DAZN's Britton Hardin: 'You'll see the value in your investment'

LAS VEGAS – Timing is everything for Britton Hardin, a former aspiring pro boxer whose ascent as DAZN’s North America head of boxing leaves him positioned something far beyond winning a world title.

Hardin, overseeing this week’s coverage of Saturday’s WBA welterweight title defense by champion Rolly Romero versus two-division titlist Teofimo Lopez, has strengthened the streaming network’s brand as boxing’s home by aligning with established promoters Top Rank and Premier Boxing Champions while re-upping with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions this year.

DAZN had existing ties to Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing and Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions in England.

“As a fan, this is the most opportunistic time to be interested in the sport,” Hardin told BoxingScene before Las Vegas’ Lopez, 22-0 (13 KOs), and Romero, 17-2 (13 KOs), made weight for their DAZN pay-per-view bout at T-Mobile Arena,

“When a few years ago, things would have been fragmented as a result of fighters being on ‘this side of the street,’ and the other being on ‘that side of the street,’ now there’s no real side of the street. Every fighter is here.”
While Paramount+ offers Saudi Arabia-backed Zuffa Boxing and current and recent champions Shakur Stevenson, Jai Opetaia and Richardson Hitchins, Hardin has already staged an attractive 154lbs unified title bout between Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Xander Zayas while able to tap into a slew of other high-profile, cross-promoted showdowns.

“I mean this in the most respectful way possible: Unequivocally, DAZN is the home of boxing,” Hardin said. “You have every major promoter, all the major fighters – fighters who’ve looked across at other promotion’s fighters thinking, ‘If I could get my hands on that fighter – on that title – what that would do for my legacy … .” You have promoters who’ve wanted to work with others, but they couldn’t – all that goes away now so the fans can get the outsized value on DAZN you’re not going to get anywhere else.”

While DAZN just increased its yearly rate to $449.99, the network offers PBC cards featuring interim champions Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz and Jesus Ramos next month, a 154lbs title defense by Sebastian Fundora and a junior lightweight three-belt unification between Emanuel Navarrete and O’Shaquie Foster in October and a likely David Benavidez cruiserweight title defense in December. More will follow, too.

“So those linear stories we didn’t get to have with [the sides] fighting, we can make those fights readily,” Hardin said. “It’s a very good time to be a boxing fan.

“As an executive, I’m also feeling enthused because I love this sport. I really do. And when boxing gets it right, there’s no better sport. To have all the major promoters under one umbrella and all of them buying into the message that we all need to work together, that we need to make these fights and do it in a time frame that makes sense for the boxing audience we’re ushering in, it makes me feel boxing has the opportunity to be the No. 1 sport again, like it was in the 1960s and 1970s.”

While that grand ambition likely proves evasive, Hardin says he’s convinced the competitive and formerly protective promoters will change their ways for the sake of the new business model.

“Myself and the leadership at DAZN, that is the messaging that we’ve been landing, and – surprisingly, or not so surprisingly – all of these promoters want to work together,” Hardin said. “There are fights among various weight classes that they’ve all fancied, for example [Top Rank’s WBC featherweight champion Bruce] ‘ShuShu’ Carrington against [PBC’s IBF champion] Brandon Figueroa. As a boxing fan, a boxing executive and a boxing nerd, it’s all very gratifying.”

Nearly 15 years ago, Hardin worked in the media business and pursued a boxing career at local Los Angeles gyms. In sparring, he said, “I got my ass handed to me and realized I was probably better suited doing other things.”

Ironically, he worked in the mailroom at Zuffa Boxing’s current parent company TKO Group Holdings’ head Ari Emanuel’s talent agency William Morris Endeavor, and came to realize he had a knack for scouting and nurturing talent along with “helping fighters realize what they were signing.”

A management position led him to boxing promotion, and his company OTX had DAZN as its broadcast partner.

“They knew who I was, what I was doing, that we were attracting a very young audience and they appreciated that,” Hardin said. “It just naturally came together.”

As is the meshing of the promoters. In getting Top Rank’s Bob Arum to leave his loyal boxing home at Madison Square Garden in June, taking young, undisputed champion Zayas as an underdog against Matchroom’s Ennis at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center was the start.

“Top Rank’s [President] Todd DuBoef said, ‘This is the fight that Top Rank does not make.’ That is the fruit of having two very big promoters who otherwise would not necessarily have been incentivized to make that fight,” Hardin said. “But because we’re under the same umbrella, everybody is looking at the others as partners, and in this new landscape of boxing, they want to make the blockbusters.

“We’re starting to see the fruit of that root.”

In this weekend’s case, DAZN took another bold step and signed free agent Lopez to a multi-fight deal while engaging in similar talks with WBO welterweight champion Devin Haney, who will be positioned to fight Saturday’s winner.

“It made a lot of sense to align with Teofimo Lopez, a two-division champion with the opportunity to assume a title in a third division against a guy [Romero] he has intimate knowledge of,” Hardin said.

“It’s a crossroads fight. We understood the magnitude. Both of these guys don’t come out as winners.That’s the true blood and guts nature of this sport. This is what Teofimo and Rolly wanted: to be a unified champion. ‘I want to go down in the history books. I want my legacy to go with Sugar Ray Leonard, Floyd Mayweather.’”

Hardin acknowledges he remains a fighter in this executive role. With powerful Saudi Arabia boxing financier owning 60 per cent of Zuffa Boxing, future free agents like Ryan Garcia and Benavidez will likely be up for the highest bidder.

Paramount+ has next month’s Garcia-Conor Benn WBC welterweight title fight, and Netflix is positioned for the planned November 20 Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury fight at MSG.

“I truly believe a rising tide will raise all ships,” Hardin said. “Any interest in the sport, you’ll look across the ocean and see ships over there, too, and if they do anything that’s big, that’ll draw attention to what we’re doing.”

He expressed confidence in his cause.

“Our goal is to super-serve the boxing fan with outsized value and to usher new fans in,” he said. “We invested in all of this, brought all of these people to the table for you, so you’ll see the value of your investment.”