February 18 – The rumours surrounding the Saudi Arabian funding in DAZN can now be confirmed as reality, after SURJ Sports activities Funding agreed to purchase a minority stake within the sports activities broadcaster.
SURJ Sports activities Funding is a part of the Saudi fund often called PIF (Public Funding Fund) and was launched in 2023. It’ll work with DAZN to create DAZN MENA (Center East and North Africa).
This long-running saga appeared to be useless on its toes again in October of final yr, when a PIF spokesman denied it had plans to put money into DAZN, telling Reuters the fund was “not at present engaged in discussions with DAZN” and it had “no present plans to put money into the corporate.”
Nonetheless, DAZN founder Sir Len Blavatnik has overseen multi-year losses that run into the billions. A ten% stake in his firm is rumoured to be value $1 billion.
In an incredible coincidence, this was the quantity that DAZN paid FIFA in early December for the rights to this summer season’s soccer extravaganza often called the Membership World Cup.
FIFA had been struggling to discover a media accomplice which agreed with its valuation of the event, till DAZN introduced that it might pay the rights price and broadcast the occasion free of charge.
With this injection of money, there might be nervous executives in Qatar, the place beIN Sports activities relies and is at present the 800lb gorilla in MENA on the subject of sports activities.
As DAZN slowly crawls its approach to profitability, Blavatnik will look to recoup his losses, and with a males’s World Cup on the horizon in Saudi Arabia in 2034, a rights deal for the most well-liked sporting occasion on the planet appears to be like like a executed deal.
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The post Saudis’ DAZN MENA funding will fear beIN SPORTS executives first appeared on Foot & Soccer.
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Author : footsoccer
Publish date : 2025-02-18 08:57:08
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