How DAZN Monetizes Premium Live Sports Streams
Even as a leading global disruptor in premium sports rights acquisition and content delivery, DAZN must contend with the practical realities of serving customers in a broader sports streaming marketplace, and advertising and monetization strategy is inevitably more complicated than youi might expect, says DAZN Global CRO and President USA Walker Jacobs. Customization, fanbase-building, and more factor into the monetization equation, as Jacobs tells Reality Software’s Nadine Krefetz in their candid fireside chat from Streaming Media NYC 2024.
Ad Format Innovation and Market Realities
Krefetz asks if most of DAZN's ad revenue comes from the traditional sources--15- and 30-second ads--and how much more non-traditional or innovative ad formats come into play with premium sports streaming in 2024.
"The practical reality is, we are one participant in a broader marketplace, and that is the currency that the marketplace trades in," Jacobs says. "And so the name of the game, if you're a digital disruptor, there's a really significant pot of money over here that's traded in the form of 30s, and the marketplace wants to equivalize the marketplace in order to shift budgets. I don't know if that's necessarily what it will look like in 10 years, but that's the starting point right now because that's the marketplace reality. So we can sit here and talk about, 'Oh my gosh, we should be doing more branded integrations and we should be doing nontraditional, and we should be thinking of innovative new currencies and new measurements and all that stuff.' But at the end of the day, we're providing a service to customers, and customers are defining how they want to invest, and we're here to serve that."
The other key factor besides audience expectations, Walker explains, is the structural rigidity of live sports broadcasts, which depends largely on the flow of the match that DAZN is delivering.
"Most of the rights we're buying are pre-formatted," Walker says. "It's a live game. There's natural commercial breaks it. The consumer isn't like, 'Oh my God, I'm missing the game, because you're showing commercials.' The game stops. And so what we're bidding on when we buy the rights is a pre-formatted game designed for 30s. For that to change, it's not just our desire to change it; the entire marketplace, including the rights holder and how they're selling their rights and what they're allowing their broadcast partners to do, and how marketers want to invest. All of those things would have to change for us to get away from just trading in 30s."
Fans in the Zone
All that said, Jacobs says, DAZN does find ways to vary the fan experience and bring them closer the game than traditional linear broadcasts typically allow. And that means offering new opportunities to brands as well.
"There's a lot of innovation around new formats, new viewership," he explains. "We have a product called FanZone that is not dissimilar from Twitch in that it's a fan-based community with live chat and integrations and polling and contest. It's really fun way to watch live sports."
In Germany and some other countries where regulations allow, Jacobs continues, DAZN offers product called DAZN Bet, which gives fans in-game opportunities "to wager on what's going to happen next in the game. It's excellent for engagement and consumers that like that type of experience."
Tiers for Casual Fans and Superfans
Regarding more basic levels of access, and how fans can opt in to see the sports they want to watch in an increasingly fragmented and labyrinthine sports viewing environment, Krefetz asks, "Is this a subscription service? A free service? How do people get it?"
"In the U.S., it's a subscription service," Jacobs replies. "It's $29.99 a month, the first month free. The price varies depending on the country." (As of late 2022, DAZN was broadcasting in 225 countries.)
"But more and more and more of our programming is windowed in front of the paywall," he continues. "So what we're trying to do is understand that different cohorts of consumers have a different threshold. For example, we've been really aggressive in Germany. We have some of the best rights in the German marketplace, including UEFA Champions League, including Bundes, Liga. Every single match day for the entire season, at least one match is in front of the paywall. So there's always action you can come watch on DAZN. Now, if you you're a superfan that wants to watch every FC Bayern Munich game, that has a different pricing threshold. But it's still more economical to subscribe to our service than it is to be buying tickets and going to games."
See more highlights and interviews from SMNYC.
Watch full sessions from SMNYC on-demand.
Join us in August 2024 for more thought leadership, actionable insights, and lively debate at Streaming Media Connect.
Related Articles
Boston-based consulting firm Altman Solon recently released "Going for Gold: The Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, media, and digital native fans," which used their annual Global Sports Survey findings to understand how broadcasters are adapting their 2024 Summer Olympics coverage to appeal to a digitally native fan base. David Dellea, Partner, Altman Solon, talks with Streaming Media's Tyler Nesler in-depth about the findings of this survey, and he provides his professional insights and expertise into the rapidly evolving sports media business.
01 Aug 2024
Delivering premium content to broad audiences means acclimating to the viewing habits of different consumer demographics, which can make serving younger viewers with typically longform content like live sports challenging for sports streamers like DAZN. In this clip from Streaming Media NYC 2024, DAZN Global CRO and President USA Walker Jacobs discusses the engagement curves of social and CTV viewers and how DAZN has learned to lean into them.
10 Jul 2024
Looking ahead to the future of CTV, PepsiCo Head of Media Strategy & Investment Katie Haniffy sees shoppable advertising, investing more in live events on streaming platforms, and maintaining cultural relevance as key elements of new initiatives to leverage the emerging possibilities of CTV advertising and build fan bases, as she explains in this clip from her fireside chat with OMD U.S. Head of Video Investment & Activation Suzanne Irving at Streaming Media NYC.
26 Jun 2024
For "data machines" like Google, the problem is never having too little customer data—it's all about managing the data overload to pinpoint the right data to leverage to build customized, targeted, personalized experiences that satisfy users and keep them engaged. Increasingly, according to Google TV Product Manager UX Rob Caruso in this interview with Media Universe Cartographer Evan Shapiro at Streaming Media NYC, it's working with partners to identify the right mix of first-party and partner data to take personalization to the next level.
24 Jun 2024
The first measure of sports streaming success is replicating the cable/broadcast experience, but AWS' Julie Neenan Souza insists that sports streamers should be aiming higher when it comes to leveraging streaming's core strengths, from interactivity to betting to personalization to live ecommerce. Meanwhile ViewLift's Chance Mason contends that the key to next-level sports streaming delivery is streaming infrastructure companies like AWS embracing their emerging role as D2C media companies and partnering with sports leagues and sports rights holders at that level. Souza, Mason, and Altman Solon's Matt del Percio discuss these and other emerging opportunities for sports streaming in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.
22 Apr 2024
Live content is led by sports, and fan appetite—much like bidding for rights—shows no sign of slowing down as the calendar turns to 2024.
04 Apr 2024
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned