DAZN, the live streaming sports service, best known for their move to offer high profile Boxing and MMA matches through a subscription instead of PPV, is joining forces with a cable giant for the first time. The company announced that starting today, DAZN, which reaches over 4 million subscribers around the world, will be available on Xfinity Flex, Comcast’s recently launched streaming device — and on their X1 set-top box by October.
The service which already available on most major streaming platforms like Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, iOS, and Android offers the service for $19.99 a month or through a $99 annual plan. And it comes at a good time for DAZN, because just yesterday Comcast announced that they will be giving away a free Flex device to all of their Internet-Only customers.
“We’re thrilled to give our Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex customers access to DAZN’s live and on-demand programming starting this fall just in time for some of the most highly anticipated events in sports this year,” said Daniel Spinosa, VP, Entertainment Services for Comcast Cable. “With new content from partners like DAZN, coupled with our aggregated UI, X1 is the best way to experience live sports at home, and with Flex we can extend this great content, integrated experience and voice control to our Internet-only customers directly on their TVs.”
Internationally, U.S. sports has been a huge driver of DAZN’s growth mainly from NFL/MLB in which they have streaming rights in markets like Canada and Japan DAZN has rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, NFL RedZone, Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Serie A, and LaLiga which is available to subscribers at just $20 a month.
In the U.S. though, the focus has been on Boxing and MMA through deals with Golden Boy Promotions, Bellator, and Matchroom Boxing who will be promoting the Paul/KSI rematch. The company which signed an 11-fight $365mm deal with Canelo Alvarez, saw his latest fight against Daniel Jacobs, streamed by 1.2 million subscribers across U.S., Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland.
DAZN has recognized that it needs to expand from just boxing though. The first step in that was the launch of ChangeUp, a nightly live MLB whip-around show hosted by Adnan Virk and HQ Trivia’s Scott Rogowsky. This month they launched a new daily talk show with former NFL Pat McAfee — who will also be contributing to DAZN’s boxing and MMA coverage.