THE BIG ‘APP’-LE
Canelo huge get for streaming service
ALMOST no one in the boxing industry noticed last May when former ESPN president John Skipper joined the streaming sports media firm Perform Group as its executive chairman. In five short months, Skipper has become one of the most powerful men in boxing.
The UK-based Perform Group owns DAZN, the livestream app chartering a new era in sports viewing. That’s why Skipper was at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, when middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez announced the signing of a five-year, $365 million contract to fight exclusively on DAZN.
Alvarez became a network free agent after earning the middleweight championship with a unanimous decision over Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The popular Mexican champ entertained offers from Showtime, ESPN and Turner Sports. But Skipper arrived at the offices of Golden Boy Promotions in Los Angeles two weeks ago with a blank check.
“I’m not leaving until we make a deal,” he told Golden Boy executives Oscar de la Hoya and Eric Gomez.
Last May, DAZN first shook the boxing industry when it announced a partnership with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. The deal calls for 16 U.S.-based shows over the next eight years and reportedly is worth $1 billion. DAZN, which is offered at a monthly fee of $9.99, has everyone’s attention again with the signing of Alvarez.
“As we start a subscription service, a good place to start is with a guy who sold 3.6 million pay-per-view buys for close to a quarter of a billion dollars,” Skipper said, referring to the audience for the AlvarezGolovkin rematch. “We can create a lower price point where all of those fans who want to see him fight will pay to buy a subscription to DAZN.”
Alvarez’s contract is being called the richest for an athlete in sports history, an 11fight deal that begins Dec. 15 at Madison Square Garden, where he will take on Rocky Fielding of Liverpool for his WBA super middleweight championship. Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) is not a big name and shouldn’t be much of a problem for Alvarez (501-2, 34 KOs), who will average at least $33 million a fight.
“We feel at 28 years old, he is in the prime of his career, which is why we were willing to do an 11-fight, five-year deal,” Skipper said. “We’re going to get him in his prime, taking on all comers. He has demonstrated he’d be willing to do that. We think we’ve hit the sweet spot here in the sweet science.”
It appears DAZN is making a run at controlling the middleweight division. Brooklyn middleweight Daniel Jacobs is promoted by Matchroom Boxing. His fight against Sergiy Derevyanchenko on Oct. 27 at the Hulu Theater will be for the IBF middleweight belt and his last for HBO. He’ll likely head to DAZN. On Saturday in Boston, Demetrius Andrade of Providence, R.I., faces Walter Kautondokwa for the WBO middleweight title on the DAZN app.
Skipper spent 20 years helping to build ESPN into a sports empire before resigning last December.
Based in New York, he is confident boxing will help DAZN become a dominant player in the United States sports landscape. Alvarez’s fight will be available on all DAZN services in Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Austria, Canada and the U.S.