‘Netflix’ of sports to launch in Canada

National Football League fans in Canada officially have a new way to watch the game without paying for a cable package, trekking to a bar with a television or illegally streaming live feeds.

London-based DAZN, an online sports streaming service vying to be the Netflix of sports, announced Thursday it will launch in Canada with exclusive rights to NFL Game Pass and NFL RedZone, which includes live streams of every live football game in the pre-, regular and post-season in 2017. It will not be subject to blackouts, meaning the games will still be available when they’re on live TV.

The subscription service, which is available on smart TVs, tablets, smartphones and game consoles, will cost $20 per month or $150 annually. The first 30 days are free.

DAZN enters Canada as television providers rely more on live sports coverage to keep customers tied into their cable and IPTV packages amid competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Cord cutting isn’t huge — only about 200,000 customers cancelled their TV subscriptions last year out of approximately 11 million subscribers — but providers are trying to quell the decline in revenue.

DAZN becomes one of few legal sports streaming services catering to cord cutters in the Canadian market. As it stands, customers can buy online streaming packages directly from major leagues, but many are subject to blackouts.

Rogers Communications Inc. offers Sportsnet NOW, a $24.99 per month stand-alone streaming service that has exclusive Toronto Blue Jays coverage, National Hockey League games and Toronto Raptors games (it’s included for existing TV subscribers).

Other providers such as BCE Inc. offer apps for existing TSN subscribers to watch games online, but the isn’t sold as a stand-alone.

DAZN, which already operates in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan, is part of global sports media firm Perform Group and is backed by billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries Holdings LLC.

Last week, DAZN told Bloomberg it has “big ambitions for global expansion.” It has also purchased rights to Champions League soccer and English Premier League soccer. Its service, however, isn’t always smooth. Time lags and pauses marred its launch day in Japan.