Sports streaming service DAZN is considering its options when the next set of broadcast rights for the Premier League become available.
DAZN Vice President James Rushton told Reuters that as soon as the UK rights come on the market, DAZN would be looking at it. The statement confirms reports last month linked to chairman Kevin Mayer that the company is actively eyeing a move for some of the action when the 2022-2025 broadcast rights are made available by the Premier League.
Currently, pay TV broadcast rights for the Premier League are with Sky, BT and Amazon. This deal ends in summer 2022. Although the pay TV rights are now split three ways, the impact of Amazon joining Sky and BT has been relatively small. Sky is still able to screen the lion’s share of games. But DAZN is seen as a serious threat to Sky in particular. It has already done battle with the newcomer over various German broadcasting rights. And it has broken Sky’s dominance in the Italian sports broadcasting market.
Global expansion
According to Rushton, DAZN is also examining other TV rights options in Spain, France and Asia.
London-based DAZN only launched in the UK last year, as part of a wider global expansion. Currently, DAZN UK is a part-time boxing service. But DAZN is already a multi-sport broadcaster in other countries, where it has also started broadcasting a linear TV service.
DAZN will be hoping to avoid the pitfalls encountered by rival Eleven Sports. Eleven Sports had to pull its UK service after less than a year following low subscriber numbers and a failure to secure a linear outlet for some of its La Liga games. This is because some rights deals stipulate that a number of games must be made available via a traditional TV platform.