Sports streaming service DAZN and Warner Bros. Discovery’s cable television network TNT struck a deal in April to dually distribute a monthly boxing series billed as “The Fight.”

The first installment is set for the Fourth of July, when boxing’s youngest male champion, Abdullah Mason, defends his WBO lightweight title against Albert Bell at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

DAZN will stream “The Fight” to its international subscribers, while TNT will give the show a wider reach by airing it on cable across the United States. The four-fight card begins at 8 p.m. ET.

Their partnership is a big boon for boxing, arriving at a time when the fast-evolving media rights landscape momentarily left the sweet science on the ropes and off TV. It also gives DAZN a much-desired chance to reach untapped fans and potential subscribers with its niche product.

Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer for TNT Sports, was instrumental in securing the deal. Barry is bullish on the potential the partnership presents for everyone involved and has confidence fireworks won’t fizzle anytime soon.

“We've been interested in the boxing space, and it's an opportunity where we think we can make an impact with the way that we do television with tentpole franchises,” Barry told The Ring. “We're going to leverage DAZN’s expertise, bring in our expertise, and see if we can create something unique in the space.

“We have to come in ready to perform at the highest level, because first and foremost, we're going out to their devoted hardcore boxing audience. We have to go out there and make sure we know what we're doing.”

TNT dabbled in boxing before the turn of the millennium but never at this scale or with such regularity.

A September 22, 1998 show featured a Madison Square Garden Theater fight card headlined by then-lightweight champion “Sugar” Shane Mosley’s victory over Eduardo Morales. The event averaged 2.3 million viewers, according to a TNT Sports spokesperson.

Additionally, a February 17, 1999 show in Grand Rapids, Michigan featured then-WBC junior lightweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. defending his title against Carlos Rios. The event averaged 1.7 million viewers.

Sister network truTV also presented a short-lived series billed as “Friday Night Knockout” in 2015, and the six telecasts averaged 243,000 viewers.

TNT isn’t pulling any punches this time around when it comes to production for “The Fight,” which is replete with resources highlighted by studio coverage anchored by TNT Sports veteran broadcaster Adam Lefkoe and retired former world champions-turned-analysts Terence Crawford, Tim Bradley and Shawn Porter. DAZN's established broadcast team of Todd Grisham, Sergio Mora and Chris Mannix will be manning the mics for the fight broadcasts.

Content ranging from shoulder programming, press conferences, weigh-ins, studio coverage, and fight nights can be consumed in a multitude of ways across DAZN, TNT and truTV.

Warner Bros. Discovery digital properties such as Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, and a series of owned social channels totaling nearly 100 million followers, will amplify the events as well.

“It comes down to storytelling, creating a reason for people to care about the boxers. Then when you do show up, we need to be ready to deliver,” Barry said. “For our tentpole events, we have a relatively large footprint with the presentation, custom graphics, on-site studio shows, and a robust talent roster. We treat it like a marquee event.

“And then on top of that, we need the audience to say, ‘Wow, that was additive, entertaining and good.’” We need to create a product that really resonates. I don't take it lightly, because there's a lot of moving pieces here. But I think that we put ourselves in the best position to perform at a high level. I'll use the word win, and not as a quantifiable term, but as a term of creating something meaningful for the fans.”

The TNT Sports portfolio in the US currently includes partnerships with MLB, NHL, NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, College Football Playoff games, NASCAR, Roland-Garros, and FIBA, among others. TNT was also a key presenter of NBA games from 1989 until last year but still produces the iconic "Inside the NBA" studio show that now airs on ESPN.

Barry is uniquely qualified to oversee the TNT Sports content portfolio due to his 30-year tenure across the network’s ecosystem. Barry has worked on every sports property in almost every role imaginable, including production assistant, associate director, producer, director, creative director and content executive.

Barry has also been a boxing fan at heart well before his career kicked off by watching Muhammad Ali fights live on network television.

“People have emotional connections to the fighters, and the thing with boxing is that you have to tell fighter stories in a fragmented space,” he said. “Hardcore fans will come, but you have to give the casual fans a reason to care.

“I think that's a little bit of our skill set, where we reach across that intersection of sports and culture. We understand the obligation to the hardcore fan, but we really embrace that obligation to the casual fan. We have enough lead time to build assets, resources, and tell the stories of these world-class boxers by leveraging our properties.”

While TNT is all-in on the presentation and production, DAZN has to depend on its promotional partners to whet TNT’s appetite for pugilism with well-built fight cards featuring key attractions.

“In all honesty, we have the ability to decline a fight,” Barry said. “If we feel that it's not a big enough matchup or a big enough draw, then we can go back and say, 'Let's keep working on this until we figure out something that we think works for both of us.' It's highly collaborative.”

