Disney, WBD, Fox pull plug on Venu Sports streaming service before launch
By Liam Reilly, CNN
New York (CNN) — Venu Sports, the joint streaming service from Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Corp., and Disney, has been discontinued before its launch, the trio announced in a surprise move Friday morning.
The decision, made collectively by WBD, Fox, and Disney, is effective immediately.
“After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,” the trio said in a joint press release. “In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels.”
The decision to terminate Venu comes four days after Disney announced its Hulu + Live TV service would merge with Fubo, ending the latter’s lawsuit that had for months hampered the fraught sports streaming venture’s launch.
While Disney’s Fubo deal appeared to pave the way for Venu’s launch, reports emerged on Thursday that satellite TV providers DirecTV and Dish had likewise asked a judge to reconsider dismissing Fubo’s case, signaling further delays in the platform’s launch. Fubo declined to comment for this story.
Legacy media companies have been working for years to transition away from relying on the traditional cable bundle and toward profitable streaming services as millions of consumers cut the cord each year, a migration prompted by the rapid rise of Netflix.
WBD (CNN’s parent company), Fox, and Disney first revealed plans to launch Venu Sports last February, saying at the time that the super-streamer would launch in fall 2024. The companies initially marketed the platform as a single destination for sports fans to find a wide array of content in an otherwise kaleidoscopic market that has increasingly carved up sports franchises across an array of cable and streaming platforms.
Venu Sports would have housed the trio’s respective sports portfolios in a single platform — including NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, FIFA World Cup games, NASCAR races, UFC matches, and PGA TOUR golf tournaments.
In August, Fubo filed a lawsuit blocking the platform’s launch, alleging at the time that WBD, Fox, and Disney were using their sports media rights to slip by the competition in a single anticompetitive bundle. To settle the lawsuit, Disney, Fox and WBD said Monday they would pay Fubo $220 million, and Disney would provide a $145 million loan to Fubo through 2026.
While Venu’s launch looked increasingly unlikely in recent months, Disney has touted its yet-to-launch flagship ESPN streaming platform as a viable recourse. But Disney’s deal with Fubo on Monday gave the appearance that the Magic Kingdom was hedging its bets on its ESPN platform. Venu’s dissolution will now likely see Disney double down on its ESPN streamer, which is set to launch later this year.
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