Sports, Streaming, and Selling Without the Spin

You want a masterclass in how to build a global sports machine without torching your ad partners? Walker Jacobs hands it over in plain English, no fluff on Next in Media with Mike Shields. This isn’t the fantasy PowerPoint version of sports streaming. It’s the sweaty, logistical, “hope the tech doesn’t melt down” version.

Here’s what he said, why it matters, and how you steal the playbook.

Jacobs didn’t brag. He rattled off operating reality: “We’ll do over 90,000 live events this year… available in over 200 countries and territories.” That’s not marketing spin; that’s a logistics nightmare disguised as bragging rights. Think less “Netflix of sports” and more “global airline that can’t afford a single canceled flight.”

The FIFA Club World Cup? Jacobs flat-out said they produced “every single match… 64 matches… in 13 languages… broadcasting into 196 countries.” Then he drops the real kicker: “We did it in less than six months.”

Most companies would call that suicide by timeline. DAZN called it Tuesday. They didn’t just push content; they engineered what they thought could be “the most streamed event in the history of the world.” And they made it free. Not charity, but a CAC stunt with fireworks and a neon sign saying “remember our name.”

Why it matters: most streamers crow about being “global,” then geo-fence half the planet and pray nobody notices. DAZN actually built the plane mid-flight. If your roadmap doesn’t include redundancy for 13 languages, ad loads stitched across partners, and servers ready to handle a sports riot in Argentina and Japan at the same time, you’re not global. You’re PowerPoint global.2) The hybrid model is the revenue model.

DAZN doesn’t pick a religion. Jacobs spelled it out: “We put 23 matches on Warner Bros. Discovery’s networks… and all 64 were on DAZN.” Same thing with Univision in Spanish, but in France they kept it fully in-house.

This isn’t hedging; it’s strategy. Linear is treated like a paid customer-acquisition channel. You expand reach, offset risk, and still plaster your own brand everywhere.

The real lesson: dogma is expensive. Optionality prints money.

On Amazon’s Thursday Night Football launch, Jacobs said the north star was “don’t screw it up.” No sermonizing to NFL advertisers about how they’ve “done it wrong for 50 years.” The playbook was simple: year one, deliver stability; years two and three, layer on interactivity, addressability, shoppable moments, creative splitting. As he put it, “You start to see the advantages of what a streaming platform can deliver.”

That’s the part most newcomers blow. They want to debut with a circus of features when what the audience actually needs is a stream that doesn’t buffer and an ad load that doesn’t crash.

Jacobs laid out how DAZN approaches rights. Outside the U.S., they run NFL Game Pass International — “Sunday Ticket Plus” with NFL Network, RedZone, TNF, SNF, MNF. NHL is next. Inside the U.S., they focus on Spanish-language UEFA and Serie A, with boxing as the anchor: “almost 150 nights a year.” Originals are windowed smartly: launch first as DAZN exclusives, then break wide through YouTube, TikTok, and Snap via Whistle Sports.

This isn’t randomness. It’s funnel architecture. Live rights create habit. Originals deepen engagement. Social extends reach. Windowing isn’t dead — dumb windowing is.

Jacobs poked a hole in the myth that the NFL “sells itself.” On YouTube’s debut, he called out that “selling one game early in the season… is harder than people think.” Yes, it’s the NFL. But in a market where every major player — Netflix, Amazon, Disney, NBC — already has a piece, one game is just an island. His point: packaging with Sunday Ticket, RedZone, and platform tools is mandatory.

Inventory without a narrative is just a garage sale.

No quick sugar highs. Jacobs put it bluntly: “Growing in the US is priority number one… in a way that is responsible and durable.” Translation: no dumb land grabs, no rights just for bragging. The play is to target Spanish-language soccer, originals with crossover power, and selective rights buys. Brick by brick, not spray and pray.