As I was driving over to my office on Friday morning, I happened to see that I got a notice on my PayPal app that I had been charged with something. As I was at a red light (because I would never check on my phone while driving) I saw that I was billed the sum of $224.99.
Had I been scammed?
Well....kinda.
It turns out that I had been auto-subscribed to my yearly subscription to DAZN.
Steve Kim
Now, I want to make this clear, given the fact that I cover the sport of boxing, this is a platform that I need to have. Especially given the current landscape. At this moment, outside the occasional event that is streamed by Netflix or on Amazon, this is the place to watch world-class boxing.
I've actually had a DAZN subscription since its inception in 2018. The first year or two I was given a freebie, but since then I have actually paid for it. It's something I really don't mind doing, after all, given what I do, not only is it a necessity, but I get to write it off on my taxes. (Hey, every deduction counts!!). But this is no different than having HBO and Showtime as they broadcast the best that boxing had to offer.
But a funny thing has happened in recent years. When DAZN was first rolled out they not only were much cheaper, but they trumpeted the fact that they were in essence, killing pay-per-view. Meaning that you'd get the likes of Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin, and Anthony Joshua for nothing more than your monthly/yearly subscription.
DAZN
Well, despite promises from Tracy Morgan (remember those commercials?), pay-per-view is actually alive and well. In fact, it's flourishing. Sure, we still get cards from Golden Boy Promotions (like their upcoming show on November 8 featuring Vergil Ortiz-Erickson Lubin) and the usual rotation of Matchroom Boxing cards that feature the likes of Jaron Ennis and 'Bam' Rodriguez, the reality is that there are now more and more pay-per-view cards on DAZN.
And get this, now you have to be a subscriber to have the honor of buying the rematch between Chris Eubank and Conor Benn. Yeah, this is the television version of Personal Seat Licenses that gave you the right to buy season tickets to an NFL team as long as you paid another free beforehand.
It was appropo that my yearly sub was renewed on Friday given that this weekend was the heavyweight battle between Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley, two boxers rated in the Ring Magazine top 10. It was a legitimately good match-up -- and it would cost us an extra $59.99.
If you can't get a fight like this as part of your regular subscription, what's the point of having DAZN?
WBN
In the past, when you had HBO, in addition to boxing you had various programs like 'the Sopranos', 'the Wire' and 'Real Sports' among other offerings. DAZN has a bunch of soccer and snooker. There are literally months where I don't even log into it. I consume it far less than I did in 2018, and it only gets more expensive as the years go on. More is less, here.
A couple of months ago Turki Alalshikh had made promises that all of his 'Ring' upcoming cards (like his loaded slate of bouts on November 22nd) would not be pay-per-view. Well, it turns out that this show actually will have an added price to it. There is now talk of an enhanced DAZN subscription that will include all of these pay-per-view events in the future.
So basically what they are doing is financing all of these cards in one bundle.
It might be safe to say that nobody has helped the sale of Firesticks more than DAZN in the last couple of years.
As for the Wardley-Parker fight, it was a memorable slugfest that saw Wardley win on a questionable stoppage from referee Howard Foster. Personally, I saw this fight on YouTube on Sunday morning, so I didn't technically pirate the fight. Regardless, it was a helluva fight.
I wonder just how many actually bought it Stateside.
