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1 minute ago, Brian Fowler said:

I have no idea how DAZN stays in business. Even my friends who are into MMA never talk about Bellator, and I don't know a single person IRL who has ever once mentioned DAZN.

I've only heard about it through boxing. I assume the Canelo fights do well but I'm not sure if it's been worth what they are paying him

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3 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I have no idea how DAZN stays in business. Even my friends who are into MMA never talk about Bellator, and I don't know a single person IRL who has ever once mentioned DAZN.

I got it for a month just to see the Ruiz fight, but once I noticed they were charging 20 bucks a month now for maybe one good boxing show, and shows from a shitty MMA promotion, I said “fuck it”.

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I had it for like two months at the start of last year, and dropped it until there was something I really wanted to see.

When I was going to grab it for something (I'll be damned if I can remember what) later in the year, I saw the price and just deleted the app.

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2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I have no idea how DAZN stays in business. Even my friends who are into MMA never talk about Bellator, and I don't know a single person IRL who has ever once mentioned DAZN.

I know Coker is Meltzer's boy going back decades, but it was so sad when Dave had to bring up the fact he got virtually no feedback at all for the Ilima-Lei Macfarlane headlined DAZN show in Hawaii that started after Canelo murked Rocky Fielding at MSG. The commentators advertised the show during the Canelo event (his 1st fight on DAZN where a bunch of people signed up for DAZN) and made it clear that the main event wouldn't start until after Canelo fought. Macfarlane is basically their Great Value version of Ronda Rousey and one of their biggest "stars".

I get the talk before UFC signed a deal with ESPN that UFC's popularity would decline if they did mostly streaming shows. However, they couldn't turn down that deal. Just way, way too much money. Also, ESPN+ was most likely going to have a large subscriber base. After the news of the McGregor buyrate and ESPN+ sub number came out the other day, that deal looks awesome for both sides now. Bellator, on the other hand, should not have gone to a streaming service as the distant number 2 as much as having a deal that pays money might get them in or close to being in the black. Shit, Combate Americas was beating those numbers by almost double in 2019 on Univision with no one fighter anyone on this board including me has heard of besides Thunder Rosa (a pro wrestler), Dulce Garcia/Sexy Star (a pro wrestler whose husband is a famous boxer in Mexico as well), Alberto el Patron (a pro wrestler), and Tito Ortiz. The latter two never even fought on Univision and was just a one off on PPV!

2 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I've only heard about it through boxing. I assume the Canelo fights do well but I'm not sure if it's been worth what they are paying him

Besides seeing him destroy Sergey Kovalev, it hasn't been worth it on an entertainment level for a casual fan if you're just signing up for him. The Fielding fight was a joke. The Jacobs fight was just okay. The Kovalev fight was pretty pedestrian up until the brutal KO. For DAZN, it's been kinda bittersweet I would say. On one hand, the signups are crazy when he does fight. I'm not sure what the churn is, but they do have a lot of new subscribers for one moment. The other side of the coin, granted it's Vegas, is the MGM Grand Garden Arena was less full than what you would expect for a Canelo fight. The day before, the pictures from the weigh-in showed there was NOBODY there. I don't ever remember it being like that for Canelo, and it's not like Kovalev is just some dude. Maybe people did stay home to watch Masvidal vs. Diaz at UFC 244, but the crazy thing is, they got permission to show the UFC main event for the BMF title in the arena before the Canelo fight. That's why there was a long ass delay until Canelo and Kovalev did their walkouts. It made DAZN look so bush league even though that was the right decision. People saw the UFC fight and then immediately went to DAZN to sign up to watch Canelo. However, being on a streaming service instead of Showtime or HBO where he made his name has made him less popular to casuals. Madison Square Garden was basically Mexico for a night when he fought Rocky Fielding a complete jobber to win a secondary belt at 168 (super middleweight) so he can break some meaningless record for Mexican fighters, but it was also his first fight at Madison Square Garden. It was gonna sell out regardless. His next fight is probably going to be against Ryota Murata for Cinco de Mayo... in Japan. It makes me wonder if they believe he can still sell tickets at the usual high combat sports ticket prices. If you're DAZN, you gotta wonder if it's worth it to downgrade him from a megastar to just a superstar so you can get what may turn out to be artificial business if people are signing up and then canceling later on.

