Head of Marketing Haruka Gruber: “DAZN Users Are Unique”

Haruka, DAZN's latest venture is the Infinity League, an indoor football tournament that you organized for the first time on May 26 at the Munich Ice Sports Center and streamed for free. What was the idea behind it?

Haruka Gruber: With this event, we pursued two strategic goals. Firstly, we are always looking for new projects that provide added value for both fans and advertisers. We saw the opportunity to introduce an entirely new competition, with a setup and rules designed to attract the interest of both groups equally. Secondly, we aimed to reach a broader audience among viewers.

The media target audience is now divided into three groups: the classic linear TV viewers, with an average age of around 60; the streaming users – we can show that the average age of our streamers is 37; and then the very young, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who are very active on TikTok and Instagram. We felt that traditional sports leagues are still very much geared towards older audiences. Therefore, we wanted to create a new tournament that also appeals to a younger audience by combining sports and entertainment in a way that has never been seen before.

Infinity League: The next edition in Germany is planned for this year

The event was a great success for you: two million people streamed the tournament. How would you sum it up?

Haruka: We are very satisfied. As a streaming provider, we are, of course, used to producing major football matches live in the best possible way and distributing them to broadcasters worldwide. However, organizing an entire competition, where we had to consider everything from ticketing and security regulations to catering, was a challenge. Looking at how we managed it, I am very satisfied. Additionally, the event was meant to be a commercial success, and we see that it was: the viewer numbers were there, all advertisers and partners were very satisfied, and the football players and content creators were happy too.

What sustainable effect do you hope to achieve with the Infinity League?

Haruka: The Infinity League was never intended to be a one-time tournament. We invested a lot of time in the organization, and now we expect that future events will be easier to implement. We will definitely continue the Infinity League in Germany and are planning the next edition for the second half of the year. We also want to expand it to other countries, as that is a significant advantage for us as a global company – DAZN is very popular in Spain, Italy, Japan, and France, for example. For us, the Infinity League is strategically important because we want to reposition ourselves in terms of marketing. The tournament could be streamed completely free on Pluto TV and kicker.de, which generated a much larger audience and maximized advertising revenue. Additionally, we wanted to make as many people as possible familiar with the DAZN brand. For some time now, we have been offering a completely free option for sports fans to watch selected live sports content, such as the FA Cup final or El Clásico, at no cost through the DAZN app. You just need to register. The Infinity League was also part of this offering.

You say your goal is to become profitable as a company. What is your plan for this?

Haruka: Cost discipline. After eight years in Germany, we know which content works. This is a significant competitive advantage. However, it also means we need to be decisive about content that we found interesting but that our advertisers and subscribers did not appreciate and did not deliver the expected value. Additionally, we focus on efficiency in content acquisition and effective marketing. With this approach, we are definitely on the right track.

DAZN is now one of the biggest sports streamers in Germany. What is your recipe for success?

Haruka: It all started with our streaming app, which we have now outgrown, but it made us well-known. We found an opportunity to establish multiple touchpoints by forming partnerships. For example, we collaborate with kicker on the weekly podcast "kicker meets DAZN," which has become one of the largest football podcasts in Germany and can be streamed for free on all podcast platforms. As a first mover, we have launched partnerships on so-called FAST platforms, digital linear TV, with Samsung and Pluto, through which we show events like football matches or dart tournaments for free. This allows viewers to become familiar with our brand, and we have the opportunity to generate advertising revenue.

DAZN applies self-confident pricing for subscriptions and advertising customers

The streaming market has been growing for years and there are more and more providers. Do you feel that a certain saturation is slowly setting in and fewer users are deciding to subscribe?

Haruka: Fortunately, not at DAZN. Although we don't disclose subscriber numbers, we can report that we recently broke some audience records. I do think there will be consolidation at some point. Clearly, there are more and more players, but we believe in the power of scaling. In other words, we are very strong in sports, but we are also becoming increasingly relevant in entertainment. We are confident that we have the content people want to see.

At the same time, DAZN has increased its subscription prices. In a LinkedIn post, you plead for streaming providers to be self-confident in their pricing, both for subscriptions and for advertising customers. What reactions have you faced as a result?

Haruka: Both advertising partners and subscribers need to have a certain backbone. We have to explain to them why it is worth subscribing to DAZN or buying advertising from DAZN. The majority of advertising revenue is still generated by linear television. I have the feeling that advertising partners are even more cautious with streaming providers and often make the argument that you can't really measure reach. In my view, this is unfounded. We know that DAZN users watch a lot and, above all, stay in the stream for a long time, often use a second screen and hardly ever watch linear TV. As far as subscribers are concerned, we can clearly say that the price is justified for what we offer. We know what we are worth.

In 2019, you opened up DAZN to advertising – is financing solely through monthly subscriptions no longer feasible as a streaming service?

Haruka: The current development definitely speaks in favor of this. Advertising marketing is now one of the two most important pillars of financing alongside subscription revenue. The fact that Netflix and Amazon have also introduced advertising marketing and Disney+ is planning to introduce it indicates that it must be an essential part of the monetization model.

Attracting high-quality advertising partners and retaining paying subscribers sounds like a conflict of interest. How do you manage the balancing act?

Haruka: Unfortunately, there is no recipe or book that can tell you what the perfect balance looks like. We use a lot of data and always try to measure how our subscribers react. The challenge is to see how far you can go so that one side benefits and the other is not at too much of a disadvantage. For example, we have decided that we don't want to have overlong advertising blocks. This allows us to offer our advertising partners a certain exclusivity and set a higher price for us. Most of our customers, our users and our editorial team are happier with this concept because they have more time to place their content. We are convinced that we have found a good balance between not showing too much advertising, but enough to be commercially successful.

Transparency, exclusivity and branded content: this is what makes DAZN financially successful

In your opinion, which advertising measures have proven to be particularly effective for DAZN so far?

Haruka: There were four important pillars: Firstly, as a streaming partner, we are the most transparent. We work with various data collection companies and communicate the results openly. This allows us to say that DAZN users are unique and difficult to reach on linear television. In second place is the low ad load, which ensures the aforementioned exclusivity for our advertising partners. Thirdly, branded content is also an important topic for us. Here we produce content for individual events together with advertising partners that is not only promotional but also entertaining. The fourth is distribution. This means that we can provide our advertising partners with comprehensive offers thanks to our diverse free and paid platforms with different target groups.

What makes Bavaria such an attractive media location for you as a major streamer?

Haruka: I don't think it's a coincidence that we're based in Munich. I moved here from Hamburg 18 years ago to do an internship at Sport1. I later completed my traineeship there and ultimately never left Munich. I never had a reason to move away again. Why? Because the media headquarters are here. There are so many opportunities to develop yourself here, including the many interesting study options in the field. The city is full of good media people, Munich and Bavaria are already doing a lot of things right.