DAZN is back- Have you signed up yet?

The streaming service DAZN had its first fight card this past Friday night, which saw an avalanche of lopsided victories closed out by Vergil Ortiz  Jr. stopping Samuel Vargas over seven rounds.  Thomas Hauser laid this large piece for Boxingscene Sunday morning that asked as the headline, “DAZN Is Back: Will Enough People Care?”

I’m here to answer while I hope so, as a boxing fan, it’s hard to see this going any other way than “no.”

The reason is simple. During this pandemic, you can’t justify any reason to sign up for the $99.99 a year or $19.99 monthly, given the programming for the foreseeable future.

Hauser, in his piece, mentioned the DAZN had approximately 800,000 subscribers in the United States at the start of 2020. As a subscriber at the time, I’ve grown increasingly skeptical of that number or any number that relates to DAZN. That’s because, as you may have suspected, they don’t release the numbers.

The logic for that is simple. The numbers are bad, so why WOULD you show them for public embarrassment?

It brings me back to a story I mentioned with Carlos Toro on the “Fightful Boxing Podcast” back in December. The Heavyweight rematch between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz took place on December 2 to follow up on the biggest upset in recent boxing history back in June of last year.

So, I gathered a couple of friends and figured it would make for a great Saturday afternoon of boxing.

I was wrong.

One mistake was the fact that none of the places we wanted to go out to watch the fight were carrying DAZN.

At the end of it, they all didn’t.

So, everyone ended up being huddled around me and this same laptop I’m writing this piece on to watch the fight.

This wasn’t the gang going out to your local mom and pop diner. I’m talking national chicken wing chain’s that staff gave us blank stares when asked: “Are you carrying the Joshua-Ruiz 2 fight on DAZN?”

Crickets…

Also, keep in mind I’m living in Tampa, Florida, and not some town in the United States where I have to “go into town” to get groceries.  Nobody has this app, and after watching Ruiz come in at 283 pounds, for a fight that sucked, as he handed the belts back to Joshua, it makes for a tough sell as to why you need it.

That’s when the fight streams itself actually work on the network. 

I’ve written how the stream would check out on several of its fight cards while on like the contest between Hughie Fury and Pavel Sour. Now, why would you complain about that, when they seemed to give you a favor with bad fights? Well, they made me pay to watch it. So, well, give me what I paid for.

That wasn’t the only time that the streaming app has done this.

While this sounds like a bitter Yelp review, I’m also wondering in all seriousness, what content can they put on DAZN to even drum up interest back into it?

They’re starting from scratch; it seems and picking up other programmings such as “Major League Wrestling” (MLW) and Bare Knuckle Fighting Champions (BKFC). What has left United Stateside is its coverage of Major League Baseball (MLB) with the “MLB Changeup,”  as they were withholding rights fees for all sports that were suspended during the pandemic.

MLB kicked back up this past weekend as well, but DAZN’s coverage of it has not. MLW is an independent wrestling promotion that aired shows on YouTube for free weekly and also hasn’t had any new shows since May.

They have gone  “into the vault” like many others during this time. You don’t need me to tell you that MLB is a bigger deal than MLW, do you? If I do, then yes, yes it is.

Then, of course, there is this whole deal with Canelo, which reads like every situation where the money isn’t matching up.

Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya said in a statement Thursday. “Together with Canelo and his team, we have come up with a list of great opponents — including potential world championship fights — for a premium fight on Mexican Independence Day. We are still waiting for DAZN to approve one of those great fights.

“Canelo and Golden Boy intend to put on a fight in September and expect that DAZN will honor their obligation and give fight fans what they deserve, an evening with the best fighter in the world.”

If you read between any of those lines, it’s talking about the poster boy of this service that was in their “Fight Season” ad campaign asking where is the money at on his much well-known 11-fight, $365 million deal with DAZN in 2018?

While Canelo has mentioned he would take a pay cut on his next fight, so far, it sounded like DAZN wanted a more significant discount, and that is where that is at.

DAZN has a big hill to climb to make more noise as a whole, and I just don’t see barring a complete rewrite and more money loss by investors they spent all 2019 scrambling for to no avail for that narrative to change.

Here’s hoping they turn it around, but I don’t see it.