The new cardless solution will supplement existing NAGRA smartcard solutions deployed at tivùsat. DAZN subscribers can activate the satellite channel on a Tivù set-top box or conditional access module (CAM) (plugged into television sets), with satellite distribution expected to boost QoS and service reach for DAZN Zona. DAZN Zona is only available as a satellite feed on tivùsat; it is not streamed to these devices.

Alberto Sigismondi, President of Tivù Srl, says: “We’re excited to bring our end-users all the action on the Zona DAZN channel from the start of the new football season. Our long-term relationship with NAGRA means we’re able to bring this content to our customers safe in the knowledge that it is secured by best-of-breed NAGRA cardless technology.”

Nancy Goldberg, EVP and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at NAGRA, comments: “Helping our customers to provide the widest possible content choice to their viewers is core to our ambition. We are proud to extend our security solution across the tivùsat platform to additionally protect DAZN premium sports content. The adoption of this distribution approach by an OTT operator, whose content will be distributed via satellite, further demonstrates the flexibility of NAGRA solutions.”

NAGRA cardless technology is used by media and entertainment operators worldwide to secure premium content delivered to proprietary and Android set-top boxes. It adheres to strict MovieLabs requirements for enhanced content protection of 4K/HDR content.

The men’s football channel, ‘DAZN X PLUTO TV INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL’, includes live games from top Spanish, Italian and French leagues, plus FA Cup and Coppa Italia games, and exclusively produced weekly highlight shows from LaLiga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and selected cup competitions, also on demand. The Football channel will include a weekly Pluto TV exclusive highlight show called ‘Die DAZN x Pluto TV Fußballshow’.

“With these launches, Pluto TV becomes the only free streaming TV service with 100% dedicated DAZN Football, Darts and Fights channels in these market,” Pluto TV says in a statement. Olivier Jollet, EVP and International General Manager at Pluto TV, says the deal makes sport, including niche disciplines like darts, more accessible to a wider audience. Pete Parmenter, EVP Business Development at DAZN, says the partnership creates even more visibility for DAZN’s “best in class” coverage.

Parmenter adds: “This is yet another exciting partnership that underpins DAZN’s strategy of delivering an ever-increasing range of top-quality sports content to fans on a global basis. This deal increases accessibility and reach for our rights holders’ content, such as the UEFA Women’s Champions League.”

Jollet continued: “This partnership showcases our commitment to providing exceptional content to our audience…We are happy to offer Pluto TV viewers unparalleled access to some of the most prestigious women’s competitions.”

DAZN and Pluto TV have a longstanding relationship, which started in 2019 when they partnered to deliver the DAZN Fight Zone, a three-hour weekly programming block, to Pluto TV viewers in the U.S.

The full channel list covered by the new deal is:

• DAZN X PLUTO TV INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL (Live on Pluto TV in Germany and Austria)
• DAZN DARTS X PLUTO TV (Live on Pluto TV in Germany and Austria)
• DAZN FIGHTS X PLUTO TV (Available from August 28 in Germany and Austria)
• DAZN HELDINNEN X PLUTO TV (Available from August 28 in Germany and Austria)
• DAZN WOMEN FOOTBALL (Live on Pluto TV in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France and Latin America).

Fans will be able to stream live games and watch NFL Originals – and a key part of the partnership is to improve the viewing experience, which will include more ‘community’, plus alerts for key in-game moments. Existing international customers for the NFL streaming service have been migrating to their new account on DAZN since late June.

NFL wants to grow its sport into a truly global proposition and DAZN gives it the greater reach it needs, operating in 250 markets. NFL Game Pass is available to fans either as a standalone package or as an add-on to an existing DAZN subscription, and fans can purchase the service in more ways now, including through an extensive list of telcos that DAZN already works with. With DAZN, NFL Game Pass will be available on over 100 different devices and that includes more connected TV devices to take the streamed sport to the television screen (PlayStation 5 and Smart TVs from Hisense and Sony are examples).

The public watch parties will be available for select games from the start of the season, enabling fans to share the experience and chat live, helping to create communities. On select devices a multi-screen feature will allow viewers to enjoy more than one game at a time. Polls, stats and ‘Pulse’, an online alert that takes fans straight to key moments in games, provides a more interactive viewing experience and should therefore drive greater engagement.

NFL Game Pass includes pre-season games (from August 3), the regular season (from September 7) and the Super Bowl LVIII, plus NFL RedZone, NFL Network and NFL Originals. There is an NFL archive.

Sameer Pabari, Managing Director, Media at NFL International, says: “NFL Game Pass has established itself as the must-have product for NFL fans around the world. Combining the full breadth of NFL content with DAZN’s powerful data-driven technology, global distribution network and marketing capabilities will help us grow NFL Game Pass to reach new international audiences and expand our fandom globally.”

