One of DAZN’s most senior executives in Southeast Asia, senior vice-president Alex Peebles, is departing the business later this year.
The move comes as DAZN is finally set to launch in the region. The service was initially expected to start in 2018, after DAZN acquired rights for the Uefa Champions League and Europa League, and LaLiga, in several territories in deals starting with the 2018-19 season. Peebles began his role at the company’s Southeast Asia office in Singapore in September 2018, and worked with the local team preparing for the launch.
The launch did not materialise over the next year-and-a-half. DAZN sublicensed on the football content to local broadcasters in non-exclusive deals, offsetting some of the costs of the rights but keeping open the option of using the content on its own platform.
Now, it is understood that Southeast Asia will be covered by DAZN’s rollout of a global, 200-territory, boxing-led service later this year. The global launch was due in May, but has been pushed back due to the Covid-19 crisis. Southeast Asian subscribers will also get access to content from the existing football deals.
DAZN’s Uefa Champions League and Europa League deal covers Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia in the seasons 2018-19 to 2020-21. DAZN sublicensed non-exclusive rights in Malaysia and Singapore to pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports, and in Taiwan to pay-television broadcaster Elta – meaning DAZN is still able to show the content, but so are the sublicensees. In the Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, live coverage of the competitions has for the last two seasons been streamed on Perform’s Goal.com website.
DAZN has LaLiga rights in Vietnam for the five seasons from 2018-19 to 2022-23. These are also now held non-exclusively, after it agreed a sublicensing deal with local pay-television broadcaster SCTV at the start of last season running until the end of 2022-23.
DAZN has exclusive rights for the Premier League in the Philippines for the 2019-20 to 2021-22 cycle.
DAZN first launched in German-speaking countries and Japan in August 2016. A service in Canada followed just under a year later. A boxing-focused US service launched in September 2018, shortly after the launch of an Italian service. Services have since been added in Brazil and Spain.
Alex Peebles has worked with either DAZN or its previous parent company Perform since 2009. He joined to lead business development at Sportal, the Australian sports data company that had just been acquired by Perform. He served the company in a variety of roles in Australia and London before joining the Singapore office. Prior to the Southeast Asia role, he was managing director of a joint venture between Perform and the NFL. Perform distributed and promoted NFL media rights and the Game Pass OTT service in territories outside the US and Europe, under a deal running from 2017 to 2021.