DAZN reveals how new off-platform, free-to-air strategy is helping to grow markets and sports YouTube and Facebook used to raise profile ahead of service launches By Heather McLean, Editor
Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - 19:11
Print This Story
Live and on-demand sports streaming service DAZN recently launched in Brazil with great success thanks to its targeted use of a new off-platform, free to air strategy.
Speaking at the Oval cricket ground with technical partner Grabyo, Sarah Beattie, vice president for communications and new markets at DAZN, explained how and why the company has adjusted its strategy from premium content only over the last few months of 2019.
Beattie commented on how DAZN's off-platform strategy has evolved. She said it is, the biggest shift we've made in the last three to six months, in terms of really understanding what level of content we are prepared to put out there on our social channels, free, working with a partner or working with a sub-license agreement to grow an audience, grow a sport, grow engagement.
DAZN deployed more than 20 cameras throughout T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday 4 May to cover a middleweight championship bout between Canelo Alvarez (pictured) and Daniel Jacobs
It's quite timely because I think women's sport is one of those areas where that is absolutely key, she continued. In order to grow audiences around women's sport, the worst thing we could do would be to buy up all the women's sport and stick it behind a paywall. It's a huge part of our strategy to grow that audience, whether that's through our own social channels or working with other broadcasters.
Beattie said live sport is the cornerstone of DAZN's proposition, but that it is moving into other, free to access forms of content now, aiming to pull viewers into its live, paid-for, premium content. She noted: Around 60% of our [live] viewing is done on the TV at home, but it's how we can provide the flexibility. The route into that in the first place is adapting to people's lifestyles, so when they do have to leave that live sport game they can still carry on watching on their device when they're at a kids party or sitting at the back of a wedding.
Off-platform strategy in action
Beattie commented that what DAZN has done in Brazil is a good example of how it is putting this off-platform and social strategy into action. The company used all the tools at its disposal during its pre-launch period in the country earlier this year.
She referred to DAZN's use of exclusive content, activating brand ambassadors, and leveraging partnerships with the likes of YouTube and Facebook to the best effect. DAZN began broadcasting exclusive football fixtures on social media in the run up to its official launch on 9 May in order to gain traction in the market, and it was off the scale successful, Beattie laughed. We had the largest stream ever on YouTube in Brazil; we had a million subscribers to our YouTube channel in under three months of launching it. It literally took us all by surprise.
She continued: The challenge now as we grow our content portfolio for DAZN live is how do we make sure we capitalise on that and move people over into an environment while continuing to engage them. So I think you'll see more of that from us as we launch more new markets; how do we use our free to air [content] in our platform to really drive awareness and engagement ahead of launching live, but also how do we use it in interesting ways around key live events.
Beattie went on: In terms of consumption and device usage, on the role of video going forward and 5G coming in, it's a massive opportunity for us [but] how we use content, and parts of that [content], getting people onto a live platform, become muddier. The role of content in an off-platform environment [therefore] becomes very interesting.
She noted that the company has also been creating original content over the last year to give viewers a more behind the scenes view of sport, as well as the live game. This type of content has been used by DAZN to engage viewers, and also to reinvigorate flagging sports such as boxing in the US and MotoGP in Spain, and Beattie hinted that it is something the company will turn to more going forward for women's sports, such as football.
Beattie said: You [will have] seen a move from us recently into more original content; in certain sports it makes sense for us to have that exclusively, and in other sports exclusivity isn't as important. Highlights are very, very useful, particularly in time zones where the content is important but the time you're able to watch it live doesn't matter. And then the original content we're now using to wrap around live, to draw people in and keep them on the platform is really, really important.
Changing times for rights and revenues
Regarding how DAZN can do more in the world of women's sport, Beattie noted: We're reaching a really interesting point with the sports industry at the moment, particularly from a rights holder perspective and a federation perspective. Revenues are declining; that's a challenge, for linear broadcasters as well. A lot of people base a focus on one sport in one market, and if they lose that that's going to be pretty detrimental to their entire business plan.
I think flexibility and the ability to engage in content and engage with a brand in a meaningful way is something that has really changed the way that we're seeing people engage with our brand and our content. So what we put out on social, what we put out on a free to air environment, how people engage with premium content has really changed dramatically, she continued.
DAZN is creating the best of both worlds, with free and original content as well as premium content behind
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
DAZN reveals how new off-platform, free-to-air strategy is helping to grow markets and sports YouTube and Facebook used to raise profile ahead of service launches By Heather McLean, Editor 
