DAZN to acquire ELEVEN in bid to dominate all European football coverage  

DAZN has entered an agreement to acquire the media division of football streaming OTT competitor ELEVEN Group in a power play to dominate European football broadcasts. 

The deal, announced this morning, saw DAZN declare that it will become the “largest holder of European sports rights”, as its business will net a further 40,000 live events per year taking control of the ElevenSports.com platform. 

Expanding its European footprint, DAZN will become the lead OTT broadcaster of Liga Portugal and Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League – bolstering its existing European top-flight coverage of Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga.   

“The deal will introduce a growing $300m a year to DAZN Group’s revenues,” read DAZN’s acquisition statement.

DAZN CEO Shay Segev, commented: “The acquisition adds scale to our business. It is a big step forward in our mission to be the leading global sports platform. I have a great deal of respect for what Andrea, Marc and the team have achieved and look forward to working with them as we further expand our ambitions.

“Together we form the strongest and most credible management team in the sector. DAZN has invested in building a revolutionary digital sports platform, where fans can enjoy the full range of interactive sport entertainment. We are looking forward to expanding these capabilities to new markets as well as leveraging ELEVEN’s capabilities in DAZN.”

Founded in 2015 by Italian media mogul and current Leeds United Chairman Andrea Radrizzani, ELEVEN launched its OTT platform as a dedicated football streaming service catering to digital audiences whilst seeking to disrupt the traditional formats of European media owners broadcasting football matches.

Since its inception, ELEVEN has built its OTT network to host over “65,000 hours of live content over the past year”.

“We have developed a successful sports media company in the last six years with ELEVEN, and we’re delighted that this journey continues. The merger will provide greater opportunities as a group to continue to build a global destination for sports fans, which was our mission from day one.” – Read a statement by founder Andrea Radrizzani who, upon completion of the deal, will join DAZN’s board as an executive director.

The deal will further see DAZN take control of ELEVEN’s dedicated social media unit Team Whistle, who are ranked within the top 10 US media sports properties on ComScore with over 700m followers across its channels

Additionally, the company has a growing distribution network that generates around five billion views per month across social platforms.

Marc Watson, CEO of ELEVEN Group, said: “We see DAZN as the future of digital sports broadcasting and the ideal home for ELEVEN. Sport is global entertainment and joining with DAZN will be transformative, allowing us to access greater economies of scale and a global platform for our talented team. We couldn’t be more excited about this deal, and I’m really looking forward to working with Shay and the team at DAZN.”

The acquisition of ELEVEN and Team Whistle are marked as critical for the next phase of DAZN’s development of its technology platform to become the “one-stop-shop for all sports engagements”.

DAZN seeks to create a single destination for global sports information, retail, ticket purchasing, sports betting, on-demand media, NFTs and Web 3.0 innovations.  

The deal is subject to an anti-trust review; as such, the completion date remains unknown. Guggenheim Securities acted as financial advisor to ELEVEN Group on this transaction.