Sports streamer DAZN has decided to delay floating on the stock market after the company reported an operating loss of $1.3 billion and overall losses of $2.3 billion in 2021 despite growing revenue by almost 80 per cent.
The company saw income rise to $1.6 billion, but reported costs of $2.9 billion, an increase of over 50 per cent compared to the previous year.
DAZN has invested heavily in rights for the include Premier League, NFL and NBA in certain markets.
In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Shay Segev said the IPO will now probably happen in the next “two or three years”.
“I really don’t have any preference, I would just think that it actually makes sense for this to become a public company,” he said. “The Netflix story, the Amazon story — I think DAZN is going there as well.”
Reports that the company was considering going public first began in April 2021 with then co-CEO James Ashton viewing the idea as a way to drive growth. At the time it was hoping to break into the lucrative Premier League rights market in the UK.
That bid failed, as did the company’s hopes of acquiring BT Sport last year when the broadcaster decided to enter into a joint venture with Warner Bros Discovery. DAZN has since acquired rival sports streamer ELEVEN Sports.
