DAZN to No Longer Pay Market Premium for Boxing Events
Joe Markowski of DAZN has announced that the streaming service will no longer pay inflated purses for boxing events.
He also stated that DAZN paid the exorbitant purses as part of the platform’s startup plan. This is no different than when PBC was paying above market value to gain access to fighters and networks to initially break into the market.
DAZN faced and overcame the same challenge. They would make their mark on the business by signing high profile fighters such as Gennady Golovkin, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Demetrius Andrade, Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk to name a few.
For being in existence for only one year, DAZN has been mostly successful. The WBSS tournaments have been a resounding success. On the flip-side, there were some notable failures.
Being unable to make Joshua vs Deontay Wilder, or Alvarez vs Golovkin 3 are such cases. One obstacle the streaming service ran into was, even while paying above market value, a lot of fighters were unwilling to fight in bouts with limited exposure.
This brings us to the million dollar question. With limited exposure, will fighters want to fight on the DAZN platform if the money isn’t there?
So far, DAZN’s biggest fight was Canelo vs Danny Jacobs with 1.2 million views. DAZN hasn’t reported any other viewer results to date. With the streaming service’s goal being to expand into the NFL and NBA, they’ll need a deep subscriber base, and deep pockets.
While they’ve shown the deep pockets, the subscriber base, not so much. This market contraction is definitely something to watch carefully, as it’ll no doubt play a role in some future match-ups, as well as which providers get those fights.
By: Corey Cunningham
