Dazn expands its sports rights portfolio with the acquisition of Eleven
Dazn has bought the global media activities of Eleven Group, a streaming platform that in Italy has the rights to Serie C and Basketball until 2025
Dazn expands into sports rights with Eleven Sports.
The sports video streaming platform (which in Italy has been awarded the Serie A rights for the three-year period 2021-2024) has reached an agreement for the acquisition of the global media activities of Eleven Group, an international provider for broadcasting in streaming of national and international sporting events. The company announced today, specifying that the transaction will strengthen its portfolio of rights, including the main football leagues in Portugal and Belgium.
Also, as the note explains, the deal gives Dazn access to Team Whistle, a sports content company popular on social media and owning the rights to European football, acquired by Eleven Sports last year.
Dazn said the deal will also complement its offering in Italy, German-speaking markets and Spain, where it already holds top-tier national football rights, and will take it to Taiwan and other Southeast Asian markets. . In Italy, Eleven holds the rights to the Serie C football, and basketball until 2025.
"This acquisition increases the scalability of our business – says the CEO of Dazn Group, Shay Segev – It is an important step forward to consolidate our mission to become the leading global sports entertainment platform".
As Axios recalls, “Dazn, like many sports media, faced severe headwinds at the start of the pandemic, as well as already being a loss-making business. Rather than exiting the markets, he doubled down on the content he was sure would eventually pay off in some of them. "
All the details.
THE OPERATION
Dazn has reached an agreement to acquire Eleven Group which also includes, as already mentioned, the acquisition of Team Whistle, the Eleven media company which is in the top ten of US sports media compiled by ComScore, with over 700 million followers.
Through the integration of Elevensports.com and the 40,000 matches streamed annually, the acquisition solidifies Dazn's role as a global benchmark for football, the company points out. Thanks to a strategic agreement, Eleven plays a key role in Fifa +, Fifa's Ott service, supporting the production, broadcasting and distribution of live sports matches for more than 90 FIFA member associations.
In addition, the two companies, together, will create the largest portfolio of content dedicated to women's football: Eleven boasts the rights to women's sports content relating to six different confederations that will add to Dazn's offering, which includes, among other things, the Uefa Women's Champions League, the Liga F in Spain, the English FA Women's Super League and Women's FA Cup and the Japanese WE League.
THE VALUE
The terms were not disclosed, "but the deal would contemplate the entry of Aser Ventures, a company from Radrizzani, into the capital of Dazn, with a stake of around 5%" reports MF .
THE GOVERNANCE
Upon completion of the agreement, the Italian entrepreneur Andrea Radrizzani, founder of Eleven, will join the board of Dazn as Executive Director and will support the development of the Dazn Group business. Radrizzani is the majority owner of the English Premier League club Leeds United.
WHAT IS ELEVEN
Founded in 2015, Eleven is a sports platform that offers world-class entertainment to fans around the world and broadcasts approximately 65,000 hours of live sports each year.
Marc Watson, CEO of Eleven Group underlined how "the union with Dazn will be transformative, allowing us to achieve greater economies of scale and a global platform for our talented team".
THE GROWTH OF DAZN
Thanks to this transaction, Dazn estimates total revenue growth of approximately $ 300 million per year. Additionally, according to the company, Dazn will expand within the sports content live streaming industry.
So far Dazn has expanded to more than 200 countries, offering sports including football and boxing. Last year the club won the broadcasting rights for Serie A matches in Italy with an offer of € 2.5 billion.
But the company still pursues profitability. Axios also recalls that Dazn lost $ 1.3 billion in both 2019 and 2020. The company struggled due to the live sports break caused by the pandemic. Dazn's main shareholder is Access Industries, a private holding company founded by Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik. Just last February, Blavatnik agreed on a recapitalization of Dazn of $ 4.3 billion. As described by Bloomberg , Access Industries converted existing preferred stock, withdrew loans and acquired new stock in the company. The move clears the debt from Dazn's books.
And now Dazn plans to become profitable faster by introducing new revenue streams, according to Axios .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/dazn-allarga-il-portafoglio-di-diritti-sportivi-con-lacquisizione-di-eleven/ on Tue, 27 Sep 2022 13:09:11 +0000.