DAZN has agreed to acquire EverPass Media, giving the global sports platform a commercial distribution business serving U.S. bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos and other public venues. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
EverPass holds the exclusive commercial distribution rights to NFL Sunday Ticket and carries sports programming available through Peacock, Netflix, Paramount and Apple. After the transaction closes, EverPass will become the foundation of DAZN for Business and rebrand under the DAZN name.
DAZN’s broader U.S. expansion is moving through infrastructure. ViewLift gives the company technology for teams, leagues and regional sports networks. EverPass gives it the commercial venues where fragmented streaming rights become an operational problem.
The strategy lets DAZN build U.S. leverage around sports rights it doesn’t own.
EverPass Owns the Hardest Room in Sports
Streaming a game inside a home usually requires one account, one screen and one viewer deciding what to watch.
A sports bar can have dozens of screens carrying several games from different services at the same time. The operator needs commercial licenses, reliable authentication, centralized scheduling, compatible hardware, customer support and a way to switch programming quickly.
A packed sports bar is a miniature network operations center with beer on the floor.
EverPass was built for that environment. Its platform can manage multiple screens and locations, schedule programming, connect with existing audiovisual systems and give venues tools for promotions and customer engagement.
Those capabilities have become more valuable as sports rights scatter across subscription services. A bar can’t use a residential streaming account to show a commercially licensed game. Each new rights owner creates another agreement, entitlement and technical workflow for the venue.
EverPass aggregates those relationships into a commercial product. DAZN is buying the layer that makes streaming fragmentation workable in public.
The NFL Comes With the Cap Table
EverPass was founded by RedBird Capital Partners and 32 Equity, the NFL’s investment arm. TKO Group Holdings later joined the ownership group.
As part of the DAZN transaction, RedBird, 32 Equity and TKO will become minority shareholders in DAZN. EverPass CEO Alex Kaplan will continue leading the business and take on a larger role within DAZN.
The NFL relationship gives the acquisition strategic weight. EverPass controls commercial distribution for NFL Sunday Ticket, including every out-of-market Sunday afternoon regular-season game.
That agreement places EverPass at the center of one of the most valuable weekly products for sports bars. NFL Sunday Ticket can determine where fans spend several hours, how long they stay and how much food and alcohol a venue sells.
The equity relationship doesn’t guarantee DAZN future NFL rights. It gives the company an established commercial partnership with the league and a platform carrying an essential NFL product.
DAZN is consequently entering the U.S. market with the NFL connected to both its programming and ownership structure.
DirecTV Still Owns Part of the Customer Relationship
EverPass recently reached a multiyear agreement making DirecTV for Business its preferred national distributor. DirecTV handles sales, marketing, billing and support while offering NFL Sunday Ticket through satellite and EverPass streaming.
DirecTV serves more than 300,000 commercial locations. That footprint gives EverPass immediate scale and lets venues retain existing equipment and service relationships.
It also means DAZN won’t control every part of the customer experience.
DirecTV can remain the primary contact for a bar buying the package. EverPass supplies the commercial rights and streaming infrastructure underneath that relationship. DAZN will have to decide how much of its brand, customer data and product roadmap can move through a distributor with its own commercial priorities.
The arrangement still gives DAZN reach it couldn’t build quickly through direct sales. Commercial venues expect installation, account management and support when a game fails five minutes before kickoff. DirecTV already has the people and systems required to provide them.
DAZN gets infrastructure and rights. DirecTV provides the field operation.
ViewLift Handles the Platform. EverPass Handles the Sports Bar
DAZN’s acquisition of ViewLift gave it the technology to launch and operate streaming products for leagues, teams and regional sports businesses.
DAZN’s ViewLift acquisition created a play for control of the post-RSN local sports stack. The platform can support subscriptions, advertising, authentication, applications and direct customer relationships for rights owners moving beyond traditional distribution.
EverPass adds the commercial side of the market.
A team using ViewLift can reach fans at home through its own streaming product. The same rights can reach bars, restaurants and hotels through DAZN for Business. DAZN’s consumer app covers another part of the audience.
That gives the company three distribution layers:
- Consumer streaming through DAZN
- Team and league streaming through ViewLift
- Commercial-venue streaming through EverPass
The pieces let DAZN serve a rights holder across several viewing environments without owning every underlying event.
That’s also the logic behind DAZN positioning itself as an infrastructure layer for regional sports. The company can earn revenue from delivery, subscriptions, advertising and commercial distribution while a team or league retains its brand and programming.
Infrastructure Can Become Rights Leverage
Rights owners want distribution that reaches households, mobile viewers and public venues. A bidder capable of serving all three can attach more economic value to the same package.
DAZN can use EverPass to offer commercial distribution alongside a consumer-rights proposal. It can also distribute rights held by other services and collect revenue from venues without competing directly for the residential package.
EverPass already carries commercial programming associated with Peacock, Netflix, Paramount and Apple. Those services have strong consumer platforms. Few have built their own nationwide operations for bars and restaurants.
That makes DAZN useful to companies it competes with elsewhere.
The company can become the commercial wholesaler sitting between streaming services and venues. Rights owners gain incremental distribution and revenue. Venues receive one operating layer for a growing collection of services. DAZN earns a place in the transaction.
EverPass has already established itself as sports-bar middleware. DAZN is turning that middleware into part of a larger sports-distribution stack.
DAZN Is Also Buying an Operating Problem
Commercial distribution carries consequences when streams fail.
A household experiencing an outage may cancel a subscription. A bar experiencing an outage during an NFL game can lose customers, sales and trust immediately. The venue may have promoted the event, scheduled staff and purchased inventory around a game it can no longer show.
That makes uptime, support and redundancy part of the rights product.
DAZN will have to integrate EverPass while preserving its reliability and existing partner relationships. It also has to coordinate consumer rights, commercial rights and territory restrictions across several services.
The rights portfolio can change as agreements expire. NFL Sunday Ticket gives the business immediate importance, although the long-term value depends on renewal terms and the other programming DAZN adds around it.
The acquisition price wasn’t disclosed. The operating test will be venue growth, rights expansion, retention and the amount of programming each commercial customer purchases.
The Streaming Wars Take
DAZN is becoming a sports distribution company with consumer, team and commercial-venue infrastructure.
ViewLift gives it a technology layer for teams, leagues and regional sports networks. EverPass gives it the bars, restaurants and hotels where sports fragmentation creates the most immediate operational pain. DAZN’s app maintains the direct consumer relationship.
That stack can generate revenue without DAZN owning every major right. It can also strengthen future rights bids by giving leagues one company capable of reaching several kinds of customers.
The U.S. sports market has plenty of streaming services. DAZN is buying the infrastructure required to make those services work inside America’s public living rooms.
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