DAZN wants to be top stream for combat sports
Service bills itself as pay-per-view alternative
It’s not easy being a fan of combat sports.
Between the rising price of cable bills and subscription services, watching live fights is becoming more costly and challenging.
“Long-term, the impact of that is to shrink the size of the audience,” DAZN North American senior vice president Joseph Markowski told USA TODAY.
DAZN, a U.K.-based streaming service, is trying to establish itself as a onestop alternative to all the pay-per-view and streaming services by becoming the online home of boxing and mixed martial arts. DAZN aims to convert old fans and attract new ones by offering “payper-view level shows” without the Mayweather vs. McGregor price tag.
To reel them in, DAZN is offering one free month of programming, followed by a monthly $9.99 subscription fee. Other sports offerings, to be announced in the near future, will serve as the incentive to stick around, Markowski said.
In June, the streaming service announced a nine-figure, multiyear partnership with Bellator in tandem with Saturday’s Bellator 206 event, which is headlined by a middleweight title fight between champ Gegard Mousasi and welterweight titleholder Rory MacDonald. The fight card, which takes place at SAP Center in San Jose, California, streams ad-free on DAZN.
Markowski said the Viacom-owned promotion was at the top of the list for promotions DAZN wanted to work with when it started exploring the MMA space.
“We think Bellator is a premium sports property that we feel, with the right investment and the right management, can deliver some really exciting shows and grow itself in the MMA space,” Markowski said.
DAZN also recently signed a deal with Combate Americas, adding a His- panic-centered MMA property to its portfolio.
By bringing another streaming service to U.S. fans, DAZN could be accused of further diluting the MMA market.
Another month-to-month subscription player adds to an increasingly crowded media landscape that includes UFC Fight Pass and soon ESPN+. Today, there are more choices than ever to watch MMA, and much of it comes at a premium.
Markowski, though, defends DAZN’s cost as a “very low incremental add given the value of those offers, and one that comes with the complete flexibility to the consumer.”
Because DAZN subscribers can cancel at any time, the sustainability of a business catering to often fickle fight fans is a lingering question. But the executive said it’s an investment that will pay off in the long run.
“We’re taking pay-per-view level fights and making those available in high volume at a very low cost,” Markowski said. “So that represents a dramatic cost savings for an MMA fan.”
If the streaming service can persuade fans to cut a cord or two, and perhaps unsubscribe to other streaming providers, that statement definitely will be true. Markowski declined to provide any information about the viewership and subscriber numbers needed to keep DAZN afloat, saying only that the company will be successful in the U.S. by keeping combat sports fans engaged.
Bellator 206 is the first major MMA offerings on DAZN, so the streaming service will soon find out if the gamble is a good one. With more high-profile stars recently defecting to the promotion, it has better cards in play.
“I think MMA is at a really interesting point where, for a number of reasons, fighters are far more enjoying of working with Bellator than other players,” Markowski said. “And that gives Bellator guys, coupled with the war chest our deal with them allows, to be really competitive in fighter recruitment. So we’re confident that our relationship with (president Scott Coker) and Bellator, we can build a really strong base of MMA fans and become a home of MMA.”