56 XTREME DAZN
been clever, and fortunate perhaps, in the rights it has acquired so far and is using them to create positive synergies around sport and content. Since DAZN began to stream games from the J.League in Japan, popularity in the league has shot up, further increasingly the popularity of DAZN’s streaming offering. And DAZN’s showing of the Mayweather vs McGregor fight in three of its territories, though a coup in itself, is sure to drive interest in its other boxing and big event content. High-impact content can be a promotion for the entire platform. Everybody loves a football match, and it’s not hard to attract viewers when you own some pretty decent football rights, but what about other niche sports – curling, sumo wrestling, roller derby? There are sports that may not be global giants in terms of audience share, but in terms of raw numbers have a huge number of fans. “We don’t use the term ‘niche’,” says Parmenter. “If rugby, handball or darts is your sport in Germany, for example, you can choose to watch it. At a traditional broadcaster the scheduler might ‘choose’ a football match over the rugby match, but with our service the choice is in the hands of the customer. It’s the nature of OTT – where we’re not beholden to scheduling restraints. “Globally DAZN regularly puts out around 40 live events at any one time, so fans can watch the teams and sports they support rather than the ones broadcasters choose to show. Our approach is about giving all sport the space to be seen.” And the range of sports on DAZN is broad.
AT DAZNWE HAVE A BRUTAL FOCUS ON THE QUALITY OF OUR TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE
Even after only a year and a half running, DAZN has rights for a considerable number of events across football, cricket, rugby, basketball, American football, baseball (including the hugely popular Nippon League), field and ice hockey, a wide variety of motorsports (including F1 and the Red Bull Air Race), tennis, table tennis, combat sports, darts and cue sports, volleyball and gymnastics. BRUTAL FOCUS The infrastructure for DAZN was developed in-house at DAZN’s parent company, Perform Group. The company was formed
from the merger of sport broadcasting network Premium TV Limited and sports rights agency the Inform Group. The company made several other sports industry acquisitions, including the purchase of two sports data companies. In hindsight, it seems inevitable that the company would launch its own sports content platform, and OTT was the obvious route to it. The technology underpinning the DAZN launch was developed in-house and the company is diligent about keeping its technology in a state of continuous development with an emphasis on quality. “At DAZN we have a brutal focus on the
PETER PARMENTER: “It’s about delivering the best possible video experience wherever you are, whatever devices you’re using”
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