DAZN, a sports streaming network that is scheduled to launch in the U.S. this fall, has set a subscription fee of double the price of ESPN+ but is promising the back that up with pay-per-view like content.
The over-the-top streaming service, owned by Perform Group, announced at an event in New York City on Tuesday that monthly subscriptions will be available at $9.99 (there will be no annuals). ESPN+, which launched this spring, costs $4.99. Highlighting its pitch to be a step above its rival, DAZN’s event featured lobster roll hors d’oeuvres and top Bellator MMA and Matchroom Boxing talent.
DAZN (pronounced da-zone) already covers a range of sports in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and Italy. The company is seeking to enter the U.S. via fighting sports, such as boxing and mixed martial arts, which the company believes remain underserved (despite the huge popularity of UFC), as big fights are often shielded behind expensive paywalls.
The streaming service struck an eight-year deal valued at $1 billion with U.K.-based Matchroom in May to air 16 fight nights a year. Its nine-figure multi-year deal with Bellator, announced late June, includes 22 Bellator MMA events—seven exclusive to the service. DAZN will officially kick-off its U.S.-based service Sept. 22 with a fight headlined by heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua and Alexander “The Russian Warrior” Povetkin live from London’s Wembley Stadium. Bellator’s first fight will take place a week later from the SAP Center in San Jose.
When asked about the price, DAZN CEO James Rushton said the company decided to double the ESPN+ $4.99 monthly price because it needs the revenue “firepower” to put on pay-per-view rivaling events. The ultimate goal is to scoop up larger rights across other major professional sports when current rights deals expire in a few years. He believes the $9.99 is a compromise between getting the kind of revenue the company needs to succeed here, and offering fans fair-priced high-quality content.
“We think fans will appreciate that compared with pay-per-view fights or even their cable bundle—it’s a lot cheaper,” Rushton said. “We’ve got to first-of-all compete with ESPN+ around quality of content. What we’re not about is price discounting and then not putting great content on the service.”
While Rushton expects DAZN to host “far better shows” in fight sports than what currently airs on ESPN+, the next big challenge will be competing with the No. 1 U.S. sports network in other areas of professional sports. In other markets, DAZN already operates as a multi-sport over-the-top sports streamer. In Japan, for example, it has the rights to 11 of the 12 Nippon Baseball League clubs, as well as MLB games and domestic soccer league games. In Germany, DAZN has exclusive English Premier League rights. In Canada, it carries every NFL game, MLS match, and Champions League match.
DAZN plans to leverage existing relationships in other markets with some of those major leagues to expand its presence in the U.S over the next few years.
“DAZN around the world is a multi-sport product. We want to be a multiple-sport product here in the U.S. But we’ve got to take our time,” said Rushton. “There are not many rights available right now in the market. In some ways, this is a nice opportunity to build our brand, prove what we say on stage actually happens in real life, and over the next 18 months to two years as opportunities come around, we’ll look to take advantage of them. We know all the major rights holders, we work with them overseas already. We’re the broadcast partner of the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB in other markets. It’s not a case of we don’t have the relationships. We know what we’ve got to do.”
In April, DAZN-parent Perform announced a multi-year partnership with the NBA to expand the league’s footprint in 15 countries, including Spain, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Mexico. As part of the deal, Perform plans to use hyper-local content to increase the NBA’s fan base and promote NBA League Pass through DAZN. The partnership gives Perform editorial responsibility over 75 percent of the league’s international digital presence.
On Tuesday at DAZN’s fighting-focused event, Rushton wouldn’t say which sports the streaming service plans to expand to next, but said the company is close to inking deals with a few “really big rights holders” and expects to share news on that front within the next four to six weeks.
“The great thing about our platform is we can work with huge massive sports or niche sports, we don’t have any limit. DAZN is a platform for niche sports, absolutely, but we realize that we’ve got to make a bang in this market and we’ve got two or three really interesting conversations with really big rights holders in play.”