DAZN boosts Italian offer with MotoGP

Sports streamer DAZN has acquired non-exclusive rights to MotoGP in Italy for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. 

The deal includes coverage of MotoGP, Moto 2 and Moto 3 championship categories. Sky Italia will continue to show the three series as a part of a separate three-year deal which goes to the end of 2021, but DAZN will provide its own commentary team.

The 20-round season starts on March 8 in Qatar, and culminates on November 15 in Valencia.

It adds to DAZN’s existing motorsport portfolio in Italy, which includes the World Rally Championship (WRC), Formula E electric car racing series, IndyCar, Nascar, the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, and the World Touring Car Racing (WTCR).

DAZN’s executive vice president for southern Europe, Veronica Diquattro, said: “MotoGP competitions are pure adrenaline, emotion and courage and we will tell them with our usual direct and immediate language that will bring the fan to the centre of the stage.”

Globally, DAZN will hope that 2020 can emulate the success of 2019, with user consumption doubling to over half a billion hours. Motorsport, with 37.9 million hours streamed, was the third most popular category behind baseball and football. In total, more than 100 events surpassed one million streams.