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Sports-media venture Perform wants to be the "Netflix of sports," but it's got competition.
The U.K.-based company boasts premium rights to the NFL and NBA in Germany, as well as premiere soccer leagues. It's intent on giving fans access to any sport they want, at any time, for a low monthly subscription fee.
On Wednesday, Perform and British broadcaster Sky won the rights to show Italy’s top-flight Serie A soccer matches until 2021 for more than $1.2 billion a season, Italy’s soccer league chairman said.
Last month, Perform debuted in the U.S. market by inking a $1 billion boxing deal with Eddie Hearn, and signed on former ESPN head honcho John Skipper as executive chairman.
"There is opportunity and challenge," Perform Chief Executive Juan Delgado tells Barron's. He was in San Francisco this week to participate on a "TV of Tomorrow" panel. How consumers digest sports content presents openings in different markets and sports, he says.
Perform and a heavy-duty roster of competitors are seeking to duplicate Netflix's (NFLX) success in subscription models for video-on-demand of movies and TV shows; it boasts 125 million subscribers globally. (Perform has "millions" of subscribers, Delgado said, but he wouldn't be more specific.)
A centerpiece of Perform's strategy, unfurled in August 2016, is called DAZN (pronounced "da-zone"), a subscription streaming service bankrolled by billionaire music mogul Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries Holdings, which also owns the Warner Music record label and a stake in music-streaming service Spotify Technology (SPOT).
A year ago, Perform acquired domestic rights to Japan's top soccer J-League for a record $2 billion. It also has deals with Major League Baseball, Formula One, and soccer's UEFA Champions League. DAZN is available on smart-TV apps, mobile devices, computers, and game consoles.
It's an impressive lineup in a field that is increasingly fragmented.
Eleven Sports, owned by Italian businessman Andrea Radrizzani, majority owner of English soccer club Leeds United, boasts rights to Indian Premier League cricket, European soccer, and such niche sports as snooker, darts, and Ultimate Frisbee.
Meanwhile, Hulu, CBS's (CBS) All Access, Dish Network's (DISH) Sling TV, AT&T's (T) DirecTV Now, Alphabet's (GOOGL) YouTube TV, Sony's (SNE) PlayStation Vue, and various sports packages from Disney's (DIS) ESPN+, MLB, the NBA, and FuboTV are vying for eyeballs and advertising revenue.
Here's why: over-the-top video will generate revenue of $30.6 billion in 2022, compared with $20.1 billion in 2017, as high-speed internet access spreads and younger consumers increasingly opt for viewing events on mobile devices, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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