NEW YORK — Before the Perform Group launches its over-the-top sports platform in the U.S. this summer, the company studied the existing media rights deals in all of the leagues and sports. It saw an opening: boxing.
“We need one thing we can become the home of,” says Perform Group CEO Simon Denyer. “As we looked to boxing, we realized the U.S. market was really strange. Fractured, unclear, no guaranteed dates, very weird commercial model for the fans, ridiculously expensive pay-per-view, no real clear commitment as to who was showing what.”
At the same time, U.K.-based Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was beginning to stage a few fights in Brooklyn featuring former middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs but didn’t have the money or support for a long-term plan in the U.S. market.
The two groups began talking earlier this year. On Thursday in Midtown Manhattan they announced the largest broadcast deal in boxing history: $1 billion over eight years, with a guarantee of 16 fight nights a year.
“This is a brand-new era for boxing in the U.S.,” Hearn said during a news conference in the Rainbow Room’s loft, adding: “We are going to upset a lot of people, but it’s going to be a great journey.”
Perform Group is a major international provider of digital sports properties, including editorial content (such as Goal.com and Sporting News), tactical technology (Opta Sports), and streaming OTT (DAZN, pronounced “Da Zone”). Former ESPN president John Skipper joined Perform Group as its executive chairman on Monday. The company is owned by Britain’s wealthiest man, billionaire Len Blavatnik.
Thursday’s event was organized to tout the financial investment that would help Hearn attract boxers and make a statement. Ever the promoter, at one point Hearn joked that he’d have to end the news conference because his phone wouldn’t stop ringing with calls from world-class fighters. Legendary announcer Michael Buffer introduced the event.
But the biggest takeaway was the magnitude of the investment and the scope of Perform Group’s ambition in the U.S. In two years since launching, DAZN is now available in Germany, Japan, Austria, Switzerland, and Canada for a monthly subscription charge with no contract and no pay-per-view. Perform has helped distribute games from MLB, NBA, MLS and the Pac-12, among others, to international markets.
The channel aspires to be the “Netflix of Sport.” Denyer said market research has shown that the average U.S. household already has two OTT packages: 220 million OTT subscriptions for 110 million households.
“The idea of saying it’s just like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu but it’s live sport, it’s very easy to explain in America because OTT is already so huge,” he said.
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
Boxing is the first venture because of the predicted ease with which DAZN can become established. Denyer said there are an estimated 10 million hardcore boxing fans in the U.S., of which three million have bought a PPV fight in the last three years while three million don’t have a cable subscription. In addition to the 16 fights produced domestically each year, DAZN will also show 16 British fight nights and a smattering of other international matches.
“We were dangerous without a platform, without money, but with this deal, with a platform and the money, oh my God, we’re going to be causing nightmares in the promotional game over here,” Hearn said.
Denyer says boxing was a disparate, underserved sport in the U.K. until Hearn’s Matchroom started promoting boxers. Matchroom helped the fighter become household names and drove attention back to the bouts.
“The UK was in the same position four or five years ago,” Denyer says. “No one was watching boxing, no one was going. And they’ve just rebuilt British boxing with Sky, their broadcaster there.”
Perform’s bankroll has enabled success in other countries, particularly in Japan where DAZN has acquired the rights to broadcast 11 of the 12 teams in the Nippon Baseball League as well as MLB and a slew of soccer content, including major international leagues and Japan’s domestic league. While Denyer says DAZN would carry a few U.S. sports at launch, the pickings are slim due to established contracts. When those expire over the next years, however, expect Perform Group to be a heavy bidder.
“Obviously that’s why John has joined us as well,” Denyer says of Skipper. “John’s going to have a global role, but the experience he brings in the U.S. market and the knowledge and the relationships—he’ll help us plan the right way through the U.S. market over the next few years.”