and we shook hands, by the time I'd walked to Slough station, I'd sold that £300,000 to a group of pals in the travel business at a 40% discount and they sent me £1`80,000 in cash. That £1`80,000 saved my business, my company and in a peculiar way saved me as it made me realise, I can't be beaten."