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Saudi Arabia has agreed to invest $1bn in DAZN and a new joint venture with the streaming service owned by billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik, as the country steps up its multibillion-dollar bet on the global sports market.
Surj Sports Investment, the sporting arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), will acquire a “single-digit” minority stake in DAZN, just weeks after the lossmaking broadcaster secured the rights to show this summer’s football Club World Cup tournament for $1bn.
Launched in 2023 by Saudi Arabia to invest in sports and help boost the country’s international profile, Surj has also been supporting the sector in the wider Middle East by taking stakes in sporting bodies and events, as well as in broadcasting and digital services.
DAZN will become its streaming and broadcast partner, showing Saudi sport and Saudi-based events to the more than 200 markets where it operates.
Surj will take a stake of less than 5 per cent, one person close to the deal said, while about half of the cash will be invested in a separate broadcasting joint venture for sports in the Middle East.
The Financial Times last month reported that Blavatnik had pumped a further $827mn into DAZN, taking his investments to more than $6.7bn since it was founded in 2016.
DAZN last year agreed to buy Foxtel from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Telstra in a A$3.4bn ($2.1bn) deal, which left the two companies with a combined 9 per cent stake and valued the group at close to $10bn. The deal with Surj will be struck at around the same valuation.
Saudi Arabia has ploughed billions of dollars into the sports sector in recent years as it sought to diversify its oil-dominated economy and soften its image around the world.
That has prompted campaigners to accuse the Gulf kingdom, which owns Newcastle United football club and runs the LIV international golf competition, of using sport to distract from its human rights record — a practice known as “sportswashing”.
The country has also signed more than 900 lucrative sponsorship deals with a wide range of sporting rights holders including the Women’s Tennis Association and Fifa, football’s global governing body.
Late last year, Riyadh’s sporting push scored its biggest victory so far after Fifa awarded Saudi Arabia the 2034 men’s football World Cup. The country is also thought to be weighing up a bid for the Olympic Games.
Danny Townsend, chief executive at Surj, said it would “invest in the service providers of the industry that are going to form the future of how fans engage with the sport more broadly”. He declined to comment on the value of the deal with DAZN but said it would take a “single-digit minority” stake.
Shay Segev, chief of DAZN, said the deal would “provide capital for us to grow, but also . . . strategic partners [with] the same vision as us to invest in sport and growth sport globally”.
DAZN, which wants to create a $200bn global media group, has the rights to show sports such as top-tier European football, Formula One, boxing, basketball and American football’s NFL in different markets around the world.
Results filed last month revealed that DAZN’s revenues rose to $2.9bn in 2023, from $2.2bn in 2022, but its loss widened to $1.4bn, up from $1.2bn in 2022.
