ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery to launch joint sports streaming platform

Feb 06, 2024 in "ESPN"

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ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming Sports Service

Posted: Tuesday February 6, 2024 5:30pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery are forming a joint venture to create a new streaming sports service for a US launch in fall 2024.

This platform will combine their sports networks, direct-to-consumer sports services, and rights, featuring content from major professional and college sports leagues.

ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming Sports Service

The service is still under negotiation and will be accessible via a new app, and can be bundled with Disney+, Hulu, and Max. It aims to offer a comprehensive range of sports content, targeting fans outside the traditional pay TV bundle. The service will include channels like ESPN, FOX Sports, and Warner Bros. Discovery's sports networks.

Each company will own an equal third of the venture, contributing sports content on a non-exclusive basis. The service will have a distinct brand and be overseen by an independent management team.

Bob Iger, Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company said, "The launch of this new streaming sports service is a significant moment for Disney and ESPN, a major win for sports fans, and an important step forward for the media business. This means the full suite of ESPN channels will be available to consumers alongside the sports programming of other industry leaders as part of a differentiated sports-centric service. I'm grateful to Jimmy Pitaro and the team at ESPN, who are at the forefront of innovating on behalf of consumers to create new offerings with more choice and greater value."

Lachlan Murdoch, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer of FOX said, "We're pumped to bring the FOX Sports portfolio to this new and exciting platform. We believe the service will provide passionate fans outside of the traditional bundle an array of amazing sports content all in one place."

David Zaslav, Chief Executive Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, said, "At WBD, our ambition is always to connect our leading content and brands with as many viewers as possible, and this exciting joint venture and the unparalleled combination of marquee sports rights and access to the greatest sporting events in the world allows us to do just that. This new sports service exemplifies our ability as an industry to drive innovation and provide consumers with more choice, enjoyment, and value, and we're thrilled to deliver it to sports fans."

Further details, including pricing, are yet to be announced.

The new service will stream thousands of high-profile sporting events including:

Pro Football

NFL | UFL

Basketball

NBA | WNBA

Baseball

MLB
Hockey
NHL

College sports

Thousands of games and events, multiple sports, across nearly two dozen conferences, including:

ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, SEC | 40 NCAA Championship Events | NCAA Men’s & Women’s Basketball Tournaments | The College Football Playoff

Golf

PGA Tour | PGA Championship | The Masters | TGL

Grand Slam Tennis

Wimbledon | US Open | Australian Open

Cycling

Giro d'Italia | UCI Mountain Bike World Cup | Giro Donne

Soccer

FIFA World Cup | U.S. Soccer
NWSL | MLS | LA LIGA | Bundesliga | UEFA | CONCACAF

Combat sports

UFC | Top Rank

Auto

Formula 1 | NASCAR | 24 Hours of Le Mans

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MisterPenguinAug 28, 2024

https://deadline.com/2024/08/fubo-lawsuit-disney-fox-warner-bros-discovery-venu-sports-streaming-1236050741/

BrianLoAug 17, 2024

https://deadline.com/2024/08/fubo-judge-ruling-lawsuit-disney-fox-warner-bros-discovery-venu-sports-bundle-1236042525/ I’m surprised no one has really commented on this ruling yet… the stock price didn’t even react.

MisterPenguinAug 08, 2024

https://deadline.com/2024/08/disney-fox-wbd-sports-streaming-fubo-ceo-david-gandler-antitrust-1236033237/

Dead2009Aug 06, 2024

I would imagine it carries whatever your Fox channel is carrying (local team and then the game after if there is one)

MisterPenguinAug 06, 2024

https://deadline.com/2024/08/disney-fox-fubo-warner-bros-discovery-antitrust-lawsuit-1236032379/

doctornickAug 02, 2024

ESPN still has the majority of national NBA games so it's not that bad. Warner Bros Discovery still has a decent bit of sports programming though - MLB, NHL, part of March Madness, a sliver of the college football playoffs, some other college sports (Big East hoops in the future, MWC and ACC football), the US National team games for soccer. They are the weakest link of the three but they definitely add value to the overall package.

