To expand its position in the live sports streaming sphere, DAZN on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Eleven Group’s global sports media business, including U.S.-based Team Whistle.
In announcing the deal, DAZN – a subscription sports streaming service and platform - called out three key benefits, including entrance to new and expanded territories, generating new revenue streams on social media and other platforms, and expanded soccer rights – adding that the deal makes DAZN the largest holder of European sports rights.
Kevin Mayer, DAZN Chairman, in a statement called the deal a significant move.
“Eleven Group is an award-winning sports media company, and the platform has long interested us given the sheer size and diversity of sports content it offers to a highly engaged global customer base. As such, we see this deal consolidating the live sports streaming sector, where ‘big is beautiful’,” Mayer stated. “It establishes DAZN as a global leader and puts us in a strong position as we begin to introduce new products and services, taking advantage of the convergence of sports media and other entertainment verticals.”
Financial terms were not disclosed but DAZN said the purchase will introduce a growing c.$300 million a year to the group’s revenues.
“We’re confident this is a strong and positive investment for DAZN at a highly competitive price, allowing the business to take an important step forward in the delivery of our global ambitions to become the daily destination for sports fans,” Mayer added.
U.K.-based Eleven Group acquired Team Whistle in May 2021 in part to expand its presence in North America. Team Whistle, which is ranked as a top-ten U.S. sports media property on Comscore, boasts over 700 million followers and 32 million monthly active users, generating 4.7 billion views per month (2.4 billion monthly views in the U.S.), across its 1,655 distribution channels. Team Whistle distributes its original content across social, audio and AVOD platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Snap Chat, Instagram, Spotify, and Twitter, as well as podcasts.
The social aspect is one of the benefits DAZN expects to leverage from the Team Whistle media business, enabling it to reach younger audiences, diversify and grow its fan engagement capabilities and maximize the value of the company’s existing assets and content rights portfolio via new formats and audiences.
In the announcement, Mayer pointed to Team Whistle’s reach and expertise in short-form content.
“Team Whistle is a growing business that has a proven track record in monetising short form content,” Mayer stated. “It will be hugely valuable to DAZN as we look to generate the maximum value from our enviable rights portfolio, creating new formats of content to reach new audiences and generate powerful incremental revenue streams. We look forward to welcoming all our new colleagues.”
Expanding to new territories, nabbing more sports rights
Another key benefit for DAZN is expanding its geographical presence.
Once completed, DAZN will be the broadcaster of top soccer leagues in Portugal and Belgium, with Eleven Group’s businesses complementing DAZN’s existing presence in Italy, and Spain, where the company already holds domestic soccer rights. DAZN already has a leading position in Japan, and the company said the deal will give it a stronger foothold in the region thanks to Eleven’s presence in Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
DAZN is aiming to build out a global platform and become “a one-stop shop for everything a sports fan wants” – including access to the largest library of live and on-demand content, analysis, highlights, merchandise, ticketing, gaming and betting.
In 2020 DAZN had an earlier expansion that turned up service in more than 200 countries and territories.
Eleven also brings DAZN more soccer and other sports rights with the integration of ELEVENsports.com, which streams 40,000 games each year. Those span the Premiere League, AFC and more. Eleven also supports production, delivery and distribution of live games for FIFA’s OTT service FIFA+.
“One of the many appeals of this deal is the global rights that ELEVEN brings to the table. On DAZN we are on a mission to offer fans the broadest range of exciting sports content alongside our top tier premium content,” said DAZN CEO Shay Segev. “Acquiring Eleven accelerates our ability to do that.”
Eleven’s website also broadcasts top female sports tournaments such as the Women’s Super League in Belgium and FIBA Women’s Basketball Cup.
“In fact, combined this acquisition will create the world’s strongest women’s football offering: an exciting proposition at a time when interest in women’s football in the UK at least is as at an all-time high and a reflection of our longstanding belief in the commercial opportunity women’s sport provides,” Mayer said.
Though it’s not just women’s sports, as Eleven has a rights portfolio across Europe and Asia including the UEFA Champions League, Premiere League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, NBA, NFL and AFC – which after the deal closes DAZN said will reflect the “broadest and most diverse portfolio of sports rights in Europe.”
Marc Watson, CEO Eleven Group, said that “the overwhelming proportion of rights on elevensports.com are either exclusive globally or have very few territorial limits.”
Overall, DAZN said its ambitions go beyond broadcasting. Without specifying a timeline, the company said that DAZN customers will soon be able to not only watch sports content “but listen to and read about sport, play games and bet, buy sporting NFTs, tickets, and merchandise.”
Once the deal closes, Eleven founder Andrea Radrizzani will join DAZN’s board as an executive director and support the DAZN Group’s business development.
The company said a deal completion date is not yet known as the transaction must first pass anti-trust review.