Streaming sports service DAZN is taking a unique approach to adding subscribers with Saturday’s distribution of the Canelo Alvarez middleweight championship fight.

The SVOD streaming service will offer the Alvarez-Callum Smith fight via pay-per-view through PPV event aggregator In Demand for $69.99. As part of the deal, viewers purchasing the fight will receive a four-month subscription to the sports service, according to DAZN officials.

Alvarez will be fighting on PPV for the first time since signing a 12-fight deal with DAZN in 2018. That deal was nullified last month after Alvarez settled a breach of contract suit filed in September against DAZN and boxing company Golden Boy.

Also Read: DAZN Sets Canelo Alvarez Fight for December

DAZN senior VP of marketing Rob Stecklow said the offer provides an opportunity for the SVOD sports streaming service to introduce itself to boxing fans while luring back former subscribers who may have dropped the service earlier in the year when the pandemic halted most pro sports events, including marquee boxing shows.

“We’re taking the best pound-for-pound boxer in the sport and someone who has been on our platform for three fights," he said. “We want to put this fight in front of as many fans as possible, which is why we’re opening up the DAZN subscription package through the more traditional pay-per-view purchase.”  

For In Demand, the Alvarez-Callum fight is the third PPV boxing event in four weeks, following the successful Nov. 28 Mike Tyson -Roy Jones Jr. exhibition bout -- which drew 1.9 million PPV buys, according to industry sources -- and the Dec. 5 Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight championship fight. Neither In Demand nor DAZN would say whether cable distributors would receive a split of the revenue generated from Alvarez-Callum PPV buys.

“We just came off two hugely successful fights with Tyson/Jones and Spence/Garcia; in fact, the Tyson event was one of the top 8 PPV events of all time,” said Mark Boccardi, senior VP, programming & marketing for In Demand. “While we recognize that the structure of the deal with DAZN is unique, it gives us the opportunity to get Canelo back on PPV and allows our customers to conveniently order from their existing cable, satellite, and telco providers. DAZN clearly recognizes the broad reach that we provide, and wants to tap into our audience with this arrangement.” 

DAZN’s recent run of big fights, including the Dec. 12 Anthony Joshua-Kubrat Pulev fight and tomorrow night’s (Dec. 18) Gennady Golovkin-Kamil Szeremeta middleweight fight, has helped the service reach its pre-pandemic subscriber numbers, although the service would not reveal specific figures. Stecklow added the PPV offer will provide greater exposure for DAZN’s combat sports-centric lineup of programming, but he would not project how many PPV buys the Alvarez-Smith fight will generate. 

Stecklow also wouldn’t rule out stepping into the PPV ring for future fights. “We ideally would like to do this with other fights, potentially with our Ryan Garcia-Luke Campbell fight on Jan. 2,” he said. 

Floyd Mayweather will follow Mike Tyson into the pay-per-view boxing exhibition ring in February to take on YouTube star Logan Paul, Mayweather announced Sunday on his Instagram page.

The Mayweather-Paul fight will be streamed exclusively on the Fanmio Boxing website and will serve as the first fight for the 43-year old Mayweather since his 2017 fight against former UFC champion Conor McGregor. That fight drew 4.3 million PPV buys, the second most in PPV history behind the 4.6 million buys garnered by the 2015 Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight.  

Logan has fought twice against fellow YouTuber KSI, most recently in a Nov. 2019 PPV event.

The event will retail at a suggested price of $24.99 for the first 1 million buys before increasing to $39.99. Beginning Dec. 29 the fight will retail at $59.99 before increasing $10 to $69.99 starting Feb. 11, according to the Fanmio website.

Mayweather's announcement follows the Nov. 28 return of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to the squared ring for the first time in 15 years in a PPV exhibition fight against ex-heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. that ended in a draw. Logan Paul's brother Jake knocked out former basketball star Nat Robinson on the undercard of the Tyson-Jones fight. 

It also comes on the heels of Saturday night's big PPV welterweight boxing event in which champion Errol Spence Jr. defeated former champion Danny Garcia in a unanimous decision. 

Related: Fox Sports Gears Up for Spence Jr. Garcia PPV Fight

The sports world continues to be challenged by COVID-19 as numerous pro and college sports events have been postponed or cancelled this Thanksgiving weekend due to the pandemic.

In the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers game has been postponed a second time and will now be played on Tuesday night as more Ravens players have tested positive for the virus. At least 18 Ravens players have now tested positive for the virus, including Ravens quarterback and last year’s league MVP Lamar Jackson, according to ESPN.com.

The game was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving night Nov. 26, then earlier this week was moved to Nov. 29 before settling in on Dec. 1. The Ravens’ Dec. 3 Thursday Night Football game against the Dallas Cowboys has also been rescheduled and will  take place on Dec. 7, with Fox airing the game.

The Ravens-Steelers game is the second NFL game to be played on a Tuesday night this season, following the Oct. 13  Buffalo Bills-Tennessee Titans game, which was moved from its original Sunday, Oct. 11 date due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the Tennessee franchise. 

