SVG Sit-Down: DAZN's Walker Jacobs Calls Streaming the FIFA Club World Cup The Most Ambitious Thing We've Ever Done in the U.S.' The FIFA Club World Cup begins Saturday with the final set for July 13 By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Friday, June 13, 2025 - 7:00 am
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The new FIFA Club World Cup kicks off this weekend, bringing 32 of soccer's best clubs to the U.S. to battle in a tournament unlike anything seen in the sport.
All 63 fixtures will be streamed for free both domestically and globally by DAZN, which is putting the full force of its direct-to-consumer platform and digital partnerships behind the event, aiming to engage audiences and drive users to its product.
SVG caught up with Walker Jacobs, global chief revenue officer/president, USA, DAZN, to discuss the company's approach to the tournament, its strategy around distribution and free access, and why this tournament represents a watershed moment for DAZN in the U.S. market.
What's the energy like around your team leading up to kickoff of this event?
This is a completely new tournament. I would say there's a lot of anticipation. One of the things that has been unique about this is that we reached the agreement with FIFA to become the global broadcast partner and announced it in December. That's a pretty compressed timeline to be planning something of this magnitude. The teams have been somewhere between incredibly busy and incredibly excited and a little bit anxious to get to this point. I think there's a lot of real excitement and energy around the tournament, and we're seeing the impact of it on our business. To have the opportunity to work with an organization as storied and as global as FIFA has been really, really exciting for us. Getting to work with our partners on this tournament has been incredibly exciting. So I would describe the energy around the office as eagerly anticipating the start of this.
You've decided to stream the event for free. What was the thinking behind that strategy?
Right from the beginning in our conversations with FIFA, we agreed that we wanted to make the tournament for free globally. That was one of the guiding principles of our approach to this year's tournament from the beginning. What it does for us is help us open up our brand, our business, and our product to the maximum number of users worldwide.
In terms of our broadcast partners, we are simulcasting 24 matches on TNT Sports [in the U.S.] and 18 matches in Spanish language in the U.S. on TelevisaUnivision Networks. We do that for a number of reasons. Those aren't just television-distribution partnerships; they're much more comprehensive partnerships, where we're partnering across the tournament overall. The two companies have a high level of expertise in understanding the American sports fan and the American viewer. They bring a lot to the table; we're partnering on everything from our team of talent to our studio shows, [which will be run] out of the TNT Sports studios in Atlanta and the TelevisaUnivision Studios in Mexico City.
We, of course, work with them on ad sales and sponsorship sales. We work with them on our production of the tournament end to end. We work with them on our promotional schedule. If you've been watching the NBA postseason or Roland Garros or the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Warner Brothers Discovery networks, you will have seen a ton of promotion for the FIFA Club World Cup. Similarly, on the Univision Networks, if you've been watching Liga MX or UEFA Champions League, you would've seen a ton of promotion for this event. Those are all things that help us, and we're excited about those partnerships.
Beyond that, we're putting all 63 matches on DAZN for free. The fact that we'll have a large number of matches exclusive on DAZN, we think, is going to help drive a large audience of people to download and use our app. We think they're going to be delighted when they discover it and all the things that make our service special and unique. We're excited to welcome new people to our service.
What about this new event made DAZN want to step in and be a global broadcaster for it?
We have a long and storied history as a club-football broadcaster in Europe. We work with La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the English Premier League, and UEFA Champions League, the J.League in Japan. When you look at the clubs participating in this event, we have a lot of familiarity with them, and I think we're already thought of, in many parts of the world, as the home of club football.
Most of these teams have never had an occasion to play each other internationally in a competition. When you take the top clubs from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Africa, and Asia and put them in a competitive match against the top clubs from Europe, we think, it's going to unlock unpredictable and exciting storylines. We think it's going to become one of the most important tournaments and, hopefully, the most important club tournament on a four-year cycle with the goal of naming the top club in the world. That's something we've never been able to do before and something we're excited to get to be a part of.
Let's talk U.S. market specifically. What does success look like for this tournament here in the States?
We think that, on a global basis, this will be the most streamed sporting event in history. We think hundreds of millions of viewers are going to stream this tournament using our service.
Specifically, I think, DAZN has built its reputation in the U.S. as a leader in combat sports. In the U.S. in particular, boxing is probably what we're best-known for. We'll do about 125 nights a year of live boxing streaming on DAZN. We're known for doing the biggest,
