things are seriously going wrong for DAZN

Ligue 1 and the French market are giving DAZN major headaches. Criticized from the outset for displaying exorbitant prices for its subscriptions (€14.99/month with commitment (€19.99 without commitment) for a single match or €29.99/month with commitment for eight matches (39 .99€ monthly without commitment)), the broadcaster of the championship (in theory until 2029) justified itself on September 5 through the CEO of DAZN France and Switzerland, Brice Daumin.

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« DAZN, with an offer at 29.99 euros, even adding BeIN Sports at 15 euros per month, it is not more expensive than what existed before. Everyone talks about the price saying it's more expensive. But more expensive compared to what? “, he declared, while complaining about the very harmful effects of piracy. DAZN was however tackled on this point by the boss of the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom), Roch-Olivier Maistre. “ When there is an offer at a balanced and reasonable price for the consumer, piracy, I was going to say, disappears. In terms of music, it's very clear. Piracy has melted like snow in the sun because we can access an almost universal offer for a reasonable price. (…) When we are sure of exorbitant prices, we are sure to fuel piracy. »

DAZN, it doesn't take

Since then, the platform has had to review its plans. Faced with persistent criticism and especially increasing piracy, DAZN decided to launch a first promotional offer a few weeks ago by reducing the subscription from €29.99 to €19.99. An offer which has just been extended until December 31. The goal, as you will have understood, is to try to attract the greatest number of new subscribers. But today, The Team teaches us that it doesn't take the bait. The true number of subscribers is a jealously guarded secret by DAZN, even if the daily recently put the number at 500,000. And according to the daily, this total is not increasing. In addition to its promotional offers, DAZN also relied heavily on the Classic between OM and PSG (0-3) to convince around 90,000 people to subscribe.

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The reality would be very different, especially since the newspaper specifies that piracy has not decreased despite the measures taken by the LFP. No less than 150,000 people watched this shock via the Telegram application. Enough to annoy the leaders of the platform. In the game of comparisons, L'Équipe demonstrates that DAZN is doing less well than Mediapro's Téléfoot channel, which had reached 600,000 subscribers over the same period, but without benefiting from distribution on the Canal+ group, unlike DAZN. Finally, the former broadcaster, Prime Video, reached the mark of 1.7 million subscribers after one year. DAZN, which had set itself the objective of 1.5 million subscribers in the first six months, would painfully reach a third in almost three months. Enough to annoy the owner of DAZN, Len Blavatnik, who would be annoyed by these results obtained in France. Enough to reinforce the idea of ​​disengagement from the platform within a year? Indeed, it should be remembered that DAZN and the LFP can, each on their own, denounce the contract if only one of the 1.5 million subscribers is not reached by December 1, 2025…