At this year’s FED in Lucca, Philippe Tripodi, Chief Compliance Officer at MainStreaming, and Vincenzo Roggio, Head of Distribution Engineering at DAZN shared exclusive insights into how DAZN is preparing to stream the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ to a global audience, and how their partnership with MainStreaming is key to making it happen.
As the demand for high-quality live sports streaming continues to rise, delivering a flawless viewing experience is more complex than ever. OTT platforms like DAZN face massive spikes in traffic during live events, requiring an infrastructure that can scale rapidly and ensure low-latency, high-reliability delivery. That’s where the partnership with MainStreaming comes in.
From Global CDNs to Private Edge: The DAZN Journey
DAZN began its streaming operations in Japan and Germany in 2016, before expanding into Italy in 2018, followed by Spain and France. Initially, DAZN relied on global CDNs to deliver its content. However, with the increasing volume and volatility of traffic — especially around live sports events — the company quickly realized the need for a more controlled and efficient solution.
This led to the development of DAZN Edge, a private Edge Video Delivery Network, built and operated by MainStreaming. This dedicated infrastructure currently covers strategic markets like Italy, Germany, Spain, and is now being expanded globally to support the FIFA Club World Cup.
The Challenge of Delivering a Historic Tournament
The FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ will feature 32 of the world’s top club teams, competing across 12 U.S. venues from June 15 to July 13. For DAZN, which secured the global free-to-view streaming rights for all 63 matches, the stakes are high, and so are the challenges.
Unlike VOD platforms where viewers come and go, live sports draw massive audiences all at once. “Most users connect in the 30 minutes leading up to a match,” explained Vincenzo Roggio. “It’s a huge surge that the infrastructure must absorb instantly, and it must happen as close to the user as possible.”
The geographic spread of the teams adds another layer of complexity. If an underdog team advances further than expected, new audience clusters emerge in unexpected regions. “That’s why flexibility and the ability to rapidly respond to emerging traffic patterns is crucial”, said Vincenzo Roggio.
Redefining the Future of Sports Streaming
To meet the demands of the FIFA Club World Cup, MainStreaming is expanding DAZN Edge with new Points of Presence (PoPs) across the globe. These new installations will complement the existing infrastructure and enable DAZN to maintain performance and scalability on a truly global scale.
What makes this partnership stand out is the shared vision between DAZN and MainStreaming: to redefine how live sports are streamed. Together, they are proving that with the right architecture — intelligent, scalable, and close to the edge — even a tournament of this magnitude can be delivered without compromise.
The FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ will not only be historic on the pitch but also in the way it’s experienced by fans around the world. With no historical precedent for how audiences will behave or which devices they'll use, flexibility and readiness are essential, and MainStreaming is ensuring DAZN is prepared for every possibility.
