DAZN Subscription numbers?

PBC>DAZN.
I'm about to get another subscription though. I don't have HBO anymore.

 

Wouldn't shock me if they were bleeding money they are still a very new platform and will have to make big losses for a number of years most likely if they are to become a dominant market force in boxing. Look at how much money the PBC fund lost over the first few years.

 

I've said time and time again that the numbers clearly don't add up. The new one the Hearn fanboys have been peddling lately is that Hearn offering Wilder $15m to box Breazeale or Kownacki on DAZN makes good business sense because it leads to Wilder-Joshua on DAZN and will make huge subscription numbers.... This despite them insisting throughout last year that Wilder has no profile in the USA and can't even sell tickets.

DAZN is going to end in catastrophic failure for boxing. They'll be boxing's equivalent on Portsmouth FC.

 

I would like to know that as well, but I've been unable to find even rough estimates. Except for that Dave Meltzer's quote that "the numbers are shockingly low". Well, "shockingly low" is quite ambiguous.

 

I have no info on their figures but for this sort of business there are a couple of things they will be looking for. Imagine a funnel wider at the top. DAZN need to keep pouring new subscribers into the funnel, because only a percentage of them will stay past the month. So they chase signups, which is where the headline grabbing fights factor in. They are clearly planning a big push for Canelo v Jacobs followed by AJ v Miller, two high profile fights within one calendar month.

They can afford to lose some customers to this 'churn' as long as they are retaining sufficient to grow their subscriber base and begin to generate income to offset their costs. So as important as sign ups is retention which is where the ongoing content including the lesser shows and additional content from WBSS etc comes in. For retention it would be interesting to see what they have lined up for the month following the AJ Miller fight when the Canelo AJ sign ups will be deciding whether to stick with them...

Fail in either of these areas and the business stops making sense. You don't embark on this without having pockets deep enough to ride through some pain, but equally you have to set targets and be able to tweak your marketing and content strategy based on what the numbers are telling you.

That's what they will be doing, so if you want to know how DAZN is performing just look at their messaging and content mix, because if that changes dramatically, there will be a reason behind it.

 

There's one HUGE thing that all these boxing networks are missing. An american boxing star. Deonkey and Spence are the two biggest, but they definitely do not fill the gap that Floyd, Mike Tyson and so on have left. There is no clear american star. Canelo is not as big as they make out, and AJ still needs to break into the American market properly.

DAZN are relying on Joshua-Wilder. But because one of the sides (Most likely Wilder's) aren't playing ball, it's hurting boxing in the US when it was already damaged badly.

They say boxing is booming. It is, but ONLY in the UK. In the US, it has declined. Floyd could very well be the last of a rare breed. If AJ vs Wilder doesn't get made and it isn't advertised like mad, Boxing will start to decline very steeply in the US. It's holding out with the decent ESPN numbers.

It is CRUCIAL that 2 fights are made. One being AJ vs Wilder as I mentioned. But the other being Crawford vs Spence. That fight has the networks behind it that are well-established in the US, unlike DAZN. It isn't a mega mega fight in terms of numbers. But what it does do is provide a platform for an american to succeed Floyd, even if the winner can only cover half of the numbers Floyd got.

As for DAZN...this is to be expected. They have to invest heavily. The reason being is market share. You have to overspend to get a slice of the pie in this kind of market. DAZN have to be aggressive otherwise the model won't work.

 

At some point they are going to have to revisit the rolling monthly contract approach they have favoured as, from what I have read, people seem to be using this as a cheap way to watch fights which otherwise would have been PPV, without renewing once the fight they wanted to see has been broadcast. People love loopholes...

 

They're following a well trodden path though, see netflix, spotify etc...

 

Since when is Spence this huge star? Everyone keeps saying that Errol Spence is a star, yet he numbers prove otherwise.
Adrien Broner does better ratings on SHO than Spence.

 

DAZN needs a monthly hook to keep subscribers locked in.
May has Alvarez-Jacobs and in June they have Joshua-Miller.
They need more of those big events.

But things are starting to pick up:
March 9: Bivol-Smith Jr.
March 15: Farmer-Carroll
April 26: Sor Rungvisai-Estrada II

Some good cards there. Key word being "some".

 

They have insanely deep pockets and are looking to be the Neflix of sports. They expect huge losses in the early period I guess and probably budgeted for it.

 

To be the Netflix of Sports you have to dominate in the US Market like Netflix does with original programming. DAZN needs to get NBA, NFL, College Football, MLB etc

But they won’t be getting any of these as they will have massive established corporations against them.
CBS who also own Showtime.
FOX/ESPN both who are owned by Disney
NBC who are owned by Comcast who also own Sky

Even Amazon would be more likely to pick up those rights I mentioned rather than DAZN. DAZN has shady russian links, and Americans are very patriotic when it comes to these sort of things.

It would turn political very quickly, if DAZN won the US Rights to America’s most popular sports such as NFL/NBA

 

Joshua v Wilder is not certain to go on DAZN. Showtime will do everything they can to get it on PPV.