Matchroom Sport
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Matchroom Sport is a sport event promotions company founded by the English entrepreneur Barry Hearn. It first came to attention in the sports of snooker and boxing and is also involved in pool, bowling, golf, fishing, darts and poker.
Recently, it also began sponsoring the football ground of English League One team Leyton Orient. Previously called Brisbane Road, it has now been renamed the Matchroom Stadium. Barry Hearn is Orient's Chairman.
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[edit] Cue sports
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After many years of snooker event management,[clarify] Matchroom Sport is currently the official sponsor of the annual WPA World Nine-ball Championship, the most prestigious professional tournament of its field. After having organised a similar but competing event for one year, the World Professional Pool Championship in Cardiff, Wales, in July 1999, Matchroom merged its tournament with that of the World Pool-Billiard Association in 2000, and the joint event took the promotional name "World Pool Championship" (an ambiguous name, since there is also a yearly [[WPA World Eight-ball Championship held in the United Arab Emirates). The event stayed in Cardiff until 2003, with the 2004 and 2005 events taking place in Taiwan. The 2006 event was held in the Philippines. Despite the moves, the competition has remained very similar in format and staging throughout.
Matchroom's other prestigious pool event is the Mosconi Cup, held each December from 1994 onwards. The event is modelled on the Ryder Cup, and it pits a team of European players against a team from the US. From 2003, the event has alternated between European and American venues, having previous always been held in the UK.
The Mosconi Cup is notable for having evolved from an exhibition event in the early years, into a genuinely prestigious tournament. Early Mosconi Cup contests were characterised by a team of some of America’s most charismatic players taking on a European team of mainly British snooker players, in an attempt to promote nine-ball in the UK. More recent instances of the event have been fought in a much more serious manner, although the raucous crowd atmosphere has been retained, making it unique among cue sports competitions.
[edit] Ten-pin bowling
Matchroom has been involved in a revival of the sport of ten-pin bowling which has given the sport a renewed international pop-culture interest.
With a roster of the world's three major bowling events – the World Tenpin Masters, the Weber Cup and the AMF World Cup – Matchroom Sport has established a successful formula for presenting televised bowling. All three events are presented by broadcasters Nick Halling and Cass Edwards.
Matchroom Sport offers free tickets to the World Tenpin Masters. They are also distributed by the British Tenpin Bowling Association for free.[clarify]
[edit] References
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