The United States and Canada have long been partners in professional sports, with Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer all having teams north of the border. But that largely hasn’t been true of collegiate sports.
That changed this past week when the Pac-12 Networks announced a partnership with DAZN Canada, a streaming service that will bring Pac-12 sporting events and original programming to subscribers in Canada. The partnership will reportedly include football, basketball, Olympic sports, and Pac-12 Championships in a move that will allow sports fans across Canada to get a better sense of the collegiate athletes who could one day end up on their pro teams.
“DAZN’s service gives our Canadian fans tremendous access to the Pac-12’s portfolio of high-quality live events and originals,” Alden Budill, the Pac-12 Networks’ senior vice president in charge of distribution and partner marketing, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to add DAZN to our list of partners and look forward to working with them to bring the very best of Pac-12 sports to our fans in Canada.”
DAZN customers in Canada can access the newly added Pac-12 programming on a number of streaming platforms, including Apple TV, Google Chromecast and PlayStation 4.
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That’s where they can also find new Major League Soccer content, as it was announced Friday that MLS and DAZN also partnered for three years. As the MLS begins its season this weekend, according to the announcement, MLS Live, the sport’s streaming service, will be included on DAZN for 262 regular-season matches and other content.
Particularly relevant to Canadian MLS fans will be the 129 extra games featuring the country’s three franchises in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, the announcement revealed; those games can be accessed on DAZN with a two-day delay.
“It’s a tremendous time to be a soccer fan in Canada, and we know the sport has entered a new era nationally, with impressive growth in interest and in fandom,” Alex Rice, DAZN’s managing director of rights, said in the MLS announcement. “We are proud and excited to be offering fans even more soccer content on our platform, making it the destination with the most soccer in Canada.”
MLS will be the latest professional soccer league to stream games on DAZN, where La Liga, Ligue 1, and Serie A already provide over-the-top content, according to MLS.