Matchroom Sports, the UK-based multi-sport promotion that covers boxing, snooker, and darts, has agreed a new multifaceted deal with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season sports festival brand to sponsor its range of events.
Going forward, the Riyadh Season brand will feature on Matchroom-organized events across the three sports, including on-mat branding at Matchroom boxing events, and further inventory across World Snooker Tour and Professional Darts Corporation events.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Riyadh Season has already been connected to Matchroom Boxing events in a range of markets for a number of years as the prominent sports festival has sought to grow its global profile.
On the new partnership Turki Alalshikh, the chair of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (which organizes Riyadh Season) commented: “Riyadh Season’s reputation is built on being connected to events that carry huge and global interest, and Matchroom Sport has been an important part of many of these occasions with us so far.
“We look forward to continuing our relationship and building on what we have already developed together to deliver even more ground-breaking and exciting tournaments and events in the future.”
In particular, this will be focused on Saudi-based events such as the first-ever Saudi Arabia Darts Masters in January 2026, the November 2025 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, and various Matchroom Boxing cards such as the November 15 ‘Unfinished Business’ fight night headlined by the rematch between Chris Eubank Jr. and Connor Benn.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataThe 2025-26 Riyadh Season slate, which begins later in October, will feature major events such as the first-ever Six Kings Slam of tennis, boxing’s Ring V: Night of the Samurai’, and professional wrestling’s WWE Royal Rumble 2026.
In terms of sponsoring European sports properties, Riyadh Season has a growing presence on the continent.
Back in October 2024, for example, the festival agreed a multi-year commercial partnership with Spanish soccer’s elite LaLiga.
So far, though, Riyadh Season’s brand has been most active across boxing, including global sports streaming platform DAZN, with which it has a significant long-term deal.
For Matchroom’s part, the promotion credits Alalshikh, the proprietor of Riyadh Season, with advancing the sport of boxing, and likely believes he can do the same for its other properties.
Recently, Matchroom Boxing chief executive Frank Smith spoke to Sportcal (GlobalData Sport), commenting: “He has been very beneficial for the sport. I think what he's done has been brilliant.
“You have to evolve as the business evolves. Consistently in boxing, when you look back over the years, there's always a huge investment in the sport.
“Whether it's Turki Alalshikh starting in 2023, before that, you had Triller, then it was DAZN, and before that, you had [Premier Boxing Champions] with $500 million of private investment. You have to evolve with the sport as new entries come into the market.”
