This is a developing story. Official press releases from both parties are expected shortly and this article will be updated with full terms when available.
Top Rank and DAZN have reached a broadcast deal, according to preliminary reporting from The Ring. The agreement ends an eight-month stretch in which one of boxing’s most storied promotional companies operated without a major broadcast partner — and hands DAZN the closest thing to a monopoly the sport has seen in the streaming era.
Neither Top Rank nor DAZN has issued a formal press release as of this writing, but the contours of the deal have been circulating within the industry for months. It’s been rumored since 2024 that the two sides had agreed to terms, with all Top Rank content moving exclusively to DAZN worldwide. Top Rank president Todd duBoef and DAZN CEO Shay Segev have been in extended negotiations since ESPN’s departure last summer.
The End of a Long Winter
Top Rank’s need for a new home became official on July 26, 2025, when Xander Zayas defeated Jorge Garcia by unanimous decision to win the WBO junior middleweight title at Madison Square Garden Theater — the final card of an eight-year partnership with ESPN that The Ring first confirmed was ending back in February of that year.
The split left Top Rank in an uncomfortable position. The promotion launched Top Rank Classics, a FAST channel on Tubi, Pluto TV, and Roku that kept its fighters visible at no cost to viewers. But free, ad-supported streaming was never a long-term business model for a company that had been receiving north of $80 million annually from ESPN. When Zayas unified the WBO and WBA junior middleweight titles against Abass Baraou on January 31 in San Juan — one of the most significant bouts of early 2026 — it streamed on the FAST channel rather than a premium platform. That alone underscored the urgency.
Bob Arum, the 93-year-old Hall of Fame promoter who founded Top Rank in 1973, had publicly indicated he wanted to work with multiple broadcasters rather than signing an exclusive deal. The company explored options with Max (the Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service), Netflix, and DAZN. But as months passed and no multi-platform arrangement materialized, DAZN — flush with Riyadh Season revenue and a freshly signed five-year extension with Matchroom Boxing — emerged as the only viable landing spot with the infrastructure and the checkbook to absorb Top Rank’s full slate.
What DAZN Gets
The addition of Top Rank gives DAZN a roster that no single boxing broadcaster has assembled in the modern era. Top Rank brings world champions across multiple divisions, headlined by undisputed junior featherweight king Naoya Inoue, the consensus No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world; unified junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas, the 22-year-old Puerto Rican who has emerged as one of the sport’s most marketable young stars; and WBO junior welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez.
The promotion’s roster runs deep beyond the title holders. Keyshawn Davis holds the WBO lightweight title. Emanuel Navarrete is the WBO junior lightweight champion. Rafael Espinoza reigns at featherweight. Rising prospects Abdullah Mason and Emiliano Vargas represent the next generation of Top Rank’s fighter development pipeline — a system that has produced champions from Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao to Terence Crawford.
DAZN already carries Matchroom Boxing (Eddie Hearn), Queensberry Promotions (Frank Warren), Golden Boy Promotions (Oscar De La Hoya), the Riyadh Season/Ring Magazine cards from Turki Alalshikh, and the recently signed MF Pro. Adding Top Rank means that four of the five largest traditional promotions in boxing now share the same streaming platform. The only major holdout on the promotional side is Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, which remains on Amazon Prime Video.
What It Means for the Landscape
DAZN’s consolidation of nearly every major promotion creates the conditions boxing fans have demanded for years: a world where Matchroom fighters can face Top Rank fighters without the broadcast politics that have historically prevented the best from fighting the best. Eddie Hearn welcomed the possibility when reports of the deal first surfaced in late 2024, noting that Queensberry’s arrival on DAZN had already reduced network-driven barriers to cross-promotional matchmaking.
The flip side is concentration risk. With so much of boxing’s content funneling through a single platform, DAZN holds enormous leverage over the economics of the sport. The platform’s PPV pricing — $59.99 per event, or included with the $44.99/month DAZN Ultimate subscription — has already drawn criticism from fans who feel the sport is becoming prohibitively expensive to follow. Adding Top Rank’s content to that ecosystem raises the question of whether DAZN’s pricing structure will expand, contract, or simply absorb more fights into its existing framework.
It also positions DAZN and Paramount+ as boxing’s two dominant streaming forces in the United States, with Amazon Prime handling PBC’s smaller output of approximately five shows per year and Netflix reserved for marquee one-off events like the September 19 Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao rematch.
The Bigger Picture
For Top Rank, the deal provides financial stability and global distribution after the most uncertain period in the company’s half-century history. For DAZN, it cements the platform’s position as the closest thing boxing has to a centralized broadcast home — a status it has pursued methodically since launching in the U.S. with Matchroom in 2018.
The full terms of the agreement — including its length, financial structure, and the number of events per year — are expected to become public once both parties issue formal announcements. BoxingInsider.com’s complete streaming guide has been updated to reflect the new broadcast landscape.
What is already clear is this: the last major promotion without a broadcast home just found one, and the platform that found it now controls a share of boxing’s live content that would have been unimaginable five years ago. Whether that consolidation ultimately serves fighters and fans — or simply concentrates power in a new set of hands — will be the defining question of boxing’s streaming era.
