DAZN, the streaming sports service that launched last year, has added another big score to its stable.
They’ve added the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, beginning this summer.
The deal runs for three years and sees them become the exclusive rights holder in Canada. Yes, that means TSN will no longer have games…unless DAZN cuts a deal with a “terrestrial” provider like TSN, but they seem less than keen to do so.
Commercial rights are still up in the air, but DAZN officials expect to be able to make an announcement soon and are pretty clear their intention is for bars and restaurants to be able to show the games.
Side note: bars that show sports are going to have to find bartenders who can figure out how to throw streams on their TV. (Of course, those of us who have to watch bar staff struggle to find the right channel, let alone sport, means we’re going to lose our hair all over again.)
DAZN launched last summer in Canada with the news they’d secured exclusive rights to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, but the launch was far from smooth. The startup service struggled to deliver consistently high quality streams and were eventually forced to sign deals with cable providers to distribute NFL games in a more traditional method.
Their online service did eventually stabilize but the damage was already done. Since adding the NFL, DAZN has signed deals with Major League Soccer and a variety of European soccer leagues, like La Liga in Spain, Ligue 1 in France and England’s lower leagues. They’ve also added niche programming like KHL hockey, snooker, darts, rugby, tennis and golf. In April, they also carried the Commonwealth Games in its entirety, with a sub-deal with the CBC who showed a smattering of events.
The approach is clear: while traditional broadcasters have focused in on football, hockey, curling, basketball and baseball, DAZN sees a collection of diehard fanbases ready and willing to fork over money to watch their favourite niche sport.
(It’s also worth noting that DAZN will let you “suspend” your account for months where you don’t want to watch; e.g. for people who only want to watch Six Nations rugby or NFL.)
Signing up with a massive property like European soccer is clearly a play to sign up a large portion of more conventional sports fans, which will help absorb the costs of showing those sports that have smaller viewerships. Signing up the NFL was the first attempt at that. They’ll be desperate to make sure things go better with CL soccer than they did with NFL football.