DAZN in Advanced Talks for Stake in Broadcaster Main Street Sports
British sports streaming company, eyeing U.S. growth, would take a majority stake in the broadcast partner for big league teams
British sports streaming giant DAZN is in advanced talks to acquire a majority stake in Main Street Sports Group, the big regional sports broadcaster in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
The details
A deal could be announced as soon as January, if the talks don’t hit any snags, the people said.
DAZN is discussing making a sizable cash investment in Main Street Sports, with plans to integrate their two live-sports platforms, the people said. The exact terms of the deal couldn’t immediately be learned.
Last year, Main Street Sports’ revenue was roughly $1.3 billion, the people said.
DAZN holds key broadcast rights for several marquee sports overseas and its big markets include Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. It has a smaller but growing presence in the U.S., where it has become a home for boxing and MMA. Over the summer, DAZN was the exclusive global partner for the FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S.
Main Street Sports was formerly known as Diamond Sports Group, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. Diamond fell into bankruptcy as more consumers opted to cut the cord, leaving the business unable to service its debt and keep paying for the broadcast rights agreements it had with professional sports teams.
The bankruptcy stung some franchises, like the San Diego Padres, leaving them without expected broadcasting money they had used to sign big free agents. And it left teams scrambling for local broadcasts for fans.
Coming out of bankruptcy with a much lighter debt load, Main Street Sports has struck partnerships with companies such as Amazon and FanDuel, including taking over FanDuel Sports Network which has a direct-to-consumer offering.
Today, Main Street Sports has the local rights to 29 major league teams in the U.S., across the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.
The context
Billionaire Len Blavatnik owns DAZN through his holding company Access Industries and has poured billions of dollars into the business in recent years to help propel global growth and strike more deals.
In April, DAZN closed a deal for Australian pay TV platform Foxtel for over $2 billion. (Foxtel’s majority shareholder News Corp, which also owns The Wall Street Journal, became a minority shareholder in DAZN through the deal.)
The company’s CEO Shay Segev has recently said it is thinking about a potential IPO and it expects to be profitable in 2026.
Any deal would allow DAZN to integrate Main Street Sports’ direct-to-consumer offering into its existing app and streaming product, and the two could collaborate on programming, people familiar with the matter said.