Why the DAZN and NFL Game Pass Partnership is Thriving - a Q&A With Zander Berlinski
The NFL has shared its pleasure with the existing ten-year DAZN Partnership for NFL Game Pass. DAZN's global footprint gives the NFL a much wider reach, which is hugely important as it continues to expand worldwide.
In this Q&A with Zander Berlinski, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at DAZN, he highlights the factors that make this partnership a success, such as improved live streaming quality, expanding device distribution, investing in proprietary tech stacks, enhancing user experience with features like the "Home of NFL" section, and much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tyler Nesler: What are some of the factors that increased live streaming quality? Is there still room for improvement, and what steps is DAZN taking to make the live-streaming viewing experience even more seamless?
Zander Berlinski: Since we took over Game Pass relative to the previous provider that the NFL was using, we've over-doubled their distribution in terms of the number of devices we're on. And DAZN holistically is very much distribution agnostic. So, we want to be on as many platforms as possible to be in as many places where fans want to consume.
We dramatically expanded what we call the living room device footprint, which is smart TV streaming sticks like Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast. And we know that if you want to sit back and watch a three-hour football game, the best experience is to do that on a big screen. And we have tons of stats that show those who watch more on big-screen devices are more engaged and have a longer tenure on our service. And so one of the things we've seen is our viewership on living room devices is up significantly since we've taken over the property relative to what [the NFL] has seen historically.
We've invested billions of dollars into building our own proprietary tech stack, which, in light of recent media events, is obviously a big topic. Our platform is used to handling multiple millions of concurrences almost daily, primarily because of a lot of the domestic Tier 1 rights that we have in markets in Europe. So whether that's Bundesliga in Germany, LaLiga in Spain, or Serie A in Italy, we are the core domestic broadcaster in those markets, and our tech team is constantly monitoring trends like buffering rate, HD rate, and video start failures to ensure we have the best experience.
TN: What unique interactive elements does DAZN provide for fans that increase viewer engagement? What approaches is DAZN taking to educate people and promote interest in American Football and the NFL abroad?
ZB: This year, we launched a UX feature called Home of NFL, which is a catered section with differentiated rails and navigation tiles at the top, which allows fans to really deep dive into specific teams, individual weeks, and specific types of content like Hard Knocks.
We have a product called FanZone, which has a watch-along/chat room-type functionality. We've been doing that across a variety of different games. On the right-hand side of the screen, you have a chat room where people can interact. We run quizzes and polls there, with trivia about the NFL and about the game. Oftentimes, there are prizes, [such as] a free subscription for the next season or various other NFL-related prizes, and there are polls. We've seen a lot of engagement on that.
Another thing we did pretty recently, during Thanksgiving, was what I'd call an influencer or host-led watch-along. We had a popular rugby podcast in the UK called The Good, the Bad, & The Rugby, which essentially does a watch-along where they run commentary on the game. And we actually use that as a way to try to expand and bring new people in from an educational perspective. So they were commenting on the game, but a lot of what they were doing was also explaining what was happening and making some parallels to rugby for rugby fans that were there.
The other thing I will point to is just the breadth and variety of types of content that we have on the platform and the ability to access that at any given time. So, for any game, there are five or six different ways you can watch it, whether that's live or after the fact.
One of the features we've recently launched is a selection of games in Ultra HD. We've soft-launched multiview to a select number of users. We have it live currently on Apple TV and have seen great engagement there. It's now going to be rolled out across the full device footprint, which is going to be very exciting. So that is a different way of watching that we're excited about launching in the near future.
TN: From a marketing perspective, what additional approaches is DAZN taking to promote interest in American Football and the NFL abroad? Which regions, in particular, have seen an uptick in interest in the NFL? Relatedly, the interest in international soccer matches has grown in the US market over the last several years. How has DAZN similarly worked to increase interest in the NFL abroad?
ZB: I'd say there are select markets that are even in a much better position than soccer in the US. They've been doing international games for a decent amount of time, primarily in London and Germany. So, both the UK and Germany are very big markets for the NFL. Some statistics show the NFL is the second most popular sport in Germany now, and we see that in our numbers, which is great.
The NFL is doing eight international games next year, which will be an increase from five this year, and they've gotten approval from the owners to go up to 12. They've already announced they're doing one in Spain. So, continuing to have the product on the ground and almost make it a cultural moment in those countries and the investment that they're doing is great.
To answer your question about our marketing perspective and how we approach it, there are three or four key pillars. We take a tiered marketing approach. We recognize there are a lot of avid fans that exist already, whether that's expats living abroad, people who have spent time in the US, or just American sports fans.
We think about our marketing through those two lenses. One, we speak to people from a targeting perspective, and two, we think about what our activities should be at various points in the season. So, the kickoff, at the beginning of the season, is more about messaging for avid fans. And then as we get later into the season, whether that's international games or things like Thanksgiving or Christmas playoffs where maybe it appeals to a more casual fan, we start to think about that differently. In addition to the messaging side, we do a variety of things to expand interest and make it more accessible for fans to bring them along that journey from a more casual fan to an avid one. This year, we've been putting one game of the week ahead of the paywall in pretty much all the markets where we offer the product.
We've also seen good success with localization, both from a platform and commentary perspective. So before we took over Game Pass, it was primarily only English feeds. The American US feeds, I believe, offer two localized games per week. We still offer all the American feeds. There is a subset of people who like that US feed. They want to hear the traditional US broadcasters, but we recognize that to move into a more casual fan and expand the base, a bunch of people want to watch in their local language. So we're now doing 17 games a week, localized in five languages, and we do all that localized commentary ourselves. We've seen a lot of engagement on those localized games, which I think has helped expand the game into new pockets of people. We've [also] seen a big uptick in Japan, Italy, Spain, and Brazil.
Distribution is another key element. It is about being where fans want to be and working with partners that can help broaden the awareness of the league and the product. The UK would be a good example. This year, we launched a partnership with Vodafone where customers can subscribe to Game Pass directly through their Vodafone bill. It's a pretty seamless one-click experience. We also made a deal with Samsung in the UK where if someone purchases a TV, they get a free subscription to Game Pass.
TN: How has DAZN effectively addressed data and rights compliance issues in various countries? What advantages does DAZN have as a global platform in addressing these issues?
ZB: We have technology that allows us to geo-block where necessary, and rights are often sold on a country-by-country basis. We also have partners that we work with to ensure we're blocking VPNs and other geolocation services to ensure we're only surfacing the right content where we should be.
From a data perspective, we have local people on the ground who are quite familiar with the regulations in those markets. So we have a central team that leverages and leans on local expertise in a lot of our large markets, and operationally, on a global basis, we have a specific data security and compliance team that ensures we're abiding by the rules we need to in various countries. As a global platform that sits on one backend tech infrastructure, we have a very flexible toolkit that can be adjusted based on where we're operating. So, it gives us the ability to ensure that we're following the necessary protocols as regulations change in a given market.
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