Shay Segev, Dazn Group CEO, adds: “Accessibility and innovation is at the heart of DAZN’s proposition, and that’s what we will be delivering for the millions of NFL fans worldwide. It’s going to be a whole new ball game, with more ways to watch, more features to engage with, and more great NFL content than ever before. This is a landmark moment for DAZN as we embark on a 10-year partnership with the NFL, focused on showcasing the sport, the fan experience and growth.”

Samsung TV Plus will also be distributing the DAZN Women’s Football Channel in Australia and New Zealand, where the channel launched on April 26. VIDAA will carry both channels in Australia, Brazil and Mexico.  Other partners will be brought on board following launch, DAZN stated.

Chris Jo, SVP of Platform Business at LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company, says: “”The user base of LG Channels in Europe has tripled in the last year, thanks to availability of a growing number of channels. With the addition of DAZN’s popular sports channels we expect more LG TV customers in Europe can enjoy their favourite game on the big screen.”

DAZN Combat covers boxing and MMA, including live events, highlights, archive fights and documentaries. The channel will show live boxing events, as well as re-runs from DAZN’s roster of boxing and combat properties, including Matchroom Boxing and Golden Boy.

DAZN Women’s Football offers elite competitions including the UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL) and Finetwork Liga F, plus archives, behind-the-scenes access and highlights and documentaries (like ‘EQUALS’, a six-part documentary series putting viewers one-on-one with some of the top stars in the women’s game).

DAZN recently launched DAZN RISE: a free, ad-supported 24/7 channel in Germany and Austria dedicated to women’s sport. That channel includes live broadcasts and highlights of the UWCL, the French and Spanish first leagues, Division 1 Féminine and Finetwork Liga F. Women’s Bundesliga is being added in September, plus golf, handball, basketball, hockey and boxing.

Subscribers will also have access to mixed martial arts (MMA) content from top competitions, including the Professional Fighters League, MMA Bushido, King of Kings and the Brave Combat Federation.

Alongside a package of elite combat sports, fans can watch women’s football content which includes every game of the UEFA Women’s Champions League and top-flight Spanish women’s football league Primera División Femenina. Subscribing to DAZN 1 HD grants customers access to the entire DAZN service via the DAZN app.

Shay Segev, CEO of DAZN Group, says: “Getting DAZN widely distributed is a priority for us as it delivers our great and growing array of content to more and more fans. We have ambitious, long-term and strategic plans for the UK market. The more people get to know DAZN and what we offer, not just in terms of rights but the full range of digital, interactive and sports entertainment we are developing, the better.”

He also mentioned that DAZN’s planning of inventory changes depending on the content environment. McCarthy said: “The volume of ad breaks and the length of those ad breaks are the two key factors. The appetite for ad sales will inform the time and duration of those ad breaks, and then the nature of the events will inform the number of breaks.” McCarthy remarked that sports events tend to lend themselves to ads as there are natural moments for breaks within the content.

He also noted that the majority of DAZN’s inventory is sold directly – either through its sales team on an IO basis or directly through programmatic. The proportion of inventory which is traded programmatically depends on the market dynamics in different countries. He cites Japan as an example of a market which is more experienced with programmatic and displays a greater willingness to trade programmatically for live over VOD. He mentioned that the DACH region and Canada are two DAZN markets in which programmatic selling is mostly for on-demand content.

McCarthy believes that DAZN’s position in-between streaming and broadcast worlds means it can offer brands value across both domains. He said: “I think we are at the cross-section of scale and reach traditional TV delivers in terms of the premium sports rights we have in the markets we operate in. We can offer advertisers a brand safe environment around premium content but also digital capabilities in terms of the metrics, the benchmarks, the targeting and creative messaging that can be done versus the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all” approach.

“Interestingly, DAZN launched originally without advertising integrated into service,” he said, continuing, “We integrated advertising obviously for an incremental revenue opportunity but also the need to fill content arounds the natural breaks of the games.”

He remarked that delivering broadcast-standard quality advertising in a live environment was a challenge and focus of DAZN’s product engineering and broadcast teams. Other operational and technical challenges appeared as DAZN sought to integrate its ad service. He said: “We had to re-architect our whole video workflow from broadcast to enable server-side ad insertions. That means changing streaming protocols and changing broadcasts workflows. We wanted to be digital-first and to focus on addressable advertising as the main source of advertising

“Within my team we are more digitally focused. In terms of knowledge and upscaling we had to cross-train our sales and operations teams to be more digitally focused but in the broadcast environment. So there’s a whole re-education that we had to do with regards to how we manage broadcast and how we specifically manage it for digital advertising.”

