A sports bar has a peculiar technology problem: the customer usually knows when the system has failed. The screen freezes. The wrong game appears. Somebody across the room celebrates a touchdown before your television has delivered the snap. For the person behind the bar, the streaming revolution arrives with a tray of drinks and a demand to find the remote.
EverPass Media has made that gap between the living room and the commercial venue its business. It distributes licensed sports programming and supplies tools to control screens, schedule games and run promotions. Its customers include bars, restaurants, hotels and casinos, places where television is part of the reason people turn up and stay.
On August 26, 2026, DAZN announced an agreement to acquire the company. EverPass would become DAZN for Business after completion, with its technology underpinning the wider commercial platform. The proposed deal gives this three-year-old business a larger stage. It also sharpens the question behind its pitch: can aggregating sports make life simpler for the person serving the fans?
The NFL supplied the opening play
EverPass began with an unusually valuable introduction. In March 2023, the NFL and RedBird Capital Partners announced the venture, backed by RedBird and the league’s investment arm, 32 Equity. Its starting asset was the exclusive right to distribute NFL Sunday Ticket to commercial establishments in the United States.
That distinction matters. YouTube won the residential Sunday Ticket business; EverPass addressed businesses showing games to their customers. A household subscription did not become a bar subscription because somebody plugged it into a bigger television. YouTube’s own guidance directs commercial establishments toward EverPass.
The founding leadership came from the established sports media business. Derek Chang was named executive chairman and Alex Kaplan CEO. Kaplan’s career included Discovery, the NBA and DIRECTV. Chief marketing officer Bryan Icenhower brought experience across brands, agencies and entertainment companies, including a marketing business he founded that was acquired by Endeavor.
The next decisive move came in July 2024, when EverPass acquired UPshow. Founded in 2015 by Adam Hirsen and Matt Gibbs, UPshow supplied entertainment and marketing technology for business screens. It reported more than 30,000 screens at the time of the acquisition. That was an installed screen footprint, rather than a count of EverPass subscribers.
The purchase brought the infrastructure to stream Sunday Ticket in commercial venues for the 2024 season, plus scheduling, engagement and advertising capabilities. EverPass could now pair access to a desirable game with more of the machinery needed to show it. Its customer login still points into the UPshow domain, a small digital trace of the acquisition.
The game gets you in. The software stays.
EverPass Core is the foundation of the streaming offering. Operators can control devices and arrange programming before a shift begins. A manager running several locations can approach television as a schedule to administer, instead of leaving every screen assignment to whoever happens to be holding a remote.
Selected sports from Prime Video, Paramount+ and Apple TV sit within Core’s included programming, subject to eligibility and changing content terms. NFL Sunday Ticket, Peacock Sports Pass and ESPN+ for Business are separately subscribed premium packages. A single interface can organize several products without turning them into one all-inclusive subscription.
One control layer. Several buying decisions.
EverPass Engage adds another job for the television: selling what the venue already has. A restaurant can display an offer, invite customers to scan a QR code or promote an upcoming event. Templates and Canva integration help create material; campaign reporting helps operators see whether people interact with it.
One small feature shows how the inherited software has adapted. EverPass’s Direct Share tool lets staff and guests upload photographs through a QR code for display on venue screens. Its help page explains that Twitter and Instagram social posting is no longer supported. Removing the requirement to publish on a social network gives customers a more direct way to contribute to what the room sees.
The opportunity is easy to understand at Miller’s Ale House. In June 2026, the chain expanded its EverPass agreement to add Sunday Ticket and ESPN+ for Business across its restaurants. It already used Core, Engage and Peacock Sports Pass. The expanded arrangement paired more games with centralized scheduling and promotional content.
“Every screen in our restaurants represents an opportunity to enhance the guest experience.”
Joel Chick · CEO, Miller’s Ale House
Miller’s described using screens between games for offers and marketing enrollment. That makes the television part of the restaurant’s daily routine. It also gives EverPass a relationship that can extend beyond a football season. The commercial test is whether a venue can connect that attention to worthwhile purchases or repeat visits.
The bill travels beyond the subscription
EverPass operates a business-to-business model: platform subscriptions, optional marketing tools and premium content packages, sold directly and through distribution partners. Sunday Ticket and Peacock pricing depends on business classification and fire code occupancy. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees can sit outside the subscription charge.
