Matchroom Sport & NFA Join Forces to Promote Angling on Television

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF ANGLERS is pleased to announce that it has recently signed a lucrative sponsorship deal with the UK's leading sports entrepreneur, Barry Hearn, with the aim of substantially increasing angling's exposure on television over the coming years.

Matchroom Sport and the NFA have an ongoing relationship dating back to 1994 when Hearn's long-running Fish'O'Mania mega-match made its television debut. Since then Matchroom Sport have also successfully developed the Marlin World Cup into a global TV event.

Commented Matchroom Sport Chairman Hearn; "Angling is the biggest participation sport in the UK and yet anglers are starved of fishing programmes on terrestrial television. It has been a long-held ambition of mine to persuade mainstream television channels to accept angling as a major sport and I am confident I can achieve this objective."

NFA President Ken Ball added " Barry Hearn and his world-renowned company Matchroom Sport have a wealth of experience in event promotion and television production and this is an historic opportunity for the sport's governing body to develop powerful links with all television companies.

" It has long been a source of frustration among our 200,000 members that we lack the TV coverage that other sports receive so, hopefully, our solid partnership with Barry will enable us to explore every avenue to ensure angling receives its fair share of broadcast media exposure. If we can secure regular slots on terrestrial television, it will make a dramatic difference to our sponsorship opportunities. We are all very excited about this major development which will put angling well and truly on the map."

Commented David Warner, Matchroom Sport's CEO of New Media and Business Development: " I am particularly excited about this agreement because I can see angling moving forward to have the same prominence on television as sports like snooker and darts. No television company can ignore a sport with around four million participants and at Matchroom Sport we have the ability to do what has rarely been done before and that is make television programmes which project angling as exciting and challenging."

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FOR MORE INFORMATION;

Luke Riches at Matchroom Sport: Tel 01708 782212 / 07785 395688
David Warner at Matchroom Sport: Tel 01580292938
Rodney Coldron at the NFA: Tel 01636 704381 / Mob 07710 485737

About Matchroom Sport

Matchroom Sport have established themselves through the 1990's as one of the world's leading independent producers of televised sport. Starting with snooker in the 1980's, Matchroom developed into Europe's largest boxing promoter within a short space of time and have been responsible for over 200 world championship shows to date. In addition, Matchroom are also the biggest producers in the world of American pool and are also dominant in the fields of tenpin bowling, championship fishing, snooker and darts. Recent additions to the Matchroom Sport roster include the Europro Tour golf and Poker Mi££ion. All in all Matchroom Sport are responsible for over 600 hours of original television programming per year and annually Matchroom Sport programmes are seen in over 100 countries around the world.