Their union first kicked off in soccer during last year’s FIFA Club World Cup. The collaboration was deemed a success and set the foundation for “The Fight.”

“You're only as good as the people around you. So to partner with someone in the space like DAZN, this is their primary content platform distribution and primary property; it was a smart opportunity for us. They already have a built-in audience,” Barry said.

Subscribers to DAZN’s Ultimate plan, which costs $49.99 monthly in the U.S., have access to pay-per-views for no additional charge. A standard monthly subscription sans PPV events costs $24.99. Getting additional eyeballs from TNT’s audience to consider their subscription is a play DAZN hasn’t had since making its U.S. debut in 2018.

“It's great national exposure for DAZN on a different platform,” Barry said. “I mean, it's really not rocket science. They're going to reach a much different audience now, and the sport will reach a different audience than they're used to.

“DAZN is as interested as we are and as motivated as we are to create a monthly franchise that stretches across a diverse platform set that creates enough buzz and need for boxing fans to experience the events.

“I also think it's a big marketing play for DAZN, because we're co-branded and it just creates a lot more visibility and saturation for them in the sports media space. The benefits for them are pretty clear. They understand the value that we bring, and that's really important. We understand the value that they bring. Hopefully we'll be highly complementary. So far, all signs point to a really positive opportunity for both of us.”

Barry is also confident that TNT can host pay-per-view-quality contests on cable television.

“You'll see within the first 12 months a caliber of a fight on TNT like we saw last week when Jaron Ennis fought Xander Zayas,” Barry said. “In all honesty, I assumed that certain names and certain fights would automatically fall into that pay-per-view umbrella, but that hasn't been the case. Everything is on the table. It's a lot more collaborative and fluid than I expected it to be.

“And if we can make sense of it, then we're going to put the absolute best fight that we have accessible to us within this franchise. We've had a lot of really productive conversations around the opportunities and creating value for the fans.

“There are honest conversations about what's available and what should be pay-per-view. Not all brand name fighters have to be on pay-per-view, right? Those conversations are fluid; scheduling the fights is still fluid; we also understand that there are contractual obligations for the fighters themselves.”

The second episode of "The Fight" is set for August 1, when Lamont Roach and William Zepeda square off for the vacant WBC lightweight title at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas.

In the co-main event, IBF lightweight champion Raymond Muratalla takes on Robson Conceicao. A third show slated for September 4 is set to be promoted by Matchroom Boxing.

The expectation from the August 1 show is that the winners will face each other in a lightweight title unification, which falls directly in line with the narrative-driven stories TNT is trying to tell.

“Whether it's the biggest fight or not is secondary to the point of creating momentum around the franchise and telling the stories,” Barry said. “Boxing is just one of those sports people watch when there is a connection, especially with tentpole fights where a storyline drives interest.

“We're not going to be one-and-done-a-month in this space with only fight nights. Just like our other content properties, we build around the content strategy. So the more that we can integrate boxing into our platforms and create meaningful content around the sport, the more engaged everyone will be.”

The July 4 card is promoted by Top Rank and is appropriately filled with several undefeated American upstarts. In addition to the all-Ohio matchup between Mason and Bell, the show includes New York’s Bruce Carrington defending his WBC featherweight title against Mexico’s Rene Palacios in the co-main event, while Tiger Johnson, a 2020 US Olympian, and Maryland’s Deric "Scooter" Davis star in separate showcases.

Barry said the success of the partnership with DAZN will be measured in a multitude of ways on their side outside of simple numbers from Nielsen. TNT is currently the 24th most popular channel on TV, watched by a total number of 276,000 people throughout the day, according to US TVBD.

The only other network working in parallel to TNT with boxing programming is ESPN, which struck a multi-year deal with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions in March to primarily showcase women’s boxing after it passed on renewing its deal with Top Rank last summer following an eight-year run.

On the streaming side, Premier Boxing Champions is primarily tied to Prime Video since 2024 after previously brokering deals with ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and Showtime. Zuffa Boxing, meanwhile, kicked off in January on Paramount+.

DAZN and TNT’s partnership success will ultimately depend on the quality of fights Top Rank, Golden Boy, Matchroom, and others can supply, the eyeballs they can attract on cable, the new subscribers who’ll join the streaming service, and the new fans they can nurture in the U.S. for boxing to continue to grow.

“In any sport, if the matchup doesn't deliver competitively, it's hard to quantify success,” Barry said. “We're playing to win here and trying to figure out how we can be additive in the space.

“There are lots of sports we work on; we have a certain DNA. For some sports, the DNA works perfectly. The way we present and produce live sports really works for boxing. There's a really high ceiling to be found, but we’re passionate and excited to get to work.”