The Hollywood Elite are collaborating to create a massive streaming service dedicated to broadcasting sports.
The three media giants are slated to launch the new service in the fall. Subscribers would get access to linear sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN+, as well as hundreds of hours from the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL and many top college divisions.
Call me when I can watch the Rangers on it from within New York City.
This is heading in the right direction in that there will be fewer separate services for the audience to deal with. But they still haven’t solved all the problems of blackouts, pricing, etc.
Also, even if this is a hit, they won’t be able to ever rival the money they were making with cable television. All those people who paid for cable, but never watched sports, were subsidizing it for everyone else. Without those subsidies, it just can’t work any any price most people are willing and able to pay. Broadcasting live sporting events is an expensive endeavor.
You can now. The Texas Rangers 
A couple of updates.
The joint venture now has a name: Venu Sports
The service will cost $42.99 a month.
…I’d rather just buy an old-ass TV with rabbit ears.
Wow, that price is absolute insanity.
You think so? I think it’s quite reasonable, if they can truly offer what they are claiming. Access to all the nationally televised sporting events? The cheapest cable television package we can get is $85/month. YouTube TV is $60+/month.
If you only want live television for sports, here you go. All the sports, and just the sports, cheaper than the other legal alternatives.
What this really tells you is that if you pay $85 for cable. Half of that was just for sports. People not watching sports are getting hosed. This whole model only works because people are subsidizing each other by paying for things they don’t watch. That’s why the streaming services keep combining, bundling, and raising prices.
It’s good, but it’s not good.
Good that they’re not letting some monopoly happen.
Bad because this is actually what consumers want, and is best for consumers. An inexpensive way to pay for all the live sports, and nothing else.
Disney has settled the Venu lawsuit by merging Hulu + Live TV with Fubo.
Venu is cancelled.
The NFL and ESPN have made a huge and complex deal to create a monster.
Part of this deal is that for $30/month you can subscribe to actual ESPN. For real. Streaming. No cable. I don’t know if that includes ESPN+ as well. For $36 a month you can get a bundle with ESPN and also versions of Disney+ and Hulu that have ads.
This is what I kept talking about with the subsidies of cable. With cable, every cable subscriber was forced to pay for ESPN whether they watched it or not. I heard that the price ESPN charged cable providers was anywhere from $5–$10 per household. If people are going to pay for just ESPN on its own, without being subsidized by non-viewers, the price is now at least triple.
This is the monkey’s paw situation. We hated cable TV since we had to pay so much for all this crap we didn’t want. We asked for a-la-carte. Ok, now thanks to streaming, the a-la-carte is here. we can pay for the channels we want, and not pay for the ones we don’t want. But because we aren’t all subsidizing each other, we are going to end up paying close to the same amount. The only people that really benefit at the people that watch only one thing. As soon as you watch 2–3 or more services, you are basically back into cable television pricing territory.
And that is to say nothing of the anti-trust situation or any other kind of impact this will have.
One thing to keep an eye out for is DAZN (pronounced “da zone”). Outside the US they are a sports streaming giant.