On Monday, DAZN announced that it would be increasing its worldwide footprint by more than 20 times, expanding from availability in nine countries to availability in more than 200.
The streaming service, which is focused on combat sports in the US but also has live rights for the Champions League, Premier League, NFL, NBA, and MLB in other countries, will begin its expanded launch in the lead up to Canelo Alvarez’s upcoming fight on May 2nd.
The worldwide service will also be focused on boxing, with no other sports specifically mentioned in DAZN’s release.
This first phase of DAZN’s global expansion will be an English-language service focused on boxing, building on the company’s significant investment in the sport over the past two years. DAZN holds international rights to many of the world’s top promotional companies including Golden Boy Promotions, Matchroom Boxing USA and GGG Promotions. Fighters such as Alvarez and Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin will be part of a robust year-round portfolio of premium fights and original programming on the new service.
“Beginning this spring, most of the world will have access to DAZN and its unmatched schedule of boxing events,” said DAZN Group Executive Chairman John Skipper. “Our roster of championship fighters represents some of the world’s most popular athletes and we’ll be working with them to stage spectacular international events for years to come.”
“Since our launch in 2016, we’ve seen an encouraging level of interest around our key events from both international fans and potential partners, which highlighted the opportunity to capitalize on our existing rights portfolio within boxing to fuel our expansion,” said DAZN EVP Joseph Markowski, who will oversee the global service. “Establishing DAZN as the global home of fight sports is just the first step and we couldn’t think of a better attraction for our inaugural event than Canelo’s traditional Cinco de Mayo Weekend fight.”
As far as I can tell, DAZN hasn’t revealed the full list of “more than 200 countries and territories” it would be expanding to, though the company did note that pricing would be revealed in the future.
This represents a huge opportunity for DAZN, especially when it comes to expansion in Latin America ahead of the Canelo fight. If DAZN is also able to enter the robust markets of India and China, and the boxing mad market of Russia, this expansion could end up providing benefits sooner rather than later for the service.
[DAZN]
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.