Blavatnik’s ‘Netflix of sport’ to slash jobs

THE loss-making sports streaming company controlled by billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik has slashed engineering jobs in its London headquarters months after securing a $250m (£220m) cash injection.

Dazn, billed as the “Netflix of sport”, is understood to have cut “dozens” of design and technical roles in London, Amsterdam and Poland as part of a restructuring. The sports streaming company broadcasts boxing and Ultimate Fighting Championship matches to paying customers and owns the rights to broadcast the English Football League in Europe.

However, it failed in an £800m effort to acquire BT Sport earlier this year and has burned through billions of pounds in its efforts to establish itself as a rival to terrestrial sports broadcasters.

Dazn was spun off from the former FTSE 250 gambling data company Perform by Sir Leonard’s Access Industries.

The 64-year-old Ukraine-born entre- preneur, the majority shareholder in record label Warner Music, bankrolled its losses in February, injecting a further $250m cash into the firm.

Despite his ongoing investment, insiders said the company had made significant cutbacks to its engineering teams in Europe. A spokesman confirmed the redundancies: “To achieve our ambitious vision of reshaping the way people around the world enjoy watching sports, we are continuously refining our operating model to support the business needs.

“This will necessarily result in a realignment of skills across the organisation in all our markets and departments; we are actually increasing our headcount globally.”

It is understood the company is creating additional engineering roles in a hub in India, although a source close to Dazn insisted this was to build extra capacity and that European roles were not being outsourced.