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- FuboTV describes rights fee as “fair value” for a “great property”
- DAZN misses out on renewing key part of soccer rights portfolio
Sports-focused streaming service FuboTV has secured an exclusive broadcast partnership with English soccer’s Premier League in Canada.
FuboTV’s deal, which the company’s head of content strategy and acquisition Ben Grad described as “fair value” for a “great property”, covers all 380 matches per year from the start of next season and runs until the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
“The Premier League is considered to be the best soccer league in the world and has a huge fanbase in Canada,” said David Gandler, FuboTV co-founder and chief executive.
“This deal allows us to bring yet another top-notch property to FuboTV, further differentiating our content offering, and giving Canadians another reason to cut the cord for exciting, exclusive sports content.”
In a recent financial statement, FuboTV said it expects to exceed 1.5 million subscribers in North America by the end of its 2022 financial year and to generate more than US$1 billion in revenue for the first time.
Vanessa Morbi, FuboTV’s vice president of marketing, told the Globe and Mail news outlet that the Premier League rights represent a “really meaningful offering” for expanding the platform’s presence in the Canadian market.
“As we were analysing the opportunity, this made a lot of sense for Fubo,” she added. “We’re very confident around the appetite for [the Premier League] in Canada and really excited about the fanbase.”
FuboTV takes over the rights to English soccer’s top flight from DAZN, with the UK-based media company’s contract expiring at the end of the ongoing 2021/22 season.
Norm Lem, senior vice president of revenue at DAZN Canada, said the streaming platform will “continuously explore opportunities to further expand both our live sports and original content offering”.
SportsPro says…
The deal marks FuboTV’s most high-profile rights acquisition in any territory and it is clear the media company is building its offering in Canada around soccer.
FuboTV’s aggregated broadcast platform in Canada also includes the BeIN Sports channels, Mediapro’s OneSoccer, Benfica TV, and its in-house Fubo Sports Network. The inclusion of BeIN and OneSoccer means that FuboTV viewers will have access to the Premier League, the Canadian Premier League (CPL), Serie A and Ligue 1 from the start of the 2022/23 season.
For DAZN, losing the Premier League is a blow, but it still boasts the National Football League (NFL) and Uefa Champions League in its rights portfolio.