The first two live football broadcasts on the channel were Paris Saint Germain vs Strasbourg which took place on December 28^th, and Valladolid vs Real Madrid which took place on December 30^th.

This is DAZN’s second FAST channel in Germany. Last month, the sports streamer launched its first FAST channel with German IPTV platform waipu.tv

Richard Jakeman, European Head of Business Development – Smart TV, Mobile & Gaming, Samsung Electronics, comments: “This is an exciting evolution of our continued relationship with DAZN, which has completely disrupted the sports streaming market in Europe by providing innovative and ground-breaking new ways for fans to watch premium sports content. Being able to offer free to watch, live football matches to Samsung TV Plus users in Germany reflects Samsung’s commitment to redefining the FAST landscape in Europe. Samsung and DAZN share a vision to find new ways to serve the best sports content to viewers in ways that work for them, and it’s fantastic that our partnership continues to grow.”

Alice Mascia, CEO of DAZN in the DACH region, says: “We are very excited to launch DAZN FAST+ together with Samsung in Germany. Samsung TV Plus is a popular and growing platform and thanks to our cooperation, even more fans can now enjoy sports from the strong DAZN programme catalogue. Our collaboration with Samsung once again demonstrates our role as an innovator in the sports industry by strengthening DAZN’s position as a one-stop shop for all sports.”

A combined subscription for waipu.tv and DAZN will be available from January 2023. Subscribers signing up for DAZN with the waipu.tv Perfect Plus package will pay €39.99 per month – a saving of €2.99 compared to paying for individual subscriptions.

Subscribers to this package will receive access to the DAZN app with live matches from the Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, LaLiga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Additionally, DAZN’s linear TV channels – DAZN 1 and DAZN 2 – will be integrated into waipu.tv’s offering of channels.

Alice Mascia, CEO of DAZN in the DACH region, says: “With the joint package and the integration of the linear DAZN TV and FAST channels into the waipu.tv offer, we are once again making it easier for sports fans to enjoy our content. The partnership is a further step towards making DAZN available to a broad, sports-loving target group.”

Markus Härtenstein, CEO of Exaring AG, operator of waipu.tv, comments: “This co-operation brings us closer to the goal of becoming the German TV super aggregator.”

Waipu.tv currently offers a total of 75 FAST channels.

According to the companies, fighting piracy is a top business priority for DAZN and, if left unchecked, piracy could cause sports to lose vital funding throughout the value chain on a global level.

DAZN’s dedicated anti-piracy team will work closely with Irdeto to counteract piracy through investigation and enforcement operations, injunctions and “continuous innovation in subscriber protections.”

DAZN began its partnership with Irdeto into 2020, when the streamer integrated Irdeto Control. This year, Irdeto became the primary multi-DRM provider for the service. According to the companies, since the full implementation of Irdeto Control, DAZN’s latency has decreased significantly.

Sandeep Tiku, DAZN Group CTO, says: “DAZN is committed to creating a global sports streaming service that delivers for fans and partners alike. To do that takes significant investment in acquiring rights and developing technology. The damaging effects of piracy are clear – potentially reducing investment for sports at all levels, exposing fans to privacy and security risks, and funding organised crime.

“Working with Irdeto, DAZN can more effectively tackle the pirates through enforcement and better use of technology, while educating fans of the risks of accessing pirated content.”

Mark Mulready, VP of Cyber Services at Irdeto, comments: “Premium live sports is one of the biggest forms of content driving the OTT live streaming industry, which has made live sports a primary target for piracy. We are very excited about taking our partnership with DAZN to the next level, working together to protect their premium content.

“Irdeto’s wisdom and insights gained from decades of fighting piracy and cyber threats, coupled with the best technology and DAZN’s team of experts, will be key to shutting down pirates and cybercriminals.”

DAZN offers both live and on-demand streaming of live football events such as the Bundesliga and UEFA Champions League, plus other European top football leagues. The service also offers a range of live sport events from the U.S. and more, including the NFL (American football), NBA, NCAA College Football and College Basketball NBA (basketball), as well as the UFC (MMA), EHF Champions League (handball) and MotoGP (motorsport) among others.

Ronny Lutzi, CEO at Foxxum GmbH, says: “DAZN has been a highly demanded premium TV app by our customers as sports entertainment is and will remain one of the core types of content that is preferably consumed on CTV. Therefore, we are very proud to add DAZN to Foxxum CTV OS, kicking off a long-term partnership.”

Peter Parmenter, EVP Business Development at DAZN, comments: “A key priority of ours at DAZN is to partner with businesses who are able to support us on our mission to get our premium content to reach even more people. Therefore, we are delighted to embark on this partnership with Foxxum.”