Streaming big DAZN strengthens girls’s sports activities push with ata soccer deal

DAZN Group, the streaming service owned by Sir Len Blavatnik, is shopping for a girls’s soccer content material platform amid burgeoning international curiosity within the sport.

Sky News has learnt that DAZN has struck a deal to accumulate ata soccer, which is backed by the Miami-based sports activities funding agency 777 Partners.

City sources mentioned the deal may very well be introduced publicly as early as Tuesday afternoon.

The value that DAZN was paying for its newest acquisition was unclear, though one insider described it as a “nominal sum”.

Ata soccer, which was based by Hannah Brown and Esmeralda Negron, has partnerships with quite a few broadcasters and rights-owners, and permits viewers to look at matches from the Italian girls’s high flight and the UEFA Women’s Champions’ League.

The timing of its buy by DAZN – which is 24 hours earlier than England play Australia for a spot within the Women’s World Cup Final – underlines the rising international curiosity in girls’s soccer.

In latest months, DAZN has launched into a collection of offers to diversify its companies additional past sports activities streaming.

The firm, which has been linked with a bid for packages of Premier Legue rights within the subsequent broadcast public sale, has simply introduced a partnership with Fanatics, the licensed sports activities merchandising enterprise.

It can be increasing quickly in areas similar to sports activities gaming and betting.

Media analysts imagine DAZN is among the many most reasonable strategic companions for Walt Disney’s ESPN subsidiary, which the American leisure big has indicated it can discover alternate options for.

One analyst mentioned DAZN’s presence in 230 markets, 12 of which – together with France and the UK – are seen as core, may very well be complementary to ESPN’s footprint.

DAZN declined to remark.