Frank Warren is aiming to promote boxing events in the United States again after signing a new global broadcast deal with streaming service DAZN.
It was announced on Sunday that Warren’s Queensberry Promotions and DAZN had signed a multiyear deal to become the exclusive broadcaster of the UK-based promotional outfit. Queensberry, who have been working with TNT Sports (formally BT Sport) since 2016, decided to make the switch and their current deal with TNT will come to a close in April 2025. DAZN confirmed the link up with Warren on their X account by posting: “Queensberry is coming to DAZN. Starting in April 2025, DAZN will become the global broadcast partner of Queensberry Promotions. Together, we’ll deliver the biggest match-ups to fans worldwide.”
The new deal will see all Queensberry boxing events broadcast on the platform across the globe and Warren is excited to bring his stable of fighters, which includes Daniel Dubois, Hamzah Sheeraz, and Fabio Wardley to the platform.
“The main reason [we’ve joined DAZN] is it’s a global platform and dedicated boxing channel,” Warren told BoxingScene. “Over the years I’ve noticed the additions they’ve had into their management; they’ve brought in top quality guys from the broadcast industry who are certainly respected by myself and my son, George, who basically put the deal together. I feel between us, we can take this to another level. What we’ve done in the last few years, on BT or TNT as it became, we built a great roster of boxers, guided some youngsters into a great position, who are on the cusp of fighting for world titles, and another generation coming through. This is the place we should be; I think, between us, we make a great team.”
Warren has an impressive collection of heavyweight boxers who have inked promotional agreements with Queensberry. The promoter, however, doesn’t believe that his stable is the reason for DAZN wanting to bring Queensberry to the platform. He instead believes his experience promoting on different platforms over the last 40 years has attracted the streaming service to invest in their services.
“I think that’s part of it, but I think our reputation speaks for itself,” he said. “We’ve worked with every single broadcaster in British boxing going back to 1980, going back all that time. I’ve seen it evolve, I’ve seen it in all formats, pay-per-view, terrestrial TV, delayed TV, because when I got involved in boxing there was no live TV, it was a delayed broadcast. We fought to get live TV when people were saying, ‘Live TV will kill it, people won’t go to watch it.’ That was obviously not the case. There was the situation where we left ITV and went to Sky and everyone said, ‘Ah you’re going to Sky,’ they had 3,000,000 subscribers back then, ‘It will be the death, no one will watch it,’ look at Ricky Hatton, he was built on Sky TV. I can tell you plenty of other anecdotes and stories about that.”
Warren’s main promotional rival in the UK, Eddie Hearn, signed a broadcast agreement with DAZN back in 2021 and came under criticism from Warren. The promoter referred to DAZN as an app that nobody would use, his thoughts on the streaming service have now changed after seeing the performance over the last three years,
“This is the situation now that we’ve evolved to,” he continued. “Over the last few years from me making a comment of it being an app, that’s changed in a big way because of the people they’ve got involved, and top-quality people as I say who are respected in the industry. The man at the top, the major guy, the guy who’s invested in this, Shay Segev, who I’ve met quite a few times, had lunch and dinner with him, he’s a top bloke, and you look at his record and what he’s done with the business and look at his commitment to this and that gives me so much enthusiasm to do this deal. This is going to be a game changer, like I said last year, this is going to be another game changer.”
Warren, a Hall of Fame promoter, has worked on events around the world in the past but had been strictly based in the UK since signing his deal with TNT Sports. Warren now believes, with DAZN’s backing, that the plan is to start promoting events around the globe, in particular the United States.
“It’s a global deal that we’ve done that covers all countries and we will be doing more dates and broadening our horizons,” said Warren. “Yeah [it’s likely we want to do shows in the US], that’s the direction, obviously, my son, and where we want to go. I go back, I keep saying this, I know I sound like an old fart, I go back to the days, I did a lot of shows on HBO, we did a lot of shows on Showtime from over here over the years. It helped build Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe, Frank Bruno, we put all those fights on over the years and we launched ShoBox.
“You refocus every time, nothing goes [in a straight line], you have ups and downs, that’s life. We’ve worked and given our endeavors to put us in the position we are in now, and the position we are in now, I think we are the world’s leading promoter. I believe going with DAZN, Eddie [Hearn] is there with Matchroom, top quality operators, Oscar [De La Hoya] is there, there are some great fights we can make within our companies.
“There aren’t any [co-promotion agreements in the deal],” he continued. “But that’s how we are, we are competitors, and we are competitive, and the ‘5 v 5’ is a great formula. I’m sure we are going to do another one out in Riyadh, and then maybe other ways we do it here, at different levels. We can have our prospects against each other, our champions against each other. There are so many different permutations we can do here. The fact of the matter is whatever we do is going to be great for boxing and great for the viewers.”
The first DAZN and Queensberry boxing event is likely to be held in April 2025 – when the agreement between the two begins. Warren hinted that he is planning to start the new partnership off with a bang.
“We’ve got some great ideas [for the first event],” he said. “All will be revealed in due course, we’ve got some brilliant ideas, some great fights, and we will be doing more dates and more fights.”
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