DAZN signs $1bn deal to their sport streaming service

DAZN, pronounced “Dazone”, a UK-based sport streaming service has recently announced an exclusive eight-year deal with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing worth $1 billion.

The Netflix and Stan streaming model revolutionised entertainment TV viewing and is now being brought to the world of sport, with DAZN challenging HBO and Showtime’s pay-per-view packages for the first time in boxing history.

Eddie Hearn promotes fighters including world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua and the eight-year deal will see DAZN charge $12 a month to view a wide range of sports cheaply instead of $70 to $100 for the pay-per-view package.

Perform Group chief executive Simon Denyer confirms their mission to be a global sport streaming service.

“We want to be a Netflix for sport,” Denyer said.

“We have seen in music with Spotify and TV with Netflix and Amazon that people will pay a sensible amount of money for a good service.”

Owned by the Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik’s Access Industries, DAZN has the financial firepower to be a real threat to HBO and Showtime for the exclusive US rights of the hugely anticipated heavyweight fight between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.

“If the fight happens we want to show it on DAZN and have a significant budget to negotiate it to get it on the platform,” he said.

Next season, DAZN will show more Champions League matches than other rival streaming services to sports fans in Germany, where it also has the exclusive rights to air the Premier League.

“We are often showing 30 or 40 matches live at once,” Denyer said. “On a typical week we will air 130 matches – we’ve found the average user watches about five.”

Last year, while DAZN showed tremendous growth, with revenues rocketing from £8.7m to £90.8m, the overall Perform Group, which also sells some digital sports rights to other media groups, saw its operating losses quadruple from £50.8m to £214m.

Nevertheless, DAZN is not the only brand to start to see the potential to disrupt the sports broadcasting market.