DAZN, a London-based sports streaming company, is hoping to complete a deal for the purchase of British Telecom’s BT Sport, although this has not yet been confirmed.
DAZN was founded in 2015 and is majority owned by the Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who also owns Warner Music. DAZN is strong in combat sports and American football. The deal would expand its coverage of UK-based sport which lags its US offer. The company had revenues of $877m in 2019.
A sale of the BT Sports business, which was launched in 2013, would mark the end of the telco’s aim to compete with Sky TV which has proved costly in terms of bidding for the rights to premium sports including football-soccer. BT Sport has 2m subscribers and is said to be break-even after heavy losses in earlier years. BT now wants to focus on 5G and full-fibre. Of course.