Andrew CAug 02, 2024

They lost their package to NBCUniversal (and somewhat to Amazon), who is not a part of Venu, right? WB is suing apparently.

Big_ShakalakaAug 02, 2024

With Warner Bros. Discovery loosing their rights to the NBA, I wonder how this effects the attractiveness of Venu. I'd imagine that was a big anchor point of this deal.

doctornickAug 02, 2024

So when you think about it, sports broadcasts are carried via the following ways in the US: 1. Over the Air Networks (i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW) 2. Paid national cable channels (e.g. ESPN, FS1, TNT, etc) 3. Paid regional sports networks (e.g. NBC Sports Networks, Bally Sports, Spectrum Sports, etc) 4. Exclusively on streaming (e.g Prime, Peacock, Apple, etc have exclusive content) Historically, a person getting cable/satellite could use it to get the first 3 all in one place and #4 didn't exist. What this service does is basically replace #2 and it does so pretty effectively - ESPN and FS1 are the main players of cable sports (including college conference affiliated networks). #1 can be acquired with an antennae for most folks. IMHO this works for people who watch most bigger national broadcasts for sports as opposed to local teams. #4 is where the fracturing occurs and it has gotten work as Apple, Prime and now Netflix have dipped into the stream exclusive place. Among legacy media, I feel like Peacock has been the most aggressive for putting sports only on streaming (Paramount+ and MAX do this a bit but not to the same degree). This is probably the area where sports fans will miss out the most since it would take a sports bundle of basically everyone to get all of this content - this is where the biggest shift has occurred from the halcyon days of "cable gets you everything". #3 is the area of growth IMHO. This is also where streaming based cable substitutes - YouTubeTV, Sling, Hule Live TV, etc - have their big pull because you can often get your local NBC Sports provider or Bally, etc with them. If you want to follow your local MLB, NBA or NHL team and that's your prime sports interest then an offering like Venu might not be as valuable. Ironically, of course, the Bally suite of channels was previously owned by FOX and briefly by Disney who had to divest them. It would be interesting to see if there is a way to incorporate such networks into a service like Venu because that is where I think you'd get a big jump in interest. Maybe it could be some sort of "add on" and different tier?

doctornickAug 02, 2024

Well, except for News and Sports, which is why they are part of this venture but are the only major network without their own paid streaming service (since they largely bailed from general entertainment)

MisterPenguinAug 02, 2024

Well, I have no 'inside baseball' on the success of the JV. I'm just parroting the marketing. I presume they did the market research to know if they have enough potential customers at this price point to be successful. Or not... after all, WBD is involved. And then there was the NBA venture at DS.... And Fox sold all their content generation to Disney... and are trying to rebuild content creation from scratch... ;)

doctornickAug 02, 2024

So how would this work for NFL games on FOX? Since they are regionalized, would you be geolocked into whatever game your local FOX affiliate carries or would it include the potential for any game FOX is carrying anywhere? I assume not since that would seem to undermine Sunday Ticket.

LSLSAug 02, 2024

That's my point though, I don't know people who are big enough into the 4 major sports that they will watch all of them (especially games without their teams). If you are a diehard basketball fan and watch even the games that aren't your team, most likely you aren't the same way with baseball or hockey. Hockey fans openly revolt against the national coverage of the sport, and very few care about like basketball. I don't know, I'm old, and after I was down to just hockey, they have really chipped away my fandom with how they are operating the league and reporting anyways so maybe it will work and it's just me.

doctornickAug 02, 2024

I'll add in particular that ESPN and FOX are big players for college sports - this offering seems like you would get most of the big games in college football and basketball and pretty much the remainder would be available by getting an antennae for over the air CBS and NBC. Edit: which actually gets me wondering... does this offering include the broadcasts carried exclusively on conference specific networks? i.e. BTN (owed by FOX), SECN and ACCN (owed by Disney)?