Eddie Hearn Clarifies DAZN ‘PPV Model’ & Price Hike

The streaming service DAZN burst onto the scene bantering that “Pay-per-view is dead”. Recent developments, the pandemic, and the current economic landscape have long made that branding nonexistent and now has finally reared its head in the United Kingdom.

Matchroom Promoter Eddie Hearn spent this weekend clarifying and pretty much backpedaling on the notion and spoke that it would be needed for “unique events“.

It’s very important to get the difference of bringing pay-per-view to a platform and bringing it for specific fights. Absolutely 100% the aim of DAZN is to bring you traditional pay-per-view nights we’ve seen in the last five years as part of the monthly subscription,” Hearn told Boxing Social at the site of Sandor Martin and Mikey Garcia.

🗣 "DAZN will have to have PPV functionality!"@EddieHearn admits @DAZNBoxing will need their own PPV model to secure the likes of #UsykJoshua2. 💰

🎥 https://t.co/UKp8sjbOCL

🔞 @Betfred Fight Odds: https://t.co/NVUXm9oh8F#Boxing pic.twitter.com/F4W02VTuiv

— Boxing Social (@boxing_social) October 15, 2021

“They need to have apay-per-view functionality for unique circumstances, that’s the keyword. When you look at it now, Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua. That is not gonna go as part of your DAZN subscription, being quite frank with you.

“So you need pay-per-view functionality to be able to do that. They have pay-per-view functionality within their platform. Whyte-Wallin, Chisora-Parker. These fights you used to see on Sky pay-per-view are 100% not part of that vision.”

Starting to sound like DAZN isn’t paying off like it was spoken into existence like their “Fight Season” campaign back in 2019.

The price hike is pretty much solely affecting those across the pond as this “pay-per-view functionality” has long been embedded in the US market. The option in the United States is the monthly $19.99 price tag OR buying the fight a la carte via pay-per-view by your local provider willing to take your coin. The Canelo Alvarez-Billy Joe Saunders contest was an example of this as you could go out to a local sports bar here for the title fight in the event you didn’t have the service at home. That wasn’t the case in the US for most cases for fights before the pandemic such as the rematch between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz.

In the UK, the introductory price of £1.99 is already moving up to £7.99. So this seems to be on the outside looking in a price hike to its core home base and they are a fan of it. This sounds simply like a simple case of keeping as many revenue streams possible and these fights  “unique events” are it. Comes off disingenuous for those used to the low sticker in the United Kingdom but the main reason the complaints are coming is what Hearn is saying in so many words is since he left Sky Sports and that model of fights being on pay-per-view so he can pretty much make his version of this with DAZN.

With “unique events” on pay-per-view.Brace for impact with your wallet.

This would be a bigger deal in the United States but they’ve made a focus on getting out of the market and with the recent upset of Mikey Garcia by Sandor Martin, may have accelerated it, Be pressed stateside here who even saw out outside of the hardcore few and boxing media that was present in Fresno. Call the fights what you want to, but just be prepared to pay more in the United Kingdom for DAZN for your viewing entertainment of them.