Job cuts at Kayo under new ownership
Foxtel Group has made a number of redundancies at Kayo Sports, following the company’s recent $3.4 billion takeover by global sporting streaming Dazn.
A spokesperson from Foxtel confirmed the redundancies to Mumbrella, saying they “align with our recent executive re-shuffle that saw Hilary Perchard take on the responsibility of Kayo Sports and Binge, as well as Foxtel.”
Mumbrella understands the recent round of job losses is in the single digits.
Last month, the Foxtel Group made roughly 100 redundancies, with the majority from the Hubbl team, as the new owners look to merge its services with those of Dazn.
At the launch of Kayo’s summer of cricket 2025, in Melbourne.
Kayo CEO Julian Ogrin recently told Mumbrella that its sports streaming offering was one of the main incentives for Dazn to pursue the takeover deal.
“The IP that we have is something they were very interested in buying,” Ogrin said in April. “Kayo has always been regarded around the world as one of the best streaming services, from a customer-experience point of view, and so is Dazn.
“And by bringing us together, they’re going to get the best of our IP and the best of their IP coming together, eventually, one day.”
‘One day’ might be soon approaching. Dazn currently operates in 200 countries, including in Australia, and will eventually rebrand Kayo Sport to Dazn.
Dazn’s 2022 takeover of broadcaster Eleven Sports, provides a roadmap of how this may occur. Eleven was active in 17 markets across Europe and Southeast Asia, until the takeover, when the various sporting rights and business operations were folded into existing Dazn platforms.
In April, Ogrin said the two businesses were “in discovery mode”.
“They’re going to help us, whether it’s content, whether it’s user experience, development, or branding … then we come out the other end and work out where our IP can get exported, and where their IP can get imported.”
Kayo has 1.5 million subscribers in Australia, and holds a number of key sporting licences in Australia, including NRL, AFL, extensive cricket rights, the Formula One, netball, and Super Cars. Recently, it added every game of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, due to Dazn holding the international rights to the tournament.
“Now that we are part of DAZN, there are also opportunities that will set us up for success as part of a global company,” a Foxtel spokesperson told Mumbrella.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Bring down the price for Foxtel and Kayo
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Does that mean that Kayo is no longer owned by Murdoch? (I might subscribe if it isn’t…)
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“Best streaming service in the world”? It’s absolute shite. Constant buffering and no tech support, just putting the blame back on customers. Absolute fraud of a service and the sooner somebody else gets the online rights for AFL the better.
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“Kayo has always been regarded around the world as one of the best streaming services, from a customer-experience point of view”. Wow. Reference required!
I recently signed up to Kayo (once it left News Ltd ownership), and the viewer experience is appalling. I really only watch Formula 1 replays. There are no chapters or placeholders for key parts of the broadcast, long boring promos, advertisements (!), the fast forward and rewind feature is rubbish with no screen preview or any indication of speed, and no viewer selectable features like the the UK Sky broadcast has.
And all this for $25 a month. Soon to be $30 a month! It’s a lot of money to watch two or three race replays a month and it’s a rubbish experience. And unlike other regions, Kayo’s monopoly deal with F1 ensures no other viewing options are available for Australian viewers.
My next step is to cancel Kayo before the price rise hits and employ a tech savvy teenager and a VPN to purchase a reasonably priced, reasonably featured broadcast package from overseas (probably NZ). Failing that I’ll go back to not watching Formula 1 until Australian viewers get a fair deal.
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