DAZN is closing in on a long-term deal with Golden Boy Promotions in the US that would see at least two of Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez’s fights shown exclusively on the platform.
The deal is set to officially begin in 2019, but a separate agreement to show Álvarez’s upcoming fight against WBA middleweight champion Rocky Fielding on December 15 is likely to be reached. Fielding’s promoter, Matchroom Boxing, also has a deal with DAZN.
Lineal world middleweight champion Álvarez is the most popular boxer in the US, consistently drawing over one million pay-per-view buys for his fights. Álvarez’s fights against fellow middleweight Gennady Golovkin earned between $80m and $85m in US pay-per-view revenue.
Streaming platform DAZN will persist with its monthly subscription model for events headlined by Álvarez. DAZN intends to overhaul boxing’s pay-per-view model in favour of attracting mass viewership via a monthly subscription priced at $9.99 per month.
DAZN is expected to acquire rights to other Golden Boy events in 2019. Golden Boy’s deal with pay-television broadcaster HBO expires at the end of the year and the promotion is keen to expand its digital footprint.
In January 2017, Golden Boy agreed a multi-year deal for rights to its lower-tier events with streaming platform ESPN+. In July this year, it became the first major promotion to exclusively show one of its events on social platform Facebook.