Remember when DAZN was launched? For anyone who wasn’t involved, it was easy to be cynical in the face of promises of a full-blown broadcasting revolution that simply sounded too good to be true.
The name of the streaming channel didn’t exactly flow from the tongue and during early interviews after signing with DAZN, Eddie Hearn dutifully corrected those who, presuming it an acronym, pronounced it ‘dee-eh-zed-en’.
“The name is Zone, Da-Zone,” Hearn never said. But DAZN, like boxing’s very own 007, was here to rid the landscape of crooks, by exciting us with honest one-on-one battles and condemning that dastardly pay-per-view model to the past – all while embracing state of the art streaming gadgetry so we could watch boxing whenever and wherever we pleased, whether on the inside of our eyelids while we slept or in the palm of our hands while parachuting from a plane. This is the future, we were told.
Frank Warren, like many, wasn’t buying it. The Deadzone App was how he liked to refer to DAZN. But that was when Frank hated Eddie and Eddie hated Frank. Two rivals whose resentment for the other grew during every YouTube interview they conducted, as those behind the camera saw greater value in harvesting the feud than quelling it.
An incredible amount has changed since then. While those of mature mind recognized that the sport would be in a markedly better place if everyone just got along, the warring promotional groups bluntly refused to sweep their grudge under the carpet until Saudi Arabian paymaster Turki Alalshikh provided the broom and the financial incentives to use it. And that was all it took – a shedload of cash with promises of more – and the years of barbs, bitterness, and even the odd legal battle, were all seemingly forgotten.
For boxing fans, at least those who could ignore the sound of the moral compass whirring in their brains, the alliance that is rooted in Middle Eastern riches is welcome simply because the making of appealing matchups is at a level of plausibility previously unseen. Plenty wondered, however, if it would remain so should that money tree start to wither.
After all, the Warrens and the Hearns previously did not get on, not even slightly, for the best part of 30 years. Yet the latest merger, which will see Queensberry switch from TNT Sport and join Matchroom on DAZN in April next year, is perhaps the most convincing sign that Frank and Eddie are in this partnership for the long haul.
“What usually happens in the sport is, the more time you spend together, the more of an understanding you get about whether you can work together,” a source close to the deal told BoxingScene. “There is now proof that Queensberry and Matchroom can work together. But the reality is that both are competitive businesses who want to do the best for their fighters. There is also a lot of common sense that understands that collaboration can benefit both businesses and the fighters.”
Though Alalshikh has been open about his preference for DAZN as a broadcaster, with rumors swirling that a financial investment in the channel is imminent, Queensberry’s deal with the streaming service does not mean that all Riyadh Season events will also get the worldwide exclusive treatment from DAZN. Though not confirmed, it has been suggested to BoxingScene that the major boxing events which occur under that Saudi banner might continue to be spread across several channels to ensure the greatest possible reach. For example, in the UK alone, punters could choose to pay DAZN, Sky Sports or TNT to watch the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury and Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol bills this year. On the surface spreading the product so thinly seems like a typically ‘boxing’ arrangement, one so scattergun any success would have been more by luck than judgement, but there is logic at play: There are numerous television packages on offer to the UK consumer, some that include Sky and don’t include TNT, and vice versa, and plenty of people who don’t subscribe but pay-as-they-go, so by opening the door to all, the thinking goes, a greater number will walk through.
Whether DAZN, which is also the broadcast partner of Golden Boy Promotions, is as accessible, or known, as the likes of Sky and TNT, is certainly debatable, however. The argument against goes: Say DAZN (‘da-zone’) to anyone who doesn’t watch boxing and it’s unlikely they’ll know what you’re talking about. When compared to the widespread visibility in the UK of TNT, and more so Sky, two channels which can push boxing while covering more mainstream sports, then some might conclude that DAZN – particularly now it homes three of the biggest promotional groups in the world – is in danger of marginalising boxing even more than it already is.
But it really depends on who you’re asking.
Stick to a demographic of over 45s, for example, and the point might be valid. Yet there remains evidence that over-the-top television shows (better known as OTT, which means those that are distributed via the internet – the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Apple – as opposed to over-the-air, cable, or satellite) are not only just the choice of younger generations but can also boast the greatest audiences overall.
The Netflix model has long been referenced when attempting to sell the robustness of DAZN in the sporting market. The success that has been reported by the streaming giants in the last few days regarding the farcical Jake Paul-Mike Tyson encounter – an eye-watering 60-million homes tuned in – can be spun as positive news for DAZN. It’s just a matter of time before everyone knows what it is, exactly how to pronounce it and where to find it, say the marketeers. But therein lies the challenge facing Queensberry, Matchroom and Golden Boy: To make the kind of events which have that crossover appeal regularly enough to sufficiently widen the net. After all, if Netflix and co have taught us one thing about viewing habits it’s that if the product is appealing enough, the consumer will find it.
Yet one obstacle facing DAZN remains: A live sporting event – however exciting it turns out to be – simply won’t have the shelf life of a new season of Stranger Things or the omnipresent appeal of Breaking Bad. By the time a fight has happened, and people are talking about it at work on the Monday, the widest window of opportunity has likely been and gone because the key selling point to a live event is its liveness. Talk about Walter White around the water cooler, however, and it triggers in the unfamiliar a desire to catch up in a way that hearing about the result of a sports match simply cannot.
The counter argument to that might be that the more regularly people talk about enjoying an event, the easier it will be to sell the next one – and that is certainly valid. It therefore heightens the pressure on the matchmakers, which should be viewed positively, because quality fights simply must happen at a more regular rate than they are today.
With that in mind, the battle faced by DAZN, particularly when compared to Netflix and co, is the bang for buck element. And the flash sales, price increases, and an admission that they too must embrace the pay-per-view model, suggests their initial projections for growth were inaccurate.
Part of that is undoubtedly down to a failure to acquire rights to the most appealing leagues and tournaments in the sporting world. It’s also where the comparison to more popular streaming channels falls down. Netflix, for example, can boast myriad series and films that appeal to all ages and demographics. Thus, when they add a Mike Tyson comeback to the mix, they’re promoting a live event to a ginormous cross-section of society. In that regard, it can be compared to the 1980s boom when live boxing events – interspersed amongst more general entertainment programmes of widespread appeal – would regularly be watched by tens of millions.
But DAZN would appear to be in this for the long haul. Adept at focusing on untapped territories, while lustily scrapping for a share of the market in those that are more established, they have developed an understanding of boxing’s nuances in a way that channels with broader fields of vision have struggled to. Furthermore, with Top Rank considering their broadcasting options for 2025 when their current deal with ESPN comes to an end DAZN might become the biggest player in the boxing broadcasting market by some distance – and one that makes any cross pollination between the leading promoters not only easy but obligatory, with or without the influence of Turki Alalshikh.
How feasible all of this really is, however, only time will tell. Dates will have to be chopped up between promoters who are used to having free reign of their calendars. And the ongoing social media tit-for-tat between Eddie Hearn and Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya – akin to two pubescent rich kids squabbling over whose father has the best car – only highlights how volatile certain relationships in boxing will always be.
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