Billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik injects £630m to prop up Netflix-rival DAZN as losses mount
Billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik has injected a further $827m (£630m) into streaming giant DAZN in a bid to become a major rival to Netflix.
The businessman has now invested more than $6.7bn (£5.3bn) in the London-based sports streaming service, according to newly-filed accounts with Companies House.
DAZN is owned by Access Industries, a New York-based private holding company founded by Ukrainian-born Sir Leonard in 1986.
The company was created in 2007 following the merger of Premium TV Limited and Inform Group.
The new results also show that DAZN’s revenue increased from $2.19bn to $2.86bn in 2023, even as pre-tax losses widened from $1.20bn to $1.43bn.
The rise in DAZN’s revenue was due to an increase in subscribers, a rise in the average revenue per user, new products and services as well as growing advertising income.
Speaking to the Financial Times before the accounts were made public, CEO Shay Segev said the company is now profitable in the majority of the top ten markets in which it operates.
He added that he expected DAZN’s revenue to pass the $6bn mark in 2025.
The CEO said that increase would be partly driven by extra income from its $2.2bn acquisition of Australian pay-TV giant, Foxtel, as well as the $1bn deal for rights to the 2025 Fifa Club World Cup.
DAZN had around 300m monthly customers across the world in 2023 but only about 20m paying subscribers.
The company received $240m through ordinary and preference shares funding from Access Industries as well as $587m “to support growth” in return for further preference shares in 2024.
The accounts also show that DAZN has further sports rights commitments of $9.3bn.