SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Stating its intent on becoming the lead OTT (Over-the-Top) platform for the Spanish sports broadcasting market, the leadership of DAZN is reported to be seeking a content collaboration with telecoms giant Telefonica.
Well backed DAZN, an enterprise seeking to establish itself globally as the ‘Netflix of sports’, is set to launch its Spanish OTT proposition next month, with Spain becoming the eighth DAZN streaming territory (Canada, US, Japan, Euro DACH and Italy).
Confirming its planned entry into the Spanish sports market last November, DAZN governance revealed that it had secured the exclusive live media rights to broadcast English Premier League, MotoGP and EuroBasket content for Spanish audiences.
On Monday, Spanish news source El Pais reported that DAZN leadership had held discussions with Telefonica seeking to co-broadcast its Movistar ‘La Liga Partidazo’ and Champions League match content for the remainder of the 2019/2020 European football season.
As the nation’s leading mobile and telecoms carrier (+78% of market share), Telefonica is obliged by CNMC Espana competition watchdog to review any offer put forward by DAZN as the market’s new incumbent, seeking to deliver a new technology vertical to Spanish consumers.
Telefonica has yet to confirm whether DAZN leadership followed through with an OTT offer, however, El Pais details that bid values will be disclosed by CNMC to ensure market clarity.
Further to its news report, El Pais details that the Spanish sports broadcasting market may prove to be DAZN’s hardest European proposition to date.
Dealing with a unique sports audience, the Spanish newspaper points to competitor BEIN sports market struggles in establishing its dedicated Champions League channel which was launched in 2016.
Furthermore, in 2018 Spanish OTT audiences were left burnt by new platform OpenSport, which could not fulfil payment of its football contract with Telefonica for Champions League and La Liga content, forcing the telecoms firm to cancel its contract.
