Despite my criticisms of the product, I signed up for DAZN when the service was available in Mexico. It’s only 99 pesos a month, which is under $5. Not big problems. It might give me a chance to watch some fights that Mexican television doesn’t record. Alternatively, I can remove it from my taxes as a business expense.
Well, in the last six weeks (when the subscription price quietly doubled, by the way), there’s only been one boxing card on the service– and that’s the Saturday KSI/Misfits show, sold as paid – additional pay-per-view events.
This was enough to end my short-term investment in the streaming service. Today, I officially cancel my subscription.
Now, I’m not at all one of those boxing purists who tinker with their panties out of outrage at outsiders smearing my noble sport. If YouTubers, influencers, and D-list celebrities want to fight their way through exhibition boxing matches, that’s fine with me. But I certainly wouldn’t pay for the privilege of being served where the best they could give me in boxing was the chance to see crap like that– if I paid a little more.
I know my pesos are not important to DAZN, but there is a more important point here.
According to a recently published Bloomberg article, the streaming service, which is very tight on information related to its books, lost $2.3 billion in 2021 and totaled more than $6 billion. la since its establishment. The company claims that its $1.9 billion loss came from an investment in the purchase of the rights to the German and Italian football leagues that year.
So that means they “only” lost $400 million?
Listen, I’m no expert in big corporate finance and I fully understand how much money these types of companies lose before they hit the market and turn a profit. But I know what I see and experience. I know what I’ve been served as both a target consumer and an end subscriber. And DAZN smoked.
I’m not saying there hasn’t been a time when Wannabe’s Netflix of Sports has been worthwhile for fighting fans. But overall, it is NOT worthy of consumer loyalty. That’s especially the case now, when they’ve all abandoned the American boxing ring and adopted the programming strategy that killed HBO Boxing, focusing almost exclusively on European fighters and weight classes. less.
Now anything that’s widely (i.e. good) appeals to their pay-per-view affiliate. They just can’t pay the big wallets with the money they make from the subscription fees, and there’s no longer any company willing to work deep in the red, at least not when it comes to boxing. Of course, in terms of the big picture, this means that the big players and the big fights won’t deal with a DAZN that can’t pay them directly and can’t bring them many audiences either. And if they WORK with DAZN, the streaming service will be just one of the distribution channels.
Believe it or not, I was a supporter of DAZN when the concept first appeared. I’m even hoping out loud that Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn, chosen as the promoter of the service’s choice and boxing figure in general– will bring some new energy to the stagnant scene. of the United States. Billionaire boss Len Blavatnik has allocated $1 billion to build a boxing franchise and is clearly willing to spend more under the right conditions. If done properly and with the proper attention given to access and development, this can be of real benefit to the sport and to the besieged fans who are were asked to pay more and more for less and less.
Then, I quickly sounded the alarm as failures and mistakes began to pile up.
As I wrote at the time, right at Fight Hype:
“Given the lack of insight and foresight by the people in charge of the DAZN business, one has to wonder if boxing was ever so important for Netflix of Sports to want to be. Maybe it’s just a quick, easy way for them to break into the North American market, where all the other major sports are tied to other networks. Perhaps the idea is to hunt down a bunch of boxing fans, conditionally pay and pay for the content, and wait their time until they can snag a ‘real’ sport. the’.
Well, subsequent interviews with the DAZN suits proved my theory correct, with former director John Skipper saying it almost literally and calling the strategy a “miscalculation.” .
With their boxing efforts failing spectacularly in the US, DAZN has shifted their focus to, well, everywhere BUT the US.
The chronically oblivious and compliant boxing media never thought to question any of the erroneous math or erroneous logic in DAZN’s trading strategies. They are too busy to be offered wine and dinner by Hearn/DAZN and/or lining up to be “affiliates” and “partners”, getting paid for posting links to the DAZN registration page and writing worthy endorsements. worthy, culled from press releases, on their social media accounts.
DAZN, as a sports streaming service, can still be successful. But they do not serve boxing. They have ruined the boxing scene for a long time, ultimately creating pointless business complexity in a sport already mired in business complexity, with no real working plan on how. really successful. And they don’t seem interested in turning things around.
Back in 2018, when the boxing project DAZN was first announced, Eddie Hearn appeared in court in front of a passionate media, beaming with the kind of self-respect that made people want to believe. Maybe this company, with such support, will bring positive change to boxing
“I need artillery and we are dangerous with artillery, let me tell you,” Hearn told the media swagger at the official press conference that opened DAZN Boxing in New York. “And now we have it, $1 billion in eight years. We have by far the biggest copyright budget in the sport of boxing and we’re going to be super competitive. We will put on the best shows with the best talent. This is a whole new era for boxing in America. We are here and we want to do business.”
Hearn added: “We are going to have a lot of fun and we have money that has never been seen before in the sport of boxing. “I cannot fail. If I fail here, I am a disgrace.”
“Failure” is a subjective word in this particular case. Hearn hasn’t failed to earn some big paydays for his Matchroom fighters, and he certainly hasn’t failed to leverage DAZN money to bolster his own steady advertising. But DAZN Boxing failed…and that failure pushed back the sport of boxing.
Anything for Magno? Submit it here: [email protected]