Tied into that, at the end of 2019, they made sure to stagger the Canelo fight (on 11/2) and the Ruiz-Joshua rematch (on 12/7). So if you sign up to see the Canelo fight, you had to stay subscribed to see Joshua fight who is their clear number two draw on DAZN even though that Povetkin fight (AJ"s first fight on DAZN) most likely did no business. That means they got at least two months out of you on the billing side. I'm not sure how much that worked out because even though Canelo and Joshua have two different fanbases (meaning more potential customers), Ruiz-Joshua II was going head to head against the SEC championship game. It also wasn't a particularly exciting fight as AJ just played it safe (sidenote: maybe it's just me but Joshua looked smaller, looked like he hadn't bathed in months, and said fuck it to personal hygiene altogether which is not good since his draw is he looks like a fucking Adonis) and Ruiz looked awful all around. Killing Kovalev might make up for an otherwise lousy fight, but that rematch was disappointing especially compared to the first fight. What they should have done is put the Ruiz-Joshua II fight before the Canelo fight. You don't put the much bigger star first, and give the customers a choice. Now, I wouldn't be shocked if people just unsubscribed in droves at soon as Joshua got his titles back.

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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32 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I had it for like two months at the start of last year, and dropped it until there was something I really wanted to see.

When I was going to grab it for something (I'll be damned if I can remember what) later in the year, I saw the price and just deleted the app.

Their customer service is non existent which pissed me off because I changed my payment method at least twice on my account. My other debit card was still charged. I deliberately made sure I changed my payment method so I wouldn't get overdrafted in my other bank account. They sent me some automated bullshit about how many hours I logged watching their content. 

Guess what happened? Well, let's just say I won't be giving them more money until further notice. It sucks because I'm one of the few who actually would watch a lot of their content, and their streaming quality is quite good.

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Count me as another person who has never heard someone mention DAZN or know what it is away from here or Meltzer talking about it. Hell, I only know what it is because of Meltzer and I had to search for "Da Zone" and "Da Zone MMA" to see what he was talking about.

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2 hours ago, Archibald said:

Maybe their numbers are dropping because their fanbase is literally dying off.

Nah man.  Meltzer said the other day that 60+ is holding steady ?

1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

Random thought, but if they go the traditional PPV model for the big 4 I would hope that they would at least film just those 4 shows in 4K to make it stand out from the others. Would be a nice incentive for those who buy it and having them later on 4K disc would be tempting for some. 

EDIT: Well, so much for that thought after the tweet below. 

Holy shit.  Watching a Kevin Dunn production in 4K better come with health warnings.

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I can't imagine they could actually shoot and stream it in 4K even if they wanted to.

Much like the 4K Super Bowl last week was actually shot in 1080 HDR and upscaled. It's just too data intensive to do real 4K on a live event with multiple cameras.

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Dahzn (forever, never Dah Zone) in Canada is so great. We get all of the Premier League matches, NFL Game Pass, boxing, Serie A, Bellator, among other things for $150 a year. Not too long ago, cable companies were charging that for just Game Pass. 

I am praying for that service to stay alive for a while because it's great in Canada at least, but it certainly doesn't seem sustainable and the rights fees are going to drop any minute now. Vince trying to Indiana Jones his shit just before that market dries up is pretty classic Vince, but hey... THEY ARE FOOL PROOF (until the TV money/Dazn fuck money dries up).

I am very interested to see what WWE will look like on the other side of these stupid contracts they received from Fox and NBCUniversal. Will all of the chickens come home to roost? I really do think Vince will sell before then so he doesn't have to worry about it.

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6 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Dahzn (forever, never Dah Zone) in Canada is so great. We get all of the Premier League matches, NFL Game Pass, boxing, Serie A, Bellator, among other things for $150 a year. Not too long ago, cable companies were charging that for just Game Pass. 

I am praying for that service to stay alive for a while because it's great in Canada at least, but it certainly doesn't seem sustainable and the rights fees are going to drop any minute now. Vince trying to Indiana Jones his shit just before that market dries up is pretty classic Vince, but hey... THEY ARE FOOL PROOF (until the TV money/Dazn fuck money dries up).

I am very interested to see what WWE will look like on the other side of these stupid contracts they received from Fox and NBCUniversal. Will all of the chickens come home to roost? I really do think Vince will sell before then so he doesn't have to worry about it.

