New Sports Venture May Change the TV Landscape

The new sports streaming joint venture from Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney's ESPN doesn't have a name, CEO, or firm launch date yet—but it does have a lot of people talking about it. The streaming service will include the ESPN+ service plus 14 channels from the three media companies that show sports, including games from all major American leagues. The companies say it will be made available directly to consumers through an app this fall.

• Major leagues 'blindsided.' The Wall Street Journal reports that while the new venture could change how many people watch sports, leagues including the NFL and the NBA were "blindsided" by the announcement. Sources tell the Journal that the leagues weren't told about the plans in advance because the companies wanted to avoid leaks while negotiations were underway. An NBA spokesperson says that while they're still learning about details of the venture, the league is "encouraged by the opportunity to make premier sports content more accessible to fans who are not subscribers to the traditional cable or satellite bundle."

• Armageddon for the middlemen? Sean Beckwith at Deadline has monopoly concerns, and says the deal will "destroy" all middlemen, even those at the media companies involved. "It's honestly shocking how willingly the American consumer feeds into monopolies, and don't be fooled, this is a monopoly," he writes. "The many middlemen who popped up like daisies—Fubo, Sling, Hulu, YouTubeTV—to try to capitalize on cord-cutters' lust for live sports might as well start crunching the numbers to see who gets the ax in the first round of layoffs."
• It could be a 'monster.' Or not. Sources close to the deal predict that it will be a "monster" that could massively disrupt the cable industry, but it's not clear how big an audience it will have, Alex Irwin writes at CNBC. Insiders predict the package will cost somewhere around $40 a month. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch says the service is aimed at people who have never had cable, "but it's a leap of faith to assume a lot of these people want to spend $40 or so each month for live sports," Irwin writes.

• A sign cable is collapsing? Kevin Draper at the New York Times sees the agreement as a sign "the cable bundle is collapsing" and companies are looking for a path forward. He notes that the number of US households with cable has fallen from 100 million to 70 million over the last decade. "Media companies know that young adults no longer sign up for cable, and that their best customers are also their oldest," he writes. "They know people no longer think of 'television,' but are instead used to 'content' that can be watched on a television, a phone or some other device."
• Not a 'one stop-shop.' The new service won't be "one-stop shopping" for sports fans, who can already watch almost everything it offers for around $70 a month on YouTube TV, writes Andrew Marchand at the Athletic. "The reason these entities don't have anything complete here just yet is the exclusion of other major players—like CBS, for example," which has the Super Bowl this year and some March Madness games, he writes. Marchand says that while the joint venture won't solve all people's sports viewing problems right now, it "could lead to something even bigger" if the three companies work together successfully.

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