Their business model never made sense to me. Boxing historically was always about network TV and/or PPV. But with DAZN it's like all of that was thrown out the window. Now it was all of a sudden about watching boxing on Apps. But in fairness to DAZN they came in as a result of HBO's decision to no longer show boxing. Someone had to come in to pick up all the HBO fighters. They tried a new way of doing things.
There is a reason boxing went way of PPV. There just isn't enough public interest in it. The guys that are demanding big money has to earn it by making a worthy match as well as sell the ppv fight. The money Dazn has paid GGG and Canelo's is pretty outrages guaranteed money. Neither fighter has yet to be in a match where there are buzz outside hardcore fans. The problem is to make the fights people want to see they will have to pay the other party. Hence the problem. Any fight that GGG and Canelo are in , the huge chunk of money is already going to them leaving little room for the opponent. These opponents talk the talk but ain't no one fighting for free. Add in the no gate fee and the problem becomes crippling.
They over valued stars, got into the wrong sport and made a lot of mistakes that true boxing people would have warned them of. For a Canelo fight they essentially needed 2million subscribers during a month to break even just on his fight, ignoring all other rights fees. Sure they might have been able to make some back on advertising, international rights and and other profit making areas they still would have needed multiple millions to just pay for for Canelo. The Golovkin contract and giving Eddie Hearn a blank check book only intensified issues (pay a fee folk too much and they'll all want too much). They lacked a regular "league" type of thing in the US (think J league, Serie A) to keep people subscribed month after month, and seemingly had no understanding of boxing... Or the demographic of the sport (older people, not tech savvy). It was incredibly short sighted of them to expect boxing to carry them to success. Especially on a new platform people didn't know of. See Quibi for a similar failure where people have completely **** the bed in marketing and connecting the product to the audience. Just to add, I WANT DAZN TO BE A SUCCESS but... Those there... Maybe they didn't... Or they certainly acted like they didn't
Pretty sure Matchroom shows are on DAZN JP, along with the the GBP shows (for the most part), WOWOW are the only other channel that picks up international over there and their content... Ain't be great recently, mostly Top Rank and ESPN. Unless you mean buying the rights to show Japanese TV fights on DAZN internationally, which would have been... Something I don't imagine Fuji or TBS wanting to do. Would see them essentially selling content to a rival (sure it wouldn't be DAZN JP but still a rival in their eyes). Would have been cool to see admittedly.
Your math is a bit off there. Canelo fights only twice a year, not once a month. I think they needed like 400k or so just to break even on Canelo. And they should have had Eddie use that blank check to get in as many fighters with name value as possible, not go after just the big names. Stack cards with cheap, known fighters and you will get people´s interest.
Pretty sure its just high end tax sheltering with some money laundering thrown in. They’ll make their money then file bankruptcy to make even more money. In the end it’s only the fans who lose.
Were assuming different things. I'm assuming paying monthly ($20) for his fight months, not paying annually, then cancelling. So for the months he fights they need 2mil (2 million buyers at $20) to break even on his fights. Whilst he does fight only twice a year they I can't imagine $20 a monthers sticking around for a year at that price or buying in for the year, just for Canelo. If we go with annual subscribers needed to pay his bills we then need to make the assumption he moves the needle more and gets people to buy in longer term (which I personally don't believe happens, if you are buying in for Canelo I won't imagine you'll be paying $100 for the year, even if the other value is there). Using the logic that he gets annual buys into the system they'd need ~800,000 (Canelo costs $35m, opponent costs $5m, twice annually $80m, $80m spread over $100 annual payments would be 800,000)..... I think (sorry half asleep) . They get 8,000,000 globally but how many of those are annual/monthly is unclear, how many international fans care about Canelo fighting, how many European fans are staying up to the early hours to watch him etc. Either way we're looking at 5-10% of their reported global subscriber base. Something that's relatively laughable if we're being honest. Agree with you on the other part, but Eddie was never about that, Eddie, as he's done with Sky, is about "life changing money innit koogs", PPV needs to be done, Sky need to increase site fees, and being bombastic. He was the wrong promoter to give a blank check to in the hope of having a sustainable model.
So far the matches in DAZN has been pretty average. They haven’t separated themselves from ESPN or PBC. That is the problem I see. Instead of a few big names they should have saved the money for great fights every month. That would get people subbing , not 8 months of average fights and one good fight a year.
I feel a similar way. I think people are much more likely to commit money to something where they know roughly what they're getting. As opposed to random possibilities.
They ****ed up investing in boxing which is a mess of a sport organisation wise and a small niche sport in the states. The worst of both worlds, headache to deal with and not a return on the investment.
It’s not just the match ups, the production value is trash. If you’re going to spend all this money then at least do what hbo did, there should be build up episodes to big fights, pay some celebs for appearances, get better commentators. There’s so much more that could be done.