It was a strategy right out of the Silicon Valley playbook: disrupt, disrupt again, disrupt once more.

Since it launched its U.S. operations 13 months ago, DAZN, the global over-the-top sports subscription service, has brought a new element to the boxing business, matching brawn (billionaire Len Blavatnik is the main backer) with a newfangled business model (“No more PPV” was an early tagline) to corner a significant piece of the market in an audacious, long-term play to become what others have described as “the Netflix of sports.”

But as Executive Chairman John Skipper will tell you, although DAZN may be an insurgent on the sports media landscape, its ambitions in boxing are in many ways traditional. In one sense, the London-based company is not looking so much to disrupt the sport as it is to restore it to its former glory – to bring it back, in other words, to a state of relevance.

“I think boxing is a major sport,” Skipper told Boxing Junkie in a phone interview. “I think the issue has been that it has not been managed to be a major sport. What we’re trying to do – which we think we’ve made a lot of progress this year – is to try and return it to a position of preeminence in the sports leagues.

“I have learned, of course, that it requires dealing with a lot of different constituencies, a lot of different people, and we’re trying to do that. I think the progress made in the first year is pretty remarkable, and I’m pretty happy with it.”

“What we’re trying to do – which we think we’ve made a lot of progress this year – is to try and return (boxing) to a position of preeminence in the sports leagues.” – John Skipper

Skipper would know a thing or two about major sports. As the ex-head of ESPN, he worked hand-in-hand with the country’s most recognizable sports organizations, engineering billion-dollar deals with the likes of the NBA and NCAA football. Boxing obviously doesn’t have the universal appeal or infrastructure of the major team sports but Skipper believes the recent revitalization of the heavyweight division is an example of boxing’s potential. (DAZN will stream the heavily anticipated rematch between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz in December.)

“Nobody disagrees that boxing at one point held a very spectacular position in the world of sports,” Skipper said. “A lot of people cared about a lot of fights – not just two fights a year. We’re trying to return to that.”

That, from DAZN’s perspective, means breaking free from the standard practice of presenting the best fights behind the prohibitive pay-per-view paywall. At DAZN, the idea is to offer several PPV-caliber shows at a yearly subscription cost of $99.99 (or $19.99 per month). When it is pointed out that networks like Fox are committing to four or five PPV boxing shows a year, Skipper doubled down on his company’s blueprint.

“We do not think boxing re-rises to its former level of preeminence and will be a major sport if the best events cost $80,” Skipper said. “We are creating a significantly better value experience for boxing fans. We are utterly committed to this model and we think this is the model that will prevail.”

DAZN recently unveiled “Fight Season,” the promotional name for DAZN’s fall schedule of championship fights: the middleweight title fight between Golovkin and Dereyvanchenko last Saturday, the October 26 junior welterweight title-unification matchup between Regis Prograis and Josh Taylor, the November 2 light heavyweight clash between Alvarez and Sergey Kovalev and Ruiz-Joshua II on December 7. DAZN bought a 60-second ad to publicize its schedule during a recent NBC broadcast of Sunday Night Football.

“Fight Season” is not only a marketing campaign but, as Skipper puts it, a distillation of the company’s core “philosophical underpinning.”

“We want to make it feel like a real sport that has a calendar,” Skipper said. “When the Monday night football schedule came out, you circled the date your team was playing. If you’re a Golovkin fan, here’s when he’s fighting. You probably also like Danny, here’s when he’s fighting. If you like Ryan Garcia, here’s when he’s fighting. And of course, it’s also part or our business plan, that if you circle enough dates, you might as well order a one hundred dollar annual subscription because there’s so many good fights here. And that’s what we’re trying to prove out.”

“We want to make it feel like a real sport that has a calendar,” – Skipper

Signing up viewers is one thing, retaining them, of course, is another.

“Pay attention to the timing of when these fights are,” Skipper said. “The Canleo-Kovalev fight is November 2nd, the Joshua-Ruiz fight is December 7, so if you sign up for a one month plan, you don’t get that second fight.”

Skipper envisions future iterations of “Fight Season” to roll out like the sequels in a Marvel Universe movie.

“This is going to be like the “Avengers,” he said. “There will be Fight Season 1, Fight Season 2, Fight season 3, Fight Season 4. Hopefully it will always be fight season on DAZN. This is not just about an overarching Fight Season, it’s also about how you construct that season to give yourself the best chance to build the most subscribers.”

No doubt, DAZN has had a few choppy moments in its first year. A fight that DAZN expected to stream was a third fight between Alvarez and Golovkin in September, but talks fell apart when it became clear that Alvarez wasn’t interested. Skipper said he couldn’t discuss the situation in detail but re-affirmed the company’s desire to produce the fight on its platform.

“Look, there’s all this speculation because it is clearly the most desired fight by fans, and because it’s the most desired fight by fans, we would do outstanding business with it,” Skipper said. “It’s in our interest to continue to try and facilitate getting that fight. That’s what I intend to do.

“It’s my priority to drive this business, and I would be disingenuous to suggest that that (Canelo-Golovkin III) wouldn’t be a great driver for our business.”

“It’s my priority to drive this business, and I would be disingenuous to suggest that that (Canelo-Golovkin III) wouldn’t be a great driver for our business.” – Skipper

And though Skipper is thrilled to be showcasing Ruiz-Joshua II, he admitted that the location for the fight, in the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has been criticized for human rights violations, was hardly his first choice.

“It was my clear preference for that fight to take place in New York City,” Skipper said. “I let anybody who would listen understand that that was my clear preference. It wasn’t my decision to make. For reasons I don’t tend to speculate on, that did not go the way I preferred it to.”

Recently, DAZN Executive Vice President Joe Markowski said that his company would no longer be offering “inflated purses” to some of its fighters and their B-side opposition. Asked whether this rollback in payout might mean that it stands to lose out on certain attractive fights, Skipper said that the roster DAZN has amassed already offers plenty of high-level matchmaking possibilities.

“What you really need to do is aggregate enough boxers that are within our purview and then create the relationships with the other managers that allow you to make fights,” Skipper said. “That includes creating enough scale that it’s going to be necessary for the other managers and the entities to make fights.”

Nowhere is that more true than in DAZN’s stake in the middleweight division, in which all three major titleholders – superstar Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin and Demetrius Andrade – are contracted with the company.

Skipper believes this gives DAZN the leverage to entice other top contenders to fight on its platform, at least in that division. For example, Skipper pointed out that if middleweight Jermall Charlo, who is aligned with rival outfit Premier Boxing Champions, wishes to become a titleholder, his best bet is to fight on DAZN.

“We have (Demetrius) Andrade, Daniel Jacobs, Gennady, and Canelo. If (Charlo) wants to emerge as a champion and someday a unified champion, which is every boxer’s goal, he’s going to have to fight those guys,” Skipper said. “We think we’ll have the ability to make those fights, yes.”

Indeed, Skipper hinted that some big fights are in the works for the first quarter of 2020. He expects that schedule to roll out “as soon as we kind of get through Ruiz-Joshua II,” in time to convince fans to hold onto their subscriptions.

“Stay tuned,” Skipper said. “We’ll announce the next schedule and it’s going to be quite attractive. I think it’s going to be just as good as the last one we announced.”