DAZN Group Nears Deal To Help Fund Future Acquisitions

[Ruthless-RKO]

According to several reports, it appears that DAZN Group, which is the parent company behind the over-the-top streaming service DAZN, is in talks to sell off some of the Perform content to Vista Equity Partners.

In 2014, billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries acquired majority control of Perform Group, which last year rebranded the company as DAZN Group.

The company launched the DAZN streaming service in several markets in 2016, and made their launch in the United States in 2018.

It’s not clear what properties would be involved in the sale. DAZN Group own several content outlets like Goal.com and Sporting News, which is often used to promote the DAZN streaming service.

The business move is reportedly motivated to “help DAZN fund acquisitions of live sports rights.”

Business experts have been critical of the current state of their service, with respect to a long-term future. The monthly price was recently doubled to $19.99, with a special rate of $99.99 for the year - but the majority of attractive content, in the United States, is catered to fans of combat sports like boxing and mixed martial arts.

They will definitely need to pick up more sport to compete with other OTT services like ESPN+ - and not many U.S. sport rights are out there for the taking and certainly not on exclusive basis.

Scott Soshnick, David Hellier, and Nabila Ahmed of Bloomberg reported details of the looming deal: "Billionaire Len Blavatnik’s DAZN Group is close to a deal to sell its Perform content business to Vista Equity Partners, a person familiar with the matter said.

The business, which includes data collection and distribution and services for betting operations, will be sold to help DAZN fund acquisitions of live sports rights, the person said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private. It wasn’t immediately clear how much Vista was paying. No final decision has been made and the sale may still not materialize, the person said."

And Murad Ahmed and James Fontanella-Khan of The Financial Times provided more details: A person with knowledge of the negotiations said the potential buyer is Vista, a US fund which currently owns STATS, a rival sports statistics group. But the person added a deal had not been completed.

In a statement, DAZN Group said that following a previously announced strategic review, it is “engaged in discussions with a potential buyer of Perform. Discussions of this matter are ongoing and a further announcement will be made if and when appropriate.”

Perform was listed in the UK in 2011 but taken private by Access in 2014 for £702m. The group recently hit a £3bn valuation when it sold a 10 percent stake to Dentsu, the Japanese advertising group, for £300m, in a deal that made it the UK’s most valuable technology start-up.

The move will allow DAZN Group to focus entirely on its rapidly expanding streaming service.

[Onetimeonly]

This can't succeed. They'd need a deal with the NFL.

[walter5]

This can't succeed. They'd need a deal with the NFL.

DAZN is already very successful in foreign markets and is buying up rights in the US to increase subs looking for a valuation in the billions while taking on losses, not immediate profitability of a couple million dollars. This is a real long term strategy.

[Onetimeonly]

DAZN is already very successful in foreign markets and is buying up rights in the US to increase subs looking for a valuation in the billions while taking on losses, not immediate profitability of a couple million dollars. This is a real long term strategy.

It will not work here. Americans don't care about boxing.

[Ruthless-RKO]

It will not work here. Americans don't care about boxing.

Most only care about the big names and there are like 5-6 big names maybe?

Mayweather and Canelo are the only one that will hit 1 million ppv buys..

Canelo will only hit over 1 m as long as he fights a big name.

TBH, there is maybe only a select number that will even hit 1 million views on regular Showtime, FS1..

FOX is different as it's available to over 100 million homes..

Even ESPN, Top Rank have a decent stable, but most of their shows are doing around 700k average. Only Crawford and Loma are surpassing 1 million views.

[Enlightened-One]

The main concern I have is the long-term viability of DAZN, because they’re operating with the same business model currently employed by Netflix, which are $12 billion in debt, despite having 139m subscribers.

[Onetimeonly]

Most only care about the big names and there are like 5-6 big names maybe?

Mayweather and Canelo are the only one that will hit 1 million ppv buys..

Canelo will only hit over 1 m as long as he fights a big name.

TBH, there is maybe only a select number that will even hit 1 million views on regular Showtime, FS1..

FOX is different as it's available to over 100 million homes..

Even ESPN, Top Rank have a decent stable, but most of their shows are doing around 700k average. Only Crawford and Loma are surpassing 1 million views.

The reported numbers now are abysmal and that's after a canelo fight. Offering the year is smart to sustain subscriptions but $90 a year would need about a billion subscribers to sustain the money they're spending and ESPN has boxing and the much more popular UFC for a quarter of the monthly cost.

[greg]

... $90 a year seems too good to be true, makes you wonder..

[Nondescript]

The fact that they're looking to sell off part of their portfolio to fund more acquisitions for their streaming service kinda suggests that things aren't quite going to plan or how they would have hoped by now. Imo.

[greg]

The fact that they're looking to sell of part of their portfolio to fund more acquisitions for their streaming service kinda suggests that things aren't quite going to plan or how they would have hoped by now. Imo.

..was my first thought without really understanding the specifics above...

[Onekrazyrican]

I have been paying and cancelling my subscription depending on what they have that month. Went to do it for the Ryan Garcia card last saturday and got prompted with the $20 per month or the year option and I stopped. $20 wold be too much just for that fight. Had it been at a date where the subscription would still be active for the Canelo fight in May i would have bought it tho. Went and watched UFC on ESPN instead...

[Enlightened-One]

The fact that they're looking to sell off part of their portfolio to fund more acquisitions for their streaming service kinda suggests that things aren't quite going to plan or how they would have hoped by now. Imo.

I’m not really sure this is the case, because the costs of DAZN’s recent investments in their streaming content is only a small percentage of the owners’ net worth.

It could be a case of streamlining their business operations and focussing on their core business rather than spinning too many plates, especially if those peripheral businesses aren’t turning over a huge profit.

Personally-speaking, I am not sure whether DAZN’s business model is commercially viable in the long-term, but I really doubt that DAZN is running out of cash so early.