Disney, Fox, WBD Dropping Venu Sports Streaming Joint Venture
January 10, 2025
Disney, Fox Corp., and Warner Bros. Discovery’s plan to launch a live sports streaming app joint venture is ending.
The three companies Jan. 10 announced that the Venu Sports app concept was ending before it ever had a chance to start.
“After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,” the companies said in the statement. “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. We are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period.”
First announced last February, Venu Sports was slated to shake up the sports distribution ecosystem, offering a one-stop subscription streaming service with ESPN, ABC Sports, Fox Sports, TNT Sports content, accounting for 50% of all U.S. sports media rights, and about 60% of all nationally broadcast U.S. sports rights.
The concept immediately rattled some government officials, in addition to satellite TV distributors DirecTV, Dish and online sports streaming platform FuboTV, among others.
Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit, which quickly generated teeth when a federal judge agreed to halt the planned September 2024 launch of Venu. Disney and the other studios then settled with Fubo this week, agreeing to pay Fubo $220 million, with Disney acquiring a 70% stake in Fubo and merging it with Hulu + Live TV.
While that agreement ended the litigation, Dish and DirecTV remained unsatisfied with the Venu concept, underscoring ongoing legal issues surrounding the app. Rather than risk future litigation surrounding bundling, the JV was scrapped.
Disney is continuing with plans to launch a “flagship” rebooted version of ESPN+ in August.
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