DTVE Data Weekly: DAZN 2023 revenue performance

The most recent DAZN Group financial report shows revenue jumped by 41% to reach $2.2bn in 2022, chiefly due to subscription price increases and the domestic rights to Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and Spain’s LaLiga enticing new customers.

However, revenue from the group’s broadcast partnerships fell by $19.9m to reach $74.7m, a factor DAZN attributes to “competition cyclicality.” It also recorded an operating loss of $1.06bn (€969m) in 2022, although this is an improvement from the previous year, where it lost $1.35bn.

In 2023, DAZN saw some key highlights, including the acquisition of domestic streaming rights to toptier Spanish men’s soccer division LaLiga until 2027 and the launch of the DAZN Bet sportsbook and gaming brand.

DAZN claims 20m subscribers as of January 2024, although this figure refers to customers that have had an account with DAZN during the previous year, including large swaths of customers that churned over this period. Indeed, customer numbers continued to decline in many of DAZN’s top markets in 2023 as prices continued to rise, a point corroborated by Serie A’s CEO Luigi De Siervo, who put DAZN’s Italian customer base at around 2m inz3Q23, down from 2.5m in 2022.

DAZN is still keen on acquiring the rights to the English Premier League, part of its objective to become
the main global destination platform for sports fans. At present, though, DAZN has prioritized company sustainability over making any bold moves into such a competitive market. However, DAZN believes that it can grow in other places and is particularly keen on Ligue 1 in France. Timing and opportunity will, therefore, be the salient factors here.

Rob Moyser is Omdia’s senior analyst of TV & online video