canadian dazn

By MORGAN CAMPBELL Staff Reporter
toronto star

This summer a U.K.-based streaming service called DAZN trumpeted its biggest achievement: securing exclusive rights to broadcast NFL Sunday Ticket and Red Zone in Canada.

The move looked like a victory for the company, which swiped a coveted sports property from established players such as Rogers and Bell. It also seemed to be a win for cord-cutters, who dumped the cable companies but still want reliable, affordable, legal online streams of NFL games.

And the deal appeared to offer us a glimpse into the future of live sports broadcasting, where online streams come first and TV becomes an afterthought.

But then the games began and complaints from Canadian subscribers paying a $20 monthly fee for DAZN (pronounced Da Zone) piled up quickly.

Some games streamed without commentary, while other viewers reported disjointed, choppy transmissions that failed to capture fast-paced action. Other games simply didn’t show.

DAZN’s rough introduction to Canadian NFL fans has made the company the target of ridicule on Twitter, but they aren’t the only outfit to struggle to deliver big-ticket sports events over the internet. Even as online viewing gains popularity, the all-streaming future of mainstream events remains a few years away.

But that doesn’t help Canadian football fans such as Toronto-based lawyer Adam Epstein, struggling with DAZN streams right now.

“I hope the NFL wakes up and realizes they’ve made an egregious error,” Epstein, a DAZN subscriber, said in an interview. “We’re literally shutting the door on 30 million potential fans.”