By: Sean Crose
DAZN streaming service announced early Friday morning that it had signed “Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin will fight the rest of his career on DAZN, the world’s largest sports streaming platform.” By signing the former middleweight champion, DAZN has effectively rounded up some of the biggest names in the sport of boxing. Aside from Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, and heavyweight kingpin Anthony Joshua have also signed with DAZN. That’s a huge percentage of top moneymakers fighting on a broadcast format that eschews the Pay Per View model.
DAZN, which has presented itself as an alternative to the expensive practice of broadcasting fights via Pay Per View, is paying out enormous sums of money to get fighters such as Golovkin onto its platform. Canelo, for instance, has reportedly become the highest paid athlete in the world, thanks to his deal with DAZN, which guarantees the popular star over three hundred and sixty million dollars over the course of five years (and over ten fights).
As for Golovkin, DAZN claims “The six-fight global partnership between GGG Promotions and DAZN will see Golovkin fight twice a year on the platform for the next three years. Unlike many of his recent bouts, Golovkin will no longer appear on pay-per-view. Instead, his fights will be available to all DAZN subscribers at no extra charge. In addition, GGG Promotions will present two cards per year on DAZN beginning in 2020.”
“DAZN has quickly become the new home of boxing by making the biggest events easily available to the fans,” Golovkin is quoted as saying. “When deciding on where I wanted to continue my career, DAZN’s global vision perfectly matched my goals – not just for my career but the opportunity to showcase talented Eastern European fighters to the world. Thank you to my fans for all of the loyal support and I look forward to you joining me on DAZN.”
With the acquisition of Golovkin, DAZN has, for all intents and purposes, wrapped up the contemporary middleweight division. Although top middleweights such as Jermall Charlo fight outside of the DAZN universe, Golovkin, Canelo, Daniel Jacobs and WBO champ Demetrius Andrade are now all DAZN fighters. “The announcement sets up DAZN to stream blockbuster fights within the middleweight division for the foreseeable future,” the streaming service states, with all of the