DAZN and Top Rank Sign Multi-Year Deal in Landmark Partnership Boxing Insider.
Headlines DAZN and Top Rank Sign Multi-Year Deal in Landmark Partnership March 18, 2026 • 5 min read Share Copied! DAZN and Top Rank announced a multi-year media rights deal on Wednesday, ending the most significant free agency period in modern boxing and delivering one of the sport’s most decorated promotional companies to the platform that already houses the majority of its competitors. The agreement brings Top Rank’s full slate of live events and its six-decade fight archive to DAZN worldwide. Details regarding the inaugural Top Rank card on DAZN will be announced shortly, according to both parties. The deal closes a chapter that opened in July 2025, when Top Rank’s eight-year partnership with ESPN expired after Xander Zayas defeated Jorge Garcia at Madison Square Garden Theater. For nearly eight months, the promotion that has shaped more careers and staged more historic fights than arguably any company in the sport’s history operated without a major broadcast home — an uncomfortable position for a company of Top Rank’s stature. What the Deal Means Top Rank’s roster of more than three dozen fighters joins a DAZN boxing portfolio that already includes Matchroom Boxing (Eddie Hearn), Queensberry Promotions (Frank Warren), Golden Boy Promotions (Oscar De La Hoya), and the Riyadh Season cards from Turki Alalshikh. The addition means four of the five largest traditional promotions in boxing now live on the same streaming platform. The only major American promotion not on DAZN is Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, which remains on Amazon Prime Video. The roster Top Rank brings to DAZN is deep and title-rich. Among the fighters who will now compete on the platform: former champion and Olympic silver medalist Keyshawn Davis; WBO and WBA unified junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas, boxing’s youngest unified male world champion; undefeated WBO lightweight champion Abdullah Mason, boxing’s youngest current male world champion; three-division champion Emanuel Navarrete; undefeated IBF lightweight champion Raymond Muratalla; two-time junior lightweight champion O’Shaquie Foster; and WBC featherweight champion Bruce Carrington. Behind them sits a prospect pipeline — headlined by Emiliano Vargas, the reigning prospect of the year — that has been the envy of the industry for decades. Beyond the live events, DAZN will also carry Top Rank’s historic archive, a library that includes some of the most consequential fights ever staged. The Thrilla in Manila. The Four Kings era of Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. George Foreman’s comeback. Oscar De La Hoya’s rise. Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s reign. Manny Pacquiao’s seven division titles. For a platform positioning itself as the global home of boxing, there is no richer archive in the sport. The Quotes Bob Arum, Top Rank’s 93-year-old Hall of Fame chairman, framed the deal in the straightforward terms that have defined his six decades in the business. “Since the day I started Top Rank 60 years ago, our focus has been simple: sign the best fighters, develop them into champions and make the best fights possible,” Arum said. “DAZN’s position as the global home of boxing makes this a natural partnership, and I’m confident it will be tremendously beneficial for fighters, fans and the future of the sport.” DAZN Group CEO Shay Segev positioned the deal as a consolidation of the platform’s dominance in the sport. “DAZN already delivers more premium fight nights than any entertainment platform in the world and the addition of Top Rank’s elite events and historic archive further strengthens our position,” Segev said. “For fans, fighters and the sport, this partnership is about scale and setting a new standard for how world-class boxing is experienced.” A Second Deal May Be Coming The DAZN partnership may not be the only broadcast arrangement Top Rank secures. Veteran boxing journalist Dan Rafael reported that Top Rank is simultaneously negotiating a second deal that could see it return to longtime partner ESPN. If completed, that arrangement would give Top Rank content on both a premium streaming platform and a legacy sports network — the multi-outlet model Bob Arum publicly advocated for throughout the promotion’s time without a broadcast home. ESPN recently signed a separate agreement with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions on March 6, signaling that the network has not abandoned boxing entirely despite letting its Top Rank deal expire last summer. A return engagement between ESPN and Top Rank, even on a reduced scale, would restore a relationship that began in 1980 and produced one of the longest-running series in cable television history. The Bigger Picture There is no way to overstate what Top Rank has meant to professional boxing. The company was founded in 1966 when Bob Arum promoted his first fight, and it was incorporated in 1973. In the half-century since, Top Rank has promoted Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Vasiliy Lomachenko, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue. No other promotional company in the history of the sport can match that lineage. Not Don King. Not Main Events. Not anyone. The months without a broadcast partner tested the company in ways it had never been tested before. Top Rank launched a free FAST channel on Tubi, Pluto TV, and Roku to keep its fighters active and visible. It placed fighters on other promoters’ cards to ensure they stayed busy. It kept signing new talent — as recently as March 9, inking undefeated lightweight prospect Sammy Contreras to a multi-year deal. Through it all, the company never stopped operating like what it is: the gold standard of fighter development in professional boxing. Now it has a global platform to match. DAZN’s 200-plus market footprint, its existing relationships with Matchroom, Queensberry, and Golden Boy, and its Ultimate tier subscription model — which includes more than 185 fight nights and 12-plus PPV events annually — give Top Rank the kind of distribution infrastructure the promotion has never had access to, even during the ESPN years. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Front Office Sports reported that the arrangement calls for DAZN to broadcast between eight and ten Top Rank events per year. The inaugural card has not yet been announced. For DAZN, the deal adds inventory and leverage at a time when Zuffa Boxing on Paramount+ is spending aggressively to poach talent and build a rival ecosystem. For Top Rank, it ends eight months of uncertainty and puts its fighters back on a premium platform with global reach. Whether DAZN’s growing consolidation of the sport leads to better matchmaking across promotional lines or simply concentrates power in fewer hands remains the open question. The first Top Rank card on DAZN will begin to answer it. BoxingInsider.com’s complete streaming and broadcast guide has been updated to reflect the new partnership. Share this article Copied! Latest on X Boxing Insider Promotions @BoxingInsider · 30 Aug 2094059681664696766 Somebody in Tallahassee looked at this Duel Arena card and said yes. Somebody in Tallahassee looked at this Duel Arena card and said yes. 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DAZN, Top Rank, Boxing Insider
DAZN: DAZN is a sports streaming platform and broadcaster that signed a multi-year partnership with Top Rank to distribute boxing content.
Top Rank: Top Rank is a boxing promotion company that signed a multi-year partnership with DAZN to have its fights distributed on DAZN's streaming platform.
Boxing Insider: Boxing Insider is a boxing-focused media outlet that reported on the multi-year partnership between DAZN and Top Rank.
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