Layoffs At DAZN; Around 50 To Be Made Redundant In London HQ

[Ruthless-RKO]

Layoffs At DAZN; Around 50 To Be Made Redundant In London HQ

EXCLUSIVE: Global sports streaming outfit DAZN is to make around 50 redundancies in its London headquarters, Deadline can reveal.

Staff in the Hammersmith, West London HQ have been told in the past couple of hours, Deadline understands, and a four-week redundancy process has been kickstarted, with around 50 roles set to potentially be closed.

The number represents around 5% of the UK workforce, most of whom work in London, and 2% of the global workforce of just over 2,500.

While London is where DAZN launched, it is understood that the decision is driven by the outfit’s decision to decentralize and focus on other growth regions such as Spain, Italy and Germany.

Around 50 people are conversely being hired in the Spanish office ahead of the launch of next season’s La Liga football competition and senior leaders have been sought across the growth markets in the past few months. Even with the UK redundancies, the non-UK hirings therefore mean there could be a net hiring gain by the end of the year across the entire business.

DAZN was launched in 2016 as a punchy start-up and has moved swiftly, snapping up sports rights across multiple territories and rolling out to 200 countries worldwide including the U.S., Italy, Spain, Brazil and Japan over the past few years.

The company, which is run by CEO Shay Segev and counts former Disney exec Kevin Mayer as chair, now has rights in major territories to European football, Spain’s La Liga, multiple basketball leagues, eSports and tennis, amongst others.

[rd350lc]

Not really surprised tbh .
Sad for the poor buggers that work there but you can see a lot more of this happening in the current climate .

[KiwiRider]

Wonder if they give the option of transfer?
If there are 50 hirings in Spain, I'm sure some from the London office might like to transfer..

[mickey1975]

I've always thought they were based in Leeds. Big offices there.

[jimmystone]

I've always thought they were based in Leeds. Big offices there.

Approximately 350 of their roughly 1000 UK staff are in Leeds, mate.

[Boxerbeetle]

Would be interesting to know what sort of roles were being cut.

[garethhop]

They’ve given up on the UK for now.

[daz74]

it’s 5% of the UK workforce, let’s not over react, it’s more cost effective to employ those staff from another location, pure business decision

[maverick23]

It’s hard to know what this actually means. It’s a small % of the workforce and it’s not particularly clear whether the roles going are U.K. specific or group/global roles.

Given the challenges they’ll be experiencing (as will most companies) in higher costs and reduced demand with consumers having less disposable income it makes complete sense why they’ll be looking to trim some roles where they can.

[garethhop]

it’s 5% of the UK workforce, let’s not over react, it’s more cost effective to employ those staff from another location, pure business decision

They keeping you on there pal?

[gregregegg]

Cutting 5% at this point dosent mean much till you see details. As a business becomes more established it should become more efficient, so in theory there profits could increase at the same time as redundencys.

[daz74]

it’s 5% of the UK workforce, let’s not over react, it’s more cost effective to employ those staff from another location, pure business decision

They keeping you on there pal?

LOL
I would love to work in the boxing industry, beats the bureaucracy of the NHS which currently pays my bills !

[joshj909]

Weirdly enough they have also been recruiting for quite a lot of jobs. Couldn't tell you how many but they crop up on LinkedIn constantly.