Sir Leonard Blavatnik has invested a further $827m into his sports streaming service DAZN.
The Financial Times (FT) reported that Blavatnik’s latest finance injection in DAZN takes his total investment to more than $6.7bn since it was founded in 2016.
The FT said that DAZN had about 300 million monthly customers around the world in 2023, according to company insiders, but only around 20 million paying subscribers. Rights costs were $3.1bn in 2023.
Last year, DAZN agreed a deal with FIFA to become the exclusive global broadcaster of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 and also secured extensive domestic rights to Ligue 1 French football. These added to its existing roster of domestic rights to key European football leagues, including Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A.
In December 2024, it struck its biggest deal yet, agreeing to buy Foxtel from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Telstra in a $2.1bn deal which includes control of its portfolio of domestic and international sports right broadcast rights including cricket, the Australian Football League and National Rugby League.
As part of the deal, the former owners of Foxtel are taking a 9% stake in DAZN to make them the second largest shareholders in the company. The FT said the deal values DAZN at close to $10bn.
The paper also reported that DAZN is seeking investment from the Middle East to support its plans to become “the Spotify of sport.”
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