Blog: MLB

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DAZN financials: Growth reliant on premium domestic rights

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Alistair Taylor
DAZN’s 2018 financials highlighted the difficulty of encouraging a transition to consume live sports digitally with its existing portfolio of rights. DAZN has not yet released its 2019 financials, but MIDiA has constructed a robust and accurate subscriber and revenue model for the sport-centric streaming service which will be published in full as part of our DAZN Financials and Subscriber Deep Dive report.
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Reach for the win: BT Sport to air UEFA Champions League final on YouTube

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Alistair Taylor
UK pay-TV incumbent BT Sport has announced it will air this year’s (COVID-delayed) UEFA Champions League (UCL) final free-to-air (FTA) on Google-owned YouTube. YouTube’s head of sport in EMEA, Tomos Grace confirmed the move with SportsPro Media :“BT Sport have been amazing partners for YouTube and we’re very privileged to be working with them.
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Disney+ Recovers From Initial Blunder to Surpass 10 Million Sign Ups on Debut!

Cover image for Disney+ Recovers From Initial Blunder to Surpass 10 Million Sign Ups on Debut!
Alistair Taylor
Disney claims unexpected traffic on its newly-launched service was at fault for the buffering and technical issues of Disney+’s launch Tuesday . The issues highlight just how difficult it is transitioning from a media company to a tech player, with technical glitches an enormous issue for digital-native subscribers.
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Why the UFC Wants to Replicate the Yao Ming effect

Alistair Taylor
The NBA is the third highest grossing league globally, generating $7.4 billion in 2017, behind domestic rivals MLB and NFL. Whereas the MLB and NFL have largely struggled to entice a truly global following, the NBA have become synonymous with Chinese sports fans, and offers a template for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to grow its international fanbase.
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ESPN+ leverages UFC appeal to double subscriber base to 2 million in five months

Alistair Taylor
Disney announced in its Q1 earnings call on Tuesday that its sports-centric streaming service ESPN+ had surpassed two million subscribers, doubling its subscriber base in less than five months. Launched in April 2018 , Disney revealed in September 2018 that it had taken less than five months to surpass one million subscribers .
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DAZN Stepping Up Its Domestic Rights Offering – Insurgent come Enforcer?

Alistair Taylor
Having grown its portfolio for premium international and domestic sporting rights, DAZN is now starting to graduate from a disruptor into an established part of the landscape. Emphasised by its latest plan, aiming to snap up domestic Bundesliga rights in Germany for 2021–2025 (provided the terms are economically viable for the SVOD service), and thus significantly upgrade its German market value proposition.
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