🥴 DAZN is Still Losing More than $1bn Every Year

This week I will release a video about Nike.

Their post-Covid trajectory has been fascinating. A faltering few years at the board level has led to very inconsistent results and a reduction in the dominance that they once held for so long in the retail space.

The last video I made about Nike changed my life.

The day before release I had 394 subscribers. 1 week later I had 1,400! It also helped my YouTube channel cross the monetisation threshold allowing me to make Adsense money from Google. At the time I was over the moon.

It’s incredible to think that now, 18 months later we are over 120,000 subscribers. Insane.

There are now more than 5,000 of you receiving this newsletter every week. Thank you so much for your support on this journey. It means the world to me.

Today, the agenda goes like this: La Liga > DAZN > Cristiano…

Villarreal and Barcelona will play a competitive La Liga fixture in Miami in December, the first La Liga match to ever take place outside of Spain. It’s a major step for European football and is largely inspired by how the NFL and NBA have exported their games abroad.

Financially, the move makes sense. Even with a new Nike kit deal, a Champions League semi-final run and Lamine Yamal’s metoric rise Barcelona still need creative ways to raise cash. Reports suggest both clubs will earn around €6m each from the game, which is pretty sizeable amount for a club like Villarreal.

Interestingly, Villarreal will cover the travel costs of season-ticket holders who want to attend, and offer a 30 per cent discount to those who prefer to stay home. Elsewhere Frenkie De Jong has been very vocal about this move saying:

Damn.

Personally, I don’t hate the idea. The NFL’s expansion into the UK has been a genuine success story, introducing the sport to a new generation of fans. If La Liga can do the same in the US, it could be transformative. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Miami is the landing spot for the first match either, considering the massive Latin contingent in Florida.

I expect more Spanish teams to follow in the coming years, and while the Premier League will be slower to move, it feels inevitable that one day PL games will be played overseas too.

Speaking of the NFL, this is a fantastic video I watched last week about the NFL hosted at Spurs Stadium in London. Watch it below:

Next, is streaming service DAZN.

Despite being owned by Russian Billionaire Len Blavatnik, the company is registered in the UK and files its accounts on Companies House.

Last week, they reported what the media is saying are positive results. The headlines are as follows:

• Revenue rose by $323m to $3.2b

• Losses “fell” to $936m from $1.4b

• Len Blavatnik injected a further $587m into the business this year bringing total investment to $7b 🥴

I like the concept of DAZN.

The broadcasting situation of global sport is so fragmented that the idea of one home for most major sports sits well with me on paper. However, DAZN is one of the worst streaming services that I pay for.

The production is often laggy, the app is not the easiest to navigate. I use it primarily to watch boxing and in-between rounds the stream is littered with ads despite being a streaming service thats supposed to cut the cord.

Len has invested $7b into a product that makes $1b in losses even after 5 years of operation. As part of this release Shay Segev, DAZN CEO said “Our key markets are already profitable in 2025 and we are comfortable saying that in 2026 the group will be profitable as well”.

Soon, DAZN are going to make a splash by landing the rights to a major sports asset. The Premier League, the Champions League, perhaps the IPL. I can sense it. Maybe, in time if you acquire more and more IP you will force subscribers to use your product and you will inevitably make billions in free cash flow. But until then I am bemused by the economics of this business. I also do not know any other business where its user base universally do not like the product!

Despite this, they received $1b in investment from SURJ Sports in 2024, an investment arm of the Saudi PIF. SURJ acquired 10% of the business and helped DAZN secure the broadcast rights to the Club World Cup this summer.

It’s a fascinating business, which you will hear more about that in the Saudi Series 😏

Speaking of Saudi, Bloomberg declared Cristiano Ronaldo a billionaire this week. The numbers in the article were interesting. They reported that:

• Ronaldo earned over $550m in salary between 2002 and 2023

• He signed a decade-long Nike deal for nearly $18m annually

• Other endorsements with brands like Armani and Castrol, add over $175 million to his net worth

• His 2023 transfer to Al-Nassr has earned him over $500m yearly in tax-free salary since his arrival 😮‍💨

• He also reportedly owns equity in the team and secured a signing bonus of $30m

I find net worth calculations futile. But the interesting thing here is that CR7 has amassed incredible wealth without an exit. Generally speaking athletes get to this range due to ownership in a very highly valued asset OR having exited from a high-value investment that has bumped them up (think Proper Twelve Whiskey).

Ronaldo however, still has plenty of time for that and has largely got here with extremely consistent astronomical wages.

Salute to the man.

See you next week.