Fifa+ deal to boost Dazn’s quest for first profit, says CEO
Dazn CEO Shay Segev insists the global sport streaming platform will make money from hosting Fifa+, the world governing body’s mothballed direct-to-consumer product.
Fifa+, which comprises archive footage, live games from obscure competitions and magazine shows, is now only available on Dazn after Fifa pulled the plug on its four-year-old D2C offering.
Segev told City AM that the deal included “a direct revenue line” and would also lead to increased advertising spend as well as potential upselling of premium subscriptions.
Dazn, best known for premium boxing content, has been loss-making throughout its nine-year history, relying on $7bn in funding from owner Sir Len Blavatnik, but previously targeted profitability this year.
“There is monetisation here. I mean, this deal by itself is profitable for us,” he said. “It will accelerate our engagement, number of customers, and revenues. There is a direct revenue line. It’s not very big.
“Dazn is already a big business. It’s more than $6bn in revenues, so by signing it we’re not drawing big percentages, but it’s very strategic in terms of it is the core of what we do.”
Why has Fifa+ moved onto Dazn?
For Fifa, the move extends the reach of its content – a particular benefit to around 100 smaller nations whose domestic matches are live streamed on Fifa+.
For Dazn, it is also about relationships, not least with Fifa, from whom it bought exclusive global rights to last summer’s first revamped Club World Cup.
Segev added: “Clearly our platform is all about growing audiences, and if we grow audiences, people coming in either spend by watching content or we can monetise it through advertising,
“Advertising now is around 10 per cent of the revenues of Dazn, and it’s growing double digit, so it’s a big part. A big KPI for us is to grow engagement, grow the number of customers on the platform, and grow the number of hours that these customers watch on the platform. This is a very linear correlation with revenues.
“Then the other thing is that as we grow the audiences in more and more markets, it makes it easier for us to develop more relationships with more football leagues or football associations and bring also other premium packages as well.”
Dazn ‘has big plans with Fifa’
Segev said the deal marked the next phase of its relationship with Fifa, and predicted more collaborations in the near future.
“This is the next step, where they basically shut down their digital platform, which is a big decision. Think about how complex something like this can be for organisations like Fifa – all of the digital and member associations products into Dazn.
“This is a big statement, and now they are going to focus. We’re going to focus on the World Cup, and then after that, we’re going to see how we can grow more. We have big plans together with Fifa to do more, but again, we take it one step at a time.”
Fifa+ has archive footage from previous World Cups but will not be showing any of this summer’s tournament, which begins in Mexico on Thursday.
Dazn does have the most comprehensive rights to show the 2026 World Cup in Spain, Italy and Japan, however, where free-to-air channels boast only a handful of games.
Beyond that, it plans to capitalise on football fever with a social-first content series, Dazn48, revolving around influencers drawn from each of the nations competing at the World Cup.
Broadcasting ‘is not leagues’ core expertise’
Fifa+ is just the latest D2C product from a major sports organisation to join Dazn, which, like Amazon Prime, has built out its offering of third-party content.
Dazn now boasts NFL Game Pass, NHL.TV and Fiba basketball content and last year acquitted US business View Lift in a bid to woo individual NBA and NHL teams.
“Broadcasting or streaming live events at scale globally with all of the localisation, service, distribution, device compatibility and now all the new technologies around AI and interactive communities – it’s something that I don’t see many people can replicate,” he said.
“We have like 2,000 IT people developing all of these services. There are, of course, solutions that can provide a very basic streaming service, but if you are a league or organisation, you want your content to be widely distributed by a professional platform who will also market and service it.
“I think many leagues, who in the past tried to do it themselves, they realise this is not their core expertise. It’s like us trying to manage the NFL or football tournaments.
“We have a big pipeline. This is one of the reasons we acquired View Lift, because we see more and more organisations want to be where the fans are, on a better platform, which will allow them to grow.”