On the college football front, at least 12 games have been cancelled this weekend due to COVID-19, including several games featuring ranked teams. Fourth-ranked Ohio State’s game with Illinois was postponed due to positive COVID-19 test results within the Buckeyes’ program. Other postponed or cancelled games include seventh-ranked Cincinnati against Temple, 11th-ranked Oklahoma and West Virginia and 16th-ranked Wisconsin against Minnesota -- marking the first time those Big Ten teams haven’t played each other in a season since 1906.

College basketball began its 2020-21 season this past week as more than 40 of the 357 Division I programs have paused or have canceled their season altogether due to COVID-19 concerns, including top-ranked schools Baylor and Duke, according to USAToday.com.  

Despite the cancellations, there’s still a lot of live sports action on television this weekend. Third-ranked Clemson will return to the college football field Saturday against Pittsburgh (ESPN), leading a number of rivalry week games that include top-ranked Alabama against 22nd-ranked Auburn (CBS) and fifth-ranked Texas A&M against LSU (ESPN). 

On the pro front, CBS’ Kansas City-Tampa Bay game highlights the league's national afternoon games, while NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast pits Chicago against Green Bay in an NFC North division matchup.

On the pay-per-view front, former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson returns to the ring in an exhibition boxing match against Roy Jones Jr. The fight card can be purchased online at $49.99 through FITE.tv and TysonOnTriller.com as well as through traditional cable distributors via In Demand.

As Major League Baseball, the NBA and NHL gear up for fall postseason runs, boxing is quietly putting together a robust lineup of pay-per-view events to run over the next four months.

Three PPV boxing cards combined from Showtime and Fox Sports, as well as the scheduled November return of former PPV boxing champ Mike Tyson to the squared ring, will look to put boxing on the TV sports map in the fourth quarter.

“It’s a crowded fall boxing line-up, which is great for sports-starved consumers,” Mark Boccardi, senior VP of programming for PPV event aggregator In Demand, said.

Showtime recently launched an ambitious eight-fight fall boxing schedule which includes two major PPV events: a Sept. 26 card featuring world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo fighting in separate bouts, and an Oct. 24  Gervonta Davis- Leo Santa Cruz championship unification event, said Showtime officials.

The Sept. 26 card would be the first major PPV event for the category since the Feb. 22 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder II heavyweight championship fight, and the first being held amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Showtime is holding all of its fights with no fans at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.

Fox Sports will step into the PPV boxing ring on Nov. 21 with the Errol Spence Jr.-Danny Garcia welterweight championship fight. It's the undefeated Spence's first fight in more than a year after suffering serious injuries in an Oct. 19 car crash. 

A week later, former heavyweight champion Tyson is expected to enter the ring for the first time in 15 years when he fights another former heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. in an eight-round PPV exhibition fight. The event, distributed by multi-media company Triller, is reportedly expected to also feature musical performances as part of the PPV event.

In the wings is a scheduled Dec. 19 Fury-Wilder trilogy fight, although reports say that the fight could be moved to 2021.

While it’s too early to predict whether boxing fans will support PPV events in today’s difficult economic environment, the industry has to be somewhat encouraged by PPV performance numbers from mixed martial arts outfit UFC’s recent PPV events. The UFC’s Aug. 15 UFC 252 event drew around 400,000 buys according to Sports Business Daily, the third best performance for a UFC PPV event since the pandemic began. The May 9 UFC 249 -- its first and top performing PPV event since the pandemic -- drew more than 700,000 buys, according to SBJ.

Boccardi is confident that boxing fans will gravitate to the upcoming PPV fights, especially given the number of high-profile fighters stepping into the ring. 

”This fall’s PPV boxing line-up is going to be major, probably the biggest and most exciting one in recent memory," he said. "Since a lot of traditional fall sports, including some of the biggest conferences in college football, have sadly been postponed, we’re happy to be able to offer PPV customers the opportunity to support this incredible boxing season."

Former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson will return to the ring for the first time in 15 years in a September pay-per-view exhibition fight against former champion Roy Jones Jr.

The eight-round fight will be the first for the one-time PPV boxing champion Tyson, 54, since a 2005 loss to Kevin McBride. Jones, himself a former heavyweight champion and PPV draw, last fought in 2018.

The fight will be distributed by multi-media company Triller on social media and by In Demand via linear PPV, although no details were released on a suggested retail PPV price for the event. Along with the Tyson-Jones fight, the event will also feature undercard fights and musical performances, according to Triller.

The fight is the first event of a series produced under Tyson’s "Legends Only League," a sports venture owned by Tyson and Eros Innovations which has partnered with Triller on all future boxing events, according to Triller. 

The Tyson-Jones Jr. fight comes on the heels of the announcement of two other PPV boxing matches this fall from Showtime, including a Sept. 26 card featuring world champion brothers Jermall and Jermell Charlo in separate bouts,and an Oct. 24 event featuring a Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz championship unification bout.