DAZN & Boxing: Past, Present & Future
By Eddie Sanchez
Eddie Hearn, the managing director of Matchroom boxing, is a 40 year old thriving in the promotion game. As the young buck in the crowd, compared to Bob Arum and Al Haymon among others, Hearn has shown a willingness to take calculated risks.
For one, his fighters have an exclusive partnership with DAZN to broadcast their fights. Anthony Joshua, which might be the most prominent fighter in his stable, fought his rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr. in Saudi Arabia, which brought his team much scrutiny based on their civil rights issues and consistent tension. Nevertheless, he saw an opportunity to cash out and took it.
Going even further, he previously leveraged his DAZN relationship to sign an exclusive deal with Canelo Alvarez for an 11 fight, 365 million dollar deal. By facilitating this deal, his fighters are often considered as potential opponents for Canelo. This was a groundbreaking pact that showed further proof that boxing is in good hands post-Mayweather.
That is until Covid-19 hit. When the coronavirus became a global pandemic, sports among other industries were forced to the sidelines. Leagues across the world halted play and solo-sports such as boxing saw many promised cards postponed or canceled altogether. While this issue has affected everyone, the business structure of DAZN has taken a larger hit than most other companies around boxing.
DAZN is a subscription service, meaning loyal customers pay a monthly fee to access 100% of their content. The Canelo Alvarez signing was a no-brainer as he is the most prominent figure in the sport and carries a loyal following. The issue is that DAZN has little to no control over who Canelo actually fights. This issue has been brought-up numerous times since the deal was signed and is likely the reason we have yet to see the Canelo-GGG trilogy, despite the fact that GGG is signed with DAZN as well. With the virus halting content completely, this issue has been further compounded.
Canelo has thankfully claimed that he has no issues fighting in an empty arena (without fans) as early as this September, which should help DAZN keep or regain subscribers. But given the fact that DAZN is facing cash issues, the company will surely need to practice innovative ways to keep increasing revenues.
Fortunately for DAZN there is a precedent of leveraging non-traditional methods of competition to gain viewership that they can follow. Two methods they can follow are expanding their relationship with YouTubers, such as Logan and Jake Paul, and staging more crossover fights between MMA and boxing stars.
While many traditional boxing fans may hate these ideas, there is proof that these methods are successful.
Logan and Jake Paul have already migrated from Vine to YouTube and have extended their portfolio to DAZN as professional boxers. They combine for 40.5 million subscribers on YouTube between their two channels, proving a strong audience and committed fanbase.
Boxing has always attracted celebrities, which made the YouTuber’s partnership with DAZN not totally unique. The major difference however, is that when celebrities dabbled into boxing, it has been exclusively through exhibitions, such as Vanilla Ice vs Todd Bridges or the Infamous Tanya Harding. Fast-forward to current times in 2020 and you have reality star Joe Guidice inking a Celebrity Boxing deal.
There has always been a market within the industry. Whether because it’s viewed as easy money, a last chance at fame, or to connect boxing to general pop-culture. This practice took a step further as the Paul brothers do actually hold professional records.
While traditional fans often eye-roll at that notion, they went through the standard operating process, got cleared by athletic commissions and staged fights that streamed on DAZN.
Despite a mediocre performance as boxing is concerned, their respective crowds were electric and these fights undoubtedly attracted the younger crowd and possibly created potential fans. As far as the sport is concerned, this is all that the industry can ask for.
Furthermore, DAZN can also stage more crossover fights to attract not just boxing fans, but MMA fans as well. Successful cross-over matches include Muhammad Ali taking on kick-boxer Antonio Inoki, Maywether fighting Conor McGregor in a professional match, Mayweather staging an exhibition vs kick-boxer Tenshin Nasukawa. There is proof that these types of attractions successfully attract fans.
The most common issue that most will bring-up is the fact that the UFC largely does not wish to hold crossover fights solely in the boxing ring on boxing’s terms. Then there is also the issue with network deals, as the UFC is exclusively tied to ESPN. While I concede this as a legitimate issue, there is another road DAZN could take with Bellator.
Bellator, the primary competitor of the UFC, although on a much smaller scale, has an exclusive streaming deal with DAZN which would eliminate the network issues with staging “DAZN boxers” with Bellator fighters. Given that Bellator’s cash flow is also much less than that of the UFC, there is additional incentive to have their fighters utilize boxing as a way to gain extra attention.
In a perfect world you could see fighters such as Ryan Bader or Cris Cyborg rep Bellator and temporarily cross-over to the boxing ring.
Extending the olive branch to YouTubers and additional crossover fights is an innovative way to take advantage of the current media climate. The younger generation generally has a short attention span non-traditional matchups can spark interest.
Additionally, in the case with cross-over fights, you can start seeing UFC fighters jump ship to Bellator if they know that they can also have the freedom to stage high profile boxing matches, while still being able to compete in mixed martial arts.
These types of scenarios drive legitimate competition and expand the media coverage further than that of ESPN, FOX Sports, etc. These types of fights are perfect for the streaming platform where there is a shortage of content. DAZN clearly recognizes this and it wouldn’t surprise me to see more of these types of matches take place.
What should DAZN do to navigate post Covid-19? Will we see more non-traditional matchups on DAZN to attract a wide-range of subscribers?
