For the last decade, the cable bundle has been unwinding as every network and major studio has launched its own streaming service to host its various popular (and unpopular) shows and movies.
The problem with this, of course, is at some point it became more expensive to have all of the different streaming services than to just have cable. That’s because networks have learned it’s expensive to host a streaming service, so prices to have them keep rising, and most of them are losing money because they didn’t want to just leave it to the established services to buy rights to popular content. The result is these companies are starting to look to re-bundle themselves together, just not specifically via cable services. We’ve already seen ESPN+, Disney+, and Hulu tie themselves together in a bundle option, and now a sports-specific bundle is soon to be on the way from three of the largest sports-rights holding networks.
Fox, ESPN, and Warner Bros. Discovery (which owns TNT) will launch a combined sports streaming venture that will include all of their various sports offerings under one roof. This will be available to those with an ESPN+, Hulu, or Max subscription and will launch later this year, with the name and pricing still to come.
This would be a particularly big deal for college sports fans, as Fox and ESPN control most of the broadcasting and streaming rights in college football and basketball (with ESPN holding rights in most every other sport too), while Warner broadcasts the NCAA Tournament in conjunction with CBS. The college sports aspect figures to be one of the main selling points of this new deal — with a few exceptions for NBC/Peacock and CBS/Paramount — and the service providing access to all games on their main networks as well as the ones already left for streaming only will be big.
It also will be a big deal for MLB, NBA, and NHL fans, as ESPN and Warner split the national broadcast rights for basketball and hockey (for now, pending the new NBA broadcast deal) and Fox and ESPN have most of MLB’s national rights. The creation of this new network might also be part of their negotiations with the NBA, which has wanted to take a look into streaming options for some time.
“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, said Disney CEO Bob Iger, in a statement, via Variety. “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.”
“We believe the service will provide passionate fans outside of the traditional bundle an array of amazing sports content all in one place,” said Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp., in a statement.
What games and sports will be available solely to subscribers remains to be seen and will likely determine how successful this venture is. That said, considering how difficult networks have found it to profit off of sports on streaming, combining forces to share a service and provide more options to fans makes a lot of sense, even if this is really just “new cable for sports.”
