New sports streaming service DAZN lost $2.3 billion in 2021, according to a report released by Bloomberg on Wednesday. DAZN CEO Shai Segev said in an interview with Bloomberg that the main reason is his $1.9 billion commitment to acquire football rights in Italy and Germany in the Bundesliga and Serie A.
Bloomberg claims that the numbers he reported are bills given to the media company DAZN itself. DAZN is believed to be owned by billionaire Len Blavatnik and is currently one of the top broadcasters in boxing, providing its platform for live sports events. DAZN's main content in the United States, for example, is centered around boxing.
Promoters Golden Boy and Matchroom have previously signed exclusive deals with the streaming service. In May 2018, Matchroom signed an eight-year, $1 billion contract with DAZN. In October 2018, DAZN signed Canelo Alvarez to a 10-fight contract worth $350 million, but after three fights in 2020, Alvarez became a free agent when he was released from his contracts with Golden Boy and DAZN. Despite this, Alvarez has since fought five of his last six fights on DAZN, for a total of eight fights.
Alvarez's last two fights against Dmitry Bivol in May and Gennady Golovkin in September took place on DAZN via pay-per-view (PPV). The platform had to take this step to cover the costs associated with the licensing of boxing events and generate more revenue in addition to their monthly subscriptions. Prior to this, DAZN had stated in its advertising campaigns that the pay-per-view model would no longer be relevant in boxing.
In March, DAZN North America CEO Joe Markowski shared the company's updated PPV stance with BoxingScene.com Senior Columnist Keith Ideck.
“We are learning,” Markowski said. “And that's why we don't shy away, and I personally don't shy away from, the comments we made about pay-per-view four years ago. I'm not going to try to pretend that this was just a marketing campaign, or that I was just teasing our customers. At that time, we sincerely believed in it. We are humble enough and honest enough to admit that, in hindsight, we may have been wrong. But ultimately, do we remain committed to value for our customers? Absolutely".
“And I'm happy to speak, hand on heart, with anyone in the market about the value we offer to boxing fans compared to our competitors. We are by far the best in class at this, and we will continue to be so even though we occasionally use pay-per-view to commercialize our fights. I would be insincere if I said: "You know, we were just joking." It wasn't like that. We believed in it at the time."
“After 12 months, let's look at this year after the introduction of pay-per-view. Starting today and looking back over 12 months of activity. I guarantee you that if you want to talk about the value of these 12 months, you will be surprised how much boxing fans have been able to get in these 12 months. We are at the top of this pyramid,” Markowski added.
The London-based company also lost $934.7 million in funding in 2021. The platform's total operating loss was $1.36 billion. According to DAZN, DAZN generated $1.56 billion in revenue in 2021 and reached $2.3 billion in 2022.
DAZN CEO Shai Segev said the company's IPO plans are currently on hold due to difficult global capital markets.
“I don’t really have any preferences, I just think that it actually makes sense for us to go public,” Segev said. “The Netflix story, the Amazon story — I think DAZN will go in that direction too.”
DAZN claims to have 15 million paid subscribers worldwide. According to Front Office Sports, DAZN has totaled over $6 billion in losses since its launch in 2016.