The crazy thing is UFC seemed like they were in a better position than WWE as both were negotiating new deals at the same time, and then a series of events helped WWE out including Fox making a big pitch to WWE which likely killed any chance of UFC going back to Fox. Now, a year later even with SmackDown pulling 2.4s every week besides the one FS1 episode, WWE's outlook in five years looks far more sketchier. If WWE can convert one of their current guys into a megastar, they're right back in the driver's seat. If it continues how it's going and the numbers on TV start tailing off more, what would possess someone to match (I'm not even going to dare say exceed) the money they're getting now? It would take TV crashing altogether, WWE staying where it is at now, and the options being far less attractive. At some point, someone has to say, "No, it's simply not worth it in the long run." That goes for both linear television and streaming services.

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About %100 of my WWE viewing is through the Network, I dont watch the weekly TVs, I catch NXT on the network and the PPV. If they ditch the network, I might go out my way to catch Raw or Smackdown.

Me personally, they bad product doesn't make me watch to cancel the network because of the fact that I dont watch the TV and the PPVs pretty much are always decent atleast. Growing up, I couldn't afford to get PPVs so I feel like $9 dollars I get to watch PPVs live and had access to the ones I missed out on growing up. I've gotten the chance to watch the Early Turner era WCW PPVs or Pre TNN ECW shows. I do miss the countdown shows  and the other nostalgia themed shows they had in the early years. I think Edge and Christian show was the last show the had that was really cool.

If they end it I probably would focus more on NJPW World and maybe get high spots to fill my Wrestling void

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3 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Dahzn (forever, never Dah Zone) in Canada is so great. We get all of the Premier League matches, NFL Game Pass, boxing, Serie A, Bellator, among other things for $150 a year. Not too long ago, cable companies were charging that for just Game Pass. 

 

You forgot the big draw...the motherfucking KHL

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15 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

I had no idea.

They only show one game a week and you get some wildly varying quality of video and commentary. On the 17th they have Jokerit v Moscow Dynamo, which should be pretty decent since they’re two of the bigger teams 

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3 hours ago, Whodathunkit said:

All this Network talk reminded me that I still subscribe to the Network, even though i can't remember the last time I actually used it.

Rectified that oversight.  DVDVR saved me some money.  I feel like I should toss the site a few bucks as a thank you.

I still subscribe to it. I still watch the Takeovers. That's about it, though. Plus, I don't mind letting other board members, namely @PetrolCB use my subscription. Us Seinfeld fans gotta stick together, after all.

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When they talk about having 1.43 million WWE Network subscribers, is that just in USA/ North America, or Worldwide? Also, predicting that this quarter will add 40,000 subscribers is pretty unambitious. Mania season and only 40,000 people are going to sub for that? Do they think people who sub for Mania are going to stay subbed after it?

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52 minutes ago, AxB said:

When they talk about having 1.43 million WWE Network subscribers, is that just in USA/ North America, or Worldwide? Also, predicting that this quarter will add 40,000 subscribers is pretty unambitious. Mania season and only 40,000 people are going to sub for that? Do they think people who sub for Mania are going to stay subbed after it?

That's total worldwide.  Total US viewers dipped below 1 million for the first time since the Network launched.

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So only like half a million across the rest of the world? All those international multilingual commentary teams, and there's only half a million non-Americans watching? (On the network, I mean; some people do still buy traditional PPV for some reason).

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23 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I am curious if it gets brought up that the new relaunched Network actually broke things way worse than the old one.

I know more than one person who cancelled because they were like "I got tired not being able to fast forward"

This. I still cannot believe that how broken the new app (for PS4 at least) is and continues to be:

  • I had to deactivate auto-play as way too often when doing a bit fast-forward, the app would accidentally jump to the end of the program and start the next show.
  • The "continue watching" bar (I am pretty sure the most important category for many users) sometimes is not even shown at all and usually displays only the last 2-3 shows. If you want to see your full history, you have to go via your personal settings and then you end up in a list that includes all episodes (incl. the ones you have finished watching).
  • The fast-forward thing is just a bad joke.
  • The organization of the content itself used to be a joke, I am not sure if they ever managed to improve that (a quick look on the web-version of the Network tells me that this is still broken).
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