The capital behind the company is more concrete than the typical sales quote. TKO’s filings disclose a $15 million investment for approximately 5 percent in July 2024, followed by a $2 million capital contribution that September. In 2025, TKO invested another $13 million for an additional approximately 2.36 percent stake.
One investor’s disclosed contributions across 2024-2025. Not total company funding.
For venue owners, the harder number can be the conversion bill. In June 2026 congressional testimony, Jim Hallers, founder and managing partner of Tailgators Pub & Grill and Citizens Grill, estimated that a full technology upgrade involving equipment, wiring and labor would cost $30,000 to $40,000 per restaurant.
Hallers was describing the demands of his own business, including many screens and simultaneous games. His estimate was not an EverPass subscription price or a universal installation cost. It nevertheless exposes the gap between buying access to a stream and rebuilding a room so it can reliably show several of them.
The comparison with competitors therefore needs care. DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS offers a route for commercial television, installation and support, while also distributing EverPass content. Spectrum is another partner. EverPass occupies the space between rights holders, distributors and venue operations, with some companies acting as both alternatives and collaborators.
Spectrum customers have another practical route: the EverPass app on Xumo Stream Box for Business, with integrated billing. That arrangement puts the product alongside an existing business service. For a manager comparing options, the question becomes who handles the account and equipment, as well as which company supplies the sports rights. Distribution relationships affect the purchasing experience even when the game on screen is identical.
The satellite dish gets another season
That overlap became especially visible in 2026. Earlier in the year, EverPass publicly emphasized its exclusive commercial position and said there were no active negotiations that would change the outcome. On July 31, it announced a multiyear DIRECTV agreement providing Sunday Ticket through both satellite and streaming.
The result gave operators more choice about how to receive the games. It also made existing infrastructure relevant to the sales decision again. Calling streaming the future does not erase the equipment a restaurant has already bought, or the staff habits built around it.
EverPass’s subsequent help guidance made the switch concrete: eligible customers who first subscribed through EverPass on or after April 1, 2026 could cancel their 2026 Sunday Ticket subscription and receive a refund of payments toward it. Moving to DIRECTV required a separate agreement; an existing subscription could not simply be transferred.
The product was changing too. In July, EverPass announced a connected TV app for selected Fire TV, LG webOS and Android TV devices, alongside improved integration with existing audiovisual control systems. It also described synchronization improvements intended to keep streams more closely aligned across televisions.
“These innovations are a direct response to what our customers have asked for,” Icenhower said. That is a useful explanation of the engineering priorities. A roomful of sports viewers notices timing, audio and reliability long before it notices a software feature list.
to EverPass
EverPass’s planning rule: 10 Mbps per concurrent device. Add capacity for payments, cameras, guest Wi-Fi and other systems.
DAZN buys a route into the room
The proposed DAZN deal extends this combination of content and operations. Kaplan is set to continue leading the business and take a wider DAZN role. RedBird, 32 Equity and TKO would become minority shareholders in DAZN. EverPass’s September 1 announcement said closing remained subject to required regulatory approvals.
Meanwhile, the programming kept expanding. That September announcement added Netflix’s five NFL games for the 2026 season and NFL Honors under a multiyear commercial agreement. For a venue, more events mean more dates worth planning around, but also more reason to check exactly which package carries which game.
The lesson a reader can copy is operational. Start with the games customers actually request. Match those games to commercial packages, then map devices, screens, audio and network capacity. Budget for the complete installation. Test the setup when the venue is busy, and make sure staff know which audio input belongs to the featured game.
EverPass’s guide recommends 10 Mbps for each concurrently streaming device and prioritizes payment systems ahead of streaming, with guest Wi-Fi behind both. A weak connection, incompatible equipment or insufficient staff preparation can defeat a tidy dashboard. Sunday Ticket also excludes local and national broadcasts, so it cannot alone satisfy a promise to show every NFL game.
For a business that can fill seats around specific sports and use its screens throughout the week, the combination has a clear purpose. For one without that audience, more programming is simply another expense. EverPass’s next chapter will be judged in rooms where the score matters, the beer has a margin, and someone still has to get the right game on.
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