New agreement will see selected matches from the Italian and French top divisions made available via PPV in Germany and Austria
Sports streaming giant DAZN has reached a distribution agreement with OneFootball in an attempt to draw more attention to its football offering in Germany and Austria.
The Len Blavatnik-owned streaming service holds the rights to the Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1 in the two DACH countries with fans needing to purchase a monthly subscription in order to watch matches via live stream.
However, under this new partnership with German based website OneFootball, fans will be able to watch selected individual fixtures from the two leagues on pay-per-view.
The availability of these pay-per-view matches only bolsters OneFootball's existing football rights portfolio. Among other things, the free-to-use website is already making the German Bundesliga available for free in Brazil, airing selected Serie A matches for free in the UK, and distributing multiple leagues across the world via various distribution deals, both for free and via pay-per-view.
The news has been greeted by OneFootball Founder and CEO, Lucas von Cranach, who said:
"We have a lot of admiration for the platform and the brand DAZN has built and how they’ve scaled to reach and engage so many sports fans around the world. We can’t wait to see how football fans engage and see how we can build a long-term relationship between our two organisations. This is a really important first step towards us and DAZN bringing even more live and affordable football to our fans all over the world.”
The new arrangement began in earnest last weekend when three matches from the two leagues in question were made available on the OneFootball website in Germany and Austria.
These matches saw French giants PSG host Toulouse and Marseille face Nice in Ligue 1, but perhaps the most attractive of these first three pay-per-view fixtures was the famous Milan Derby between Inter and AC Milan in Serie A.
DAZN DACH CEO, Alice Mascia, also gave her thoughts on the deal.
“DAZN and OneFootball are a great fit as brands, as we both aim to innovate the way fans discover and watch their favourite sport. At DAZN we want to enable all football fans to watch their favourite sport the way they like it best. Therefore, we have already made our unique and diverse football offer available in the past via partners to address specific audiences and increase accessibility. Now, we offer fans even more flexibility and watch individual matches via PPV thanks to this cooperation with OneFootball.”
This new agreement between DAZN and OneFootball includes not only the distribution of live matches via pay-per-view, but also highlight reels of games from across Europe's elite competitions made available for free on the website.
To what extent this news will increase interest in Serie A and Ligue 1 in the two aforementioned DACH countries remains to be seen, but both parties appear to be happy and excited about what the future could hold for their co-operation